Page 30 of Ruthless Enforcer

It's not a lie, but it’s also not the whole truth. I can hear the omission in her voice—the careful way she's offering me a reason without giving me the real one.

She's good at it. Practiced. A woman who grew up around demanding men and learned how to answer without answering.

"It’s more important than your life?" I ask.

She doesn't hesitate. "Art is my life."

There's no defiance in it, no teenage stubbornness. Just a simple fact, stated the way someone might say breathing or thinking. The work matters to her in a way that goes deeper than hobby or ambition. It's identity.

"I understand the danger," she continues, as if she knows what I’m going to say next. “I’m not being reckless."

I should press for details. For the location. For why she feels this is more important than her safety.

Oddly, I want her to tell me of her own accord—because she trusts me.

"We're going to be together for a while, Clara," I say, keeping my tone easy, conversational. "Maybe a few weeks. You understand that, right?"

Her jaw tightens. "I'm not helpless."

"I know." I sit up fully, and the sheet slides lower.

Her gaze drops, just for a second—a flicker of attention, curiosity, awareness—before she lifts her eyes back to mine.

I look down. The ridge of my erection is obvious now, a clear bulge beneath the thin cotton. "Welcome to married life, Duchess," I say, my voice dry and edged with dark humor. "This is what happens when you're standing in my bedroom wearing my clothes."

Her cheeks flush, but she doesn't look away.

"You don't need to worry about it," I continue. "We're not having sex."

Her brow arches. "What if I want to?"

The question lands right at my groin.

I stare at her. She stares back, cool and direct, her green eyes steady and entirely serious.

Fuck. I shake my head. "Clara⁠—"

"I'm twenty-four years old, Gabriel. I'm not a child. And I'm not asking you to make decisions for me."

"You're a virgin," I say flatly.

She doesn't flinch. "Yes."

I knew it. I'd guessed it at the museum when she responded to my touch like a woman who'd never been handled before—hungry and uncertain and too honest to hide it. But hearing her confirm it, standing in my bedroom in muted daylight while I'm hard and half-naked and about to do something phenomenally stupid, makes it real.

I want her.

I've wanted her since she walked into that museum and looked at me like I was a Christmas present she wanted to unwrap.

She’s just a couple steps away. If I reach out, I can tug her on top of me and slide my hands under my sweatshirt and find out if her skin is as soft as I imagine it is. If she tastes as good as she smells. If that impossible Whitlock composure will crack when I kiss her.

I want to wreck that calm. I want her breathless and wild and looking at me like there isn’t another man on the fucking planet.

Only I can’t.

If she’s waited this long, sex is sacred to her. Fuck—her virginity is sacred to me. The thought of her giving herself to me? Choosing me to be the first man she trusts that completely? Fuck. There’s nothing casual about the way I want that.

And that’s exactly why I can’t have it—especially during a fake marriage.