I pull her in and do what I've been planning for weeks. I kiss her.
Her mouth opens under mine and the taste of her hits me low in the gut. Coffee and clean skin and warmth, I'm hard before I finish the first breath. I planned this. Every second of it. The angle of the lens, the length of Gage's absence, the exact position of the pillar and the number of steps it took to get her here.
What I didn't plan for was that she would kiss me back.
Her hand comes up and grips the front of my shirt. She pulls me toward her. Her body presses flush against mine and my cock throbs against her stomach, she doesn't pull away from that either. Her lips part and she makes a sound—quiet, barely there, caught at the back of her throat—my fingers tighten on her neck. A fraction too hard.
My grip tightens and her body holds where it is, warm and pressed against me. No alarm in her anywhere. No part of her brain telling her to pull free from a man who has killed eighteen people.
She kisses me back without hesitation.
I should let go. Step back.
But I kiss her harder. My tongue finds hers. She opens for me and I swallow the noise she makes, my hand tightening on the back of her neck, tilting her head where I want it. I'm so hard it aches, three years of nothing and now this, now her, and I want to press her against this pillar and slide my hands under her shirt and feel her skin against my palms. I want to drop to my knees and taste her. I want to hear what she sounds like when she comes.
I can't. Gage is seconds from the door. The camera is mid-sweep. Nine seconds was all I had and I've spent every one of them with my mouth on hers and my cock pressed against her body, the plan burning down around me.
Her hand slides up my chest. Her fingers curl against the side of my neck and for one breath I'm not thinking. Just her mouth on mine and the fact that I don't want to stop. That's the part I don't know what to do with.
I pull back. Her lips are swollen and her eyes are half-closed and her fingers are still curled in the collar of my shirt. My handis still on the back of her neck. Her pulse is racing now—I can feel it hammering against my thumb. So is mine.
I make myself step back before she looks down and sees what she already felt.
Her eyes open. She looks at me and I wait for the aftermath—the guilt, the recoil, the professional composure snapping back into place.
"Don't apologize," she says.
"I wasn't planning to."
Her mouth curves. Slow, and meant only for me. She releases my shirt and steps back. My hand slides free and the heat of her skin stays on my palm. She picks up her notebook from the table, tucks the pen behind her ear, and straightens her collar.
The camera begins its return sweep.
Gage stands in the doorframe.
I don't know how long he's been there, but the look on his face tells me he didn't just catch the end of it. He watched me kiss her and he didn't stop it. His hands hang at his sides, his weight sits square on both feet, and his teeth are locked so hard I can see the muscle jumping from across the room. He's not looking at Hope. He's looking at me.
She hasn't turned around yet, unaware that the man in the doorframe saw all of it and is deciding what to do about it.
Gage and I hold eye contact over her head.
He saw all of it. My hand on her neck, her body pressed against mine, and every second he chose not to reach for his radio. What I see on his face isn't anger. It's worse. He's not furious that I kissed her. He's furious that it wasn't him.
I hold his gaze. I see you. You see me. We both know what just happened and neither of us is going to say it out loud.
He steps back from the doorframe and lets Hope pass.
"Thank you, Gage." She doesn't look back. Her footsteps are steady down the corridor, unhurried, the same pace she always keeps.
He watches her go. Then he turns back to me. His hand finds the edge of the door.
"Session's over," he says.
He pulls the door shut. The lock engages. Through the reinforced panel I can hear his boots behind her. Close enough to reach her. Far enough to pretend it's professional.
The room is quiet. The camera completes its sweep and starts again, left to right, faithful and useless. The bookcase against the far wall throws a shadow into the corner the lens can't reach. Smaller dead zone than the pillar, but enough for two people standing close. I'll remember that.
Gage will sit with what he saw tonight. He won't report it. Putting it on paper means answering why he didn't stop it, and that answer is something he can't look at too closely yet.
