“Lorenzo.”
His forehead drops to mine. Brow to brow, the contact lands like the sear of a hot iron. Everything goes quiet. The processors humming. The data streaming. The eight-day countdown. Gone. There’s just the press of his skin against mine and his breathing,ragged and unsteady, alarming for a man who usually controls everything.
The grip on my throat is shaking. Fine tremors beating against my pulse. Running through his wrist where it rests against my collarbone. Lorenzo Santoro doesn’t shake. I’ve watched him clean a gun, set up a whole office for me, pour whiskey without spilling a drop. He’s shaking now.
“I—”
Nothing else comes. My voice has disappeared.
He doesn’t speak. His forehead stays pressed to mine, his thumb shifting to find the groove where my blood moves fastest. Counting beats. Or just holding on.
I’m pressed flat against his chest. His heart hammering against my cheek. Too fast. Too hard for a man this steady.
He grips my hip. Not gently. Pressure that would leave marks if he held long enough. He walks me backward. One step. Two. Three. The edge of the desk hits my lower back and I gasp. Not from pain. From the sudden full-body contact of him pressing me against it. Chest to chest. His hips pinning mine to the wood. His thigh between mine.
He’s hard against my stomach.
The sound that leaves me is nothing I planned. Just a broken exhale my body makes for me.
His forehead still on mine. Eyes open. Watching me from an inch away. The gold ring in his dark irises. The scar through his eyebrow. The place where his lip is bitten white.
My hips move. A reflex. Grinding forward against the hard length of him through layers of fabric, and he bears down until the pressure is individual. Distinct. His breathing changes. Shorter. Rougher. Through his teeth.
“Lorenzo.”
His hips pin mine to the desk. Pressure right where I need it, and my head drops back because I can’t hold it up and processthis at the same time. His forehead slides to my temple. His mouth by my ear. Not speaking. Each exhale landing on my neck and running down the full length of my body.
I clench his shirt. My thighs open wider without permission, making room for the friction I can’t stop chasing. I’m grinding against him and I should be embarrassed but the heat building low in my body has burned away every thought I had.
I’m climbing. He braces against the desk behind me. The wood creaks. The tremor in his grip hasn’t stopped.
I hook my ankle behind his calf and pull him closer. The angle shifts. I bite down on a sound that would have given away how close I am. My body is coiling tight. Every nerve narrowing to the single point where his body meets mine through cotton and denim.
His jaw brushes mine. Stubble catching on my skin. Almost a kiss. Not a kiss.
My hips stutter. I’m right there. One more roll of friction and I’ll come apart against him in his office and I don’t care. I don’t care.
He tears himself away. Cold air. Everywhere at once, rushing in where his body was. I pitch forward from the desk and catch myself on the edge.
He’s three feet back. Something moves across his face. Raw, exposed, gone in an instant, like a door slammed shut from the inside. Then nothing. The wall back up. Impenetrable.
His chest is heaving. Fists clenched at his sides, unclenching, clenching. He swallows hard. Nothing comes.
“This can’t happen.”
Ragged. Then he’s gone. The door closes behind him, and I’m left with the hum of processors and a pulse slamming in places he never touched.
I grip the desk because my legs won’t hold me. My body is still wound tight, still aching from the loss of him. He pinned meto his desk. Ground against me until I nearly came from friction alone. And he didn’t even kiss me.
My hand rises to my throat. The skin is hot where he held me. I press into it, chasing warmth that’s already gone.
The data scrolls across the screens. Six potential warehouses. Eight days.
I turn back to the work. But my body won’t settle.
His hands were shaking. And he still walked away.
8
