Her whole body goes rigid.
Every muscle. All at once. Like I've pressed a live wire to her spine.
Mine does the same thing.
I drop my hand. "Left leads out. Right leads into your father's men."
She goes left without a word.
I follow her and tell myself I'm not watching the way she moves.
I'm watching the way she moves.
The armored caris waiting at the tunnel exit. I get her in through the rear door and climb in behind her, and we're moving before she's fully upright.
She rounds on me immediately. Eyes blazing. Cheeks flushed. Furious and breathing hard with her chin up like she's already deciding how to win this.
I'm in trouble.
"Where are you taking me?"
"Somewhere safe."
"That's not?—"
"It's what you're getting." I hold her gaze. "Sit down."
"You don't get to tell me to?—"
The car takes a hard left. She pitches sideways, and I catch her — both hands on her arms, her body suddenly against mine. For one suspended second, we're close enough to feel the warmth radiating off her skin, to smell her beneath the antiseptic and the adrenaline. Something clean and precise, like soap. Something beneath it that's justher.
Her hands land flat on my chest.
She realizes it at the same second I do.
She shoves back like contact with me is a burn. Puts herself against the opposite door. Stares at me like I arranged the swerve on purpose just to get my hands on her.
I'd consider it.
"Don't." Her voice has dropped an octave. Throatier than before.
That's what gets me. The throat. The way her voice changes when she's fighting something she doesn't want to feel.
"You were falling."
"I was fine."
"You were falling." I lean back against my seat, give her the space, and watch her try to reconstruct her composure. She's good at it. The flush creeping up her throat is the only tell. "I caught you. That's all that happened."
"Nothing happened."
"Agreed."
She narrows her eyes like she doesn't believe me.
Smart. She shouldn't.
Because what happened was her body against mine for three seconds, my hands on her arms, and the way she smelled. I'm still cataloging all three in vivid, inconvenient detail. Where her palms pressed flat. How they'd feel lower. How she'd look if she stopped fighting and let herself want what her body was already asking for.
