Emilia
Vincent explodes through my door like a fucking hurricane.
Nothing but sweatpants hanging low on his hips, hair completely wrecked, jaw locked tight. He looks like fury personified—some ancient god of wrath wearing practically nothing.
“Are you out of your goddamn mind?”
I’m still panting, half-dangling out the balcony door like the world’s most pathetic escape artist. Caught red-handed trying to flee his glass fortress of control.
“I just wanted air,” I spit back, which is obviously complete bullshit but seems like the safest lie available.
His hand clamps around my arm—not gentle, definitely not rough, just absolutely possessive—and hauls me inside. Door slams behind us hard enough to make the windows shake. His body radiates heat and muscle and barely leashed violence, and I’m trembling like I’ve been electrocuted.
Not from fear, though. Never from fear.
From want. Pure, undiluted, completely inappropriate want that makes my knees weak and my brain malfunction.
“There are motion sensors on the cliffs,” he growls, advancing on me like a predator cornering prey. “Thermal surveillance. Automated defense protocols. If you cross the wrong perimeter line, they shoot first and identify corpses later.”
Ice floods my veins. “You set me up in a fucking death trap.”
“No.” Another step closer, crowding my space until I can smell his skin—soap and sweat and something dangerously masculine that short-circuits whatever rational thought I have left. “I’m keeping you alive.”
We’re so close now it’s suffocating. I can catalog every silver thread in his dark hair, count the stress lines around his eyes, track the way his chest rises and falls with each controlled breath. The air between us crackles with electricity that could power Manhattan.
“You think this is protection?” I shove his chest with both hands, but it’s like trying to move a mountain. “This is control. This is you playing god with my existence because you can’t handle that you kissed me back.”
His hand flies up—fingers wrap around my throat, pin me against the wall. Not tight enough to restrict breathing, just… dominant. Claiming. Like he’s marking territory that was never up for debate.
Every nerve ending in my body ignites like gasoline meeting flame.
His voice drops, rough and quiet. “You think this is about the kiss?”
I can’t answer. I don’t trust my voice.
His grip eases slightly, but his eyes stay locked on mine—furious, conflicted, barely holding something in.
“This is me losing my mind when I’m around you,” he says. “And you still think I’m in control.”
Normal people would shrink away. Would remember that Vincent Black is a professional killer, my father’s best friend, someone who could destroy me without breaking a sweat.
Instead, I lift my chin, meet his stare head-on, let my breath come quick and shallow against his grip.
“Then stop pretending you don’t need this as much as I do.”
Words escape like a confession I didn’t authorize. His nostrils flare. Eyes go black as midnight. I swear on my mother’s grave he’s about to kiss me—everything in my body coils tight with anticipation, mouth already parting, pulse hammering against his fingers like a desperate SOS.
His face moves closer. So close I can feel his breath on my lips. Eyes burning holes through whatever sanity I have left. The space between us charges with enough electricity to level cities.
Mouths almost brush. Almost.
Then he steps back.
Drops his hand like I burned him.
Walks away like nothing happened.
“Go to bed, Emilia.” Voice perfectly controlled again, tossed over his shoulder like casual conversation. “Before I remind you what real punishment feels like.”
Door slams with finality that echoes through my ribcage.
I’m left shaking against the wall—heart racing, skin burning, wet and furious and completely humiliated. Again. Because apparently getting rejected by Vincent Black is becoming my fucking specialty.