I tighten my hold and brush her hair off the nape of her neck, setting it over her shoulder. I’m so close I can smell her shampoo, and I hear her short breaths as my fingers play over the IVI tattoo. The space above it. She shudders, and I draw in a deep breath before taking a step backward.

One time. It was allowed one fucking time. Looking Santiago in the eye was already hard today. I can’t complicate things more.

Mercedes sighs and walks away from me.

“Why didn’t you tell me about Chambers earlier? And why in the world would you think it was safe for you to pursue this alone? To follow Abel when you know how dangerous he is?”

She folds her arms across her chest, her defenses up again. I’m sorry for it because this space, this room and the piano have become a haven for her. Watching her when she plays, listening to the music she makes, it’s, in a word, sublime. She is at ease. Relaxed to the point she drops her defenses, her anger, her hurt, and is perhaps herself more than at any other time I see her.

“It’s fine. Nothing happened. I’m fine. Excuse me.” She walks toward the exit, but I capture her arm.

“I don’t excuse you.” And there it is again, the friction between us. A charged tension I’ve never before felt with any other woman. “And you don’t walk away from me until I do.”

She looks down at my hand, then up at me, and I see how her eyes darken as she licks her lips. It makes my dick twitch, and what I’d like to do most in the world right now is rip off her clothes, bend her over the piano, and fuck her until her knees give out and my name is the breath she breathes.

A low rumble from inside my chest breaks the silence. The beast is rattling its chains. It wants out. It wants her.

One. Fucking. Time. That was all.

“And what will you do if I don’t obey your command, your honor? Is that what you make them call you in the courtroom?”

I grin. “I like that. You may start using the honorific, Mercedes.”

“Fuck off.”

“Careful.”

“I won’t be careful.” She tries to jerk free. “What are you going to do about it? Bend me over the piano and spank me?”

“Close.” I tug her to me and let my gaze drop to her mouth, to the expanse of skin exposed by her top and the soft swell of her breasts in the push-up bra.

She grins. “Do it then. I dare you.”

I grit my teeth. “Be careful, Mercedes. I mean it.”

She shrugs the shoulder of her free arm. “You won’t. You don’t dare touch me because you’re afraid.”

“Afraid?”