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It would be the end of the conversation, but Declan’s eyes stay on me, and after a minute I can’t look away. He’s intoxicating. It makes me nervous as hell when he does this, but it also makes my heart pound with excitement.
He tears his eyes from me and opens the door to the back room. “Go in and get your sugar crystals.” Just like that, it’s ended.
It was a direct order, so I enter the room, my knees still trembling and my mind still getting a grip on everything that’s happened. Mia said the box would be labeled with sprinkles, so that’s what I look for. Large shelves hold many, many boxes of supplies for the bar and the restaurant. All things that can be safely stored down here. Declan’s eyes are on me the entire time. I find the box easily enough and pull it off the shelves. If he comes in here and closes the door behind us, then this is the beginning of one of the many fantasies I’ve had about him.
He doesn’t come in and every minute that passes I scold myself for thinking he would. He keeps a professional distance.
I start to think it’s all in my head.
He waits until I’m taking a step into the hall, and then his large hand wraps around my arm. The box drops to the floor as I gasp. It doesn’t open as it crashes beneath us and he pulls me closer to him. Everything blurs as his face comes into view, his eyes piercing mine.
He controls every aspect, pinning me against the wall with my hand above my head. He leans in close, the warmth of his breath on my ear. “I’m warning you, Braelynn. If this is too much for you, you should walk away, because there’s so much more than this.” My eyes close. Everything he said should terrify me, but all I want is for him to stop warning me. His heated breath tickles along the crook of my neck as he whispers there, “If you don’t want to do this, walk away.”
With his thigh between my spread legs, goosebumps erupt over my skin. Both of us are still as my hammering heart calms, his hard body pressed to mine. It’s only when he loosens his grip slightly and pulls back that I turn my head to look into his eyes, the eyes that see through me, the eyes that I can’t look away from.If you don’t want to do this, walk away.
I plant my feet and stay where I am, even when he lets go of me completely.
Declan stares back at me, waiting. One second passes. Two seconds and the world between us is set on fire.
I think he leans in first, but it could be me. Our lips crash in a devouring kiss. Almost as if he’s pissed off I came down here, and almost as if I’m pissed off that he’s frustrated he can’t keep me down here. Neither thing can be true. I want this too much.
Declan breaks the kiss so abruptly I gasp in a breath. I’m still trying to catch it when he opens his red door and disappears behind it again, leaving me alone in the hall, reeling and uncertain, with the tips of my fingers at my lips.
DECLAN
She’s touched her lips three times already tonight. As I stare at the screen, watching Braelynn gripping the end of the bar and absently staring at the lined glass bottles accentuated by the bar’s dim light, apprehension consumes me. Until those slim fingers lift up and she does it again.
Every time she stops at the bar, when time waits quietly and she’s still, her thumb brushes her lower lip as she stares at the marble bar top. If that wasn’t enough of an indication she’s thinking of me, her gaze shifts to where I stood beside her a few nights ago. Throughout the evening, every time she’s stopped moving, I’m almost certain she’s thought of me. She wants this, maybe as much as I do.
There are a million reasons I shouldn’t have kissed her. Zero reasons I should have. Except for the fact that I wanted to.
My blood chills as I lean back in the chair and she leaves the bar, the tray filled with martini glasses. If she’s undercover, if she’s working for the feds, or even just an informant … what I’m about to do could not only destroy me, but also my brothers. Thoughts of my nieces and nephews I’ve barely seen flicker through my mind. My entire family could go down if I don’t figure out who’s been passing the feds information.
With a grim outlook my gaze turns from the screen, just in time for an email to come through. It’s from a throwaway address.
There’s nothing that says she should be the one who’s undercover.
The single subjectline doesn’t hold any text in the body of the email. But there is an attachment. I filter through the background check and other documents he discovered, most of which I’ve come to learn this past week.
There’s nothing that hints at her being involved, but she is friends with Scarlet. Given that her father passed and Scarlet was there for her, they’re closer than I first anticipated.
The knock at my door precedes it opening and I don’t have to look to know it’s my brother.
“You might want to get in on this,” he says. Jase’s tone is somber and it captures my attention. He nods slightly when my questioning gaze meets his.
“Scarlet is only one of them.”
Pushing the chair back from my desk, I stand up, buttoning my suit jacket as if it has any place in what’s about to happen. My pace is swift and Jase follows behind me as I stride out of my office. The door closes and I lock it before heading down the hall. All the while my body slowly numbs.
She’s only one of them. There are more for certain.
Swallowing thickly, I ready myself. This isn’t the first time or even the hundredth I’ve done this and yet each time, there’s a heaviness that weighs down every step.
My heart seems to slow, as does time.
“What else did he say?” I question just beneath my breath as my brother leads me to the back room.
The music from upstairs is loud tonight, and that’s by design. The door opens with an eerie groan and I’m quick to close it and lock it behind me before I follow Jase around to the back where a shelf is moved aside. A hidden door leading to a soundproof chamber opens with a gentle push on a disguised lock.
