The vent above us cycled and went quiet again.
“That’s not a useful answer, Mr.Graves.”
“It is the answer.” He said it without looking at me, which was probably for the best because I couldn’t stop watching him.
I tried not to enjoy it. I failed.
“Ms.Cordero.” The way he said my name made me immediately want to deny whatever he had noticed.
“Yes?”
“You have been counting doors.”
I had been. Forty-seven so far. I had also been counting cameras, light fixtures, sightlines, vent grates, and the steel seams in the walls that I was fairly sure were structural reinforcement that didn’t appear in the architectural filings.
“It’s a habit.”
“A translator habit.”
“That’s right.”
He turned his head then. Slowly. Those almost-black eyes settled on me. My heart stuttered and sent heat sinking through me, which was a dramatic and frankly unhelpful interpretation of eye contact.
“Carry on counting,” he said. Then he turned and walked.
I followed him with the coffee going cold in my hand and heat in my body that was refusing to leave.
* * *
We turned a corner on the way to the training grounds, and I tripped.
My heel caught on a lifted seam in the carpet runner, and my body made the efficient decision to find the nearest stable object before my dignity could submit an alternative plan.
The nearest stable object was Dominic Graves’s forearm.
My hand landed six inches above his wrist. His coat cuff shiftedunder my palm. Bare skin met the heel of my hand.
He went rigid.
Older than offense, and sharper. Every line of him locked around the point of contact. The touch had registered as an event.
I remembered the briefing too late.
Dragons didn’t touch casually. They didn’t bump shoulders, shake hands, or brush past one another in crowded rooms. Touch meant permission, intimacy, challenge, threat. Sometimes all four, depending on who was stupid enough to initiate it.
My palm was still on his skin.
His pupils went vertical. My breath stopped. He moved. Not away. Closer.
Only half a step. Barely anything. Enough that the heat of him came up around me and the cedar scent under his coat turned suddenly overwhelming.
His gaze dropped to where my fingers rested against his forearm, and the muscle beneath my palm flexed once. Controlled. Deliberate. Like he was paying out restraint by the inch.
“Ms.Cordero,” he said. My name sounded different in his mouth at that distance. Rougher. Less professional.
My hand came off him too fast. The heat stayed in my palm. “Sorry.” The word sounded wrong in the corridor. Too small for whatever had just happened.
He looked at my hand for one more second. Then, with visible effort, at my face.
