Damon pushes the plate calmly toward me. “Try me.” The challenge in his voice sends another dangerous wave of heat coursing through me.
I stare at him for one long second before finally letting out an exaggerated sigh and picking up the sandwich. “This feels manipulative.”
“It is.”
I snort softly, despite myself, prior to taking a bite, finding it to be really good. “You going to be this bossy about everything?”
“Probably.” He smirks, borrowing my steadfast, bratty answer. Damon leans one hip lightly against the counter across from me, his arms folding over his chest while he watches me eat with infuriating patience. “You going to be this difficult about everything?”
“Probably.” I sass, taking another bite, as his lips curl into a smile.
We talk while I eat, and by the time I finish the sandwich, my stomach feels pleasantly full, instead of hollow and anxious like it did earlier.
Damon takes the plate from me without asking.
“You know,” I start softly from my spot at the island, “you are a very confusing man.”
Damon glances back over his shoulder from the sink. “How so?”
I gesture vaguely toward him. “One minute, you’re lecturing me about eating properly like some overprotective health coach, and the next you’re threatening to leave handprints on my ass over a sandwich.”
A low chuckle rumbles out of him when he turns the faucet off. “And yet you still finished your lunch.”
Heat creeps into my cheeks immediately, hating him being right. “That’s not the point.”
His mouth twitches slightly as he dries his hands on a dish towel. “Seems like it worked pretty well to me, trouble.”
Damon folds the towel and places it on the counter before turning toward me, the soft playful edge of his expression transitioning into a darker, hungrier one.
My pulse starts racing as he crosses the kitchen in a few measured steps until I’m trapped between him and the wall beside the pantry. He presses his body against mine and plants his hands on the wall, caging me in, and every breath leaves my lungs at once. His beard drags along my jaw, and he murmurs, “So impatient earlier.”
“You noticed that?”
A low rumble in his chest absolutely does not help my situation. His fingers dust over my shoulder and wrap lightly around my throat just beneath my jaw. “Haven’t you realized? I noticeeverythingabout you.”
He tightens his grip, holding me in place as his lips feather over mine, and my heart thumps so hard it physically hurts.When he finally kisses me, it’s deep, slow, and devastating. It steals every coherent thought directly from my brain.
His free hand runs along the length of my body as his lips move against mine with controlled intensity that leaves my knees weak. I melt into him shamelessly, moans spilling out of my mouth and into his. As the kiss turns hungrier and more consuming, my hands clutch desperately at his shirt while his fingers run along the waistband of my jeans. I make a soft sound against his mouth that earns a feral growl from him.
When he finally pulls back, both of us are breathless. My lips feel swollen, and I don’t know whether I’m capable of a full thought. Damon’s lips run over my jaw and down the length of my neck before traveling to my ear. “Daddy rewards good girls who listen,” he whispers. “And you’ve got a whole day to show me what a good girl you can be.”
The mansion settles into an unfamiliar kind of quiet after the ambassador leaves. It’s not silent, because there’s always movement somewhere, but without his constant meetings and staff traffic in every hallway, the embassy starts feeling strangely domestic.
It’s dangerous, uncharted territory, especially with Mackenzi wandering through each room, practically daring me to finish what we started.
I’m halfway through reviewing updated perimeter reports in the command center when Gunnar glances at one of the surveillance monitors and snorts softly. “She’s stealing your clothes now.”
My eyes lift to the monitor to find her curled up on one of the couches in the sitting room, wearing my Aegis hoodie and fuzzy socks with a thick textbook spread across her lap. Her hands are barely visible, because my sleeves drown them completely.
I like her in my clothes… nearly as much as I like her without any at all.
“That’s not stealing,” I correct. “I left it in there earlier. She probably just got cold.”
Gunnar doesn’t pull his eyes from the screens to look at me. “Mmhmm.”
I ignore him and force my attention toward the reports in front of me—more correctly, Iattemptto force my attention—because every thirty seconds my attention drifts back toward the monitor.
Mackenzi chews lightly on the edge of a pen while reading, her brow furrowed in concentration. Every few minutes, she reaches absentmindedly for the mug beside her without looking away from the book.
