In the Dark
618 Words
The growl vibrated against my cheek like a promise and a warning rolled into one.
I should have shoved him away. Instead my hands fisted in the front of his suit jacket, holding on like the floor might drop out from under us. The emergency lights outside the glass wall painted everything blood-red, but in here it was just black and the heat of his body and the wild, electric scent of pine and storm that definitely wasn’t cologne.
“Damien,” I breathed. My voice came out wrecked. “Let. Go.”
His arm stayed locked around my waist. “They’re on the forty-third floor. Moving fast.” His lips brushed my temple when he spoke. “Breathe, Everly. I’ve got you.”
Got me. Like I was already his.
I hated how much I wanted to believe it.
I turned my face just enough to glare up at where I knew his eyes were. “You’ve had me for three years and I never even felt you watching. That’s not protection. That’s stalking with better lighting.”
A low, dark sound rumbled out of him—half laugh, half something that made my stomach clench. “Careful. My wolf likes it when you fight back.”
My wolf. The words should have sounded ridiculous in the dark. They didn’t.
His free hand came up, slow, giving me time to pull away. I didn’t. The pad of his thumb traced the line of my cheekbone like he was memorizing it. Hovering. Not quite touching. Close enough that I felt the ghost of heat.
“You’re professionally devastated right now,” he murmured. “I can hear your heart trying to punch through your ribs. But you’re still calculating exit routes and contingency plans. That’s why you’re mine.”
I laughed—sharp, shaky, nothing like my usual fixer laugh. “I am not yours.”
His thumb finally settled on my cheek, warm and certain. “You will be.”
The one-inch lean happened before I could stop it. His mouth hovered over mine, breath mingling, the bond screaming between us like a live wire. I tasted metal and want and the terrifying possibility that if he closed that last inch I might let him.
My fixer brain screamed danger. My body whispered finally.
I felt his hand tighten at my waist, fingers flexing like he was fighting the same war.
Then my phone lit up between us—screen bright in the dark, vibrating against my thigh where it had slipped into my pocket.
The same unknown number.
This time the message was longer.
They’re not human. Get to the stairwell. Now. He can’t protect you from what’s coming.
I stared at the screen. Damien read it over my shoulder without moving.
His whole body went predator-still.
“Everly,” he said, voice suddenly flat and lethal, “give me the phone.”
I clutched it tighter, pulse roaring in my ears. “Why? So you can keep lying about how long you’ve been playing god with my life?”
The emergency lights in the hallway outside flickered once—then the conference room door clicked open behind us.
Footsteps. Two sets. Quiet. Too quiet for normal security.
Damien’s gold eyes flashed in the returning light, brighter than before, pupils blown wide like an animal’s.
He didn’t let me go.
He pulled me tighter against him instead, lips brushing my ear in a growl only I could hear.
“Run with me, or run from me. Your choice.”
The footsteps stopped right outside the glass wall.
And I realized, with a sick lurch in my stomach, that I wasn’t sure which one terrified me more.
- Writer
