Page 38 of Fractured Devotion
I slip down the service stairs and into my monitoring suite. The office feeds blink to life, humming with the calm precision of machines at rest. Rourke’s office isn’t fully wired, just a single cam set at an oblique angle near the ceiling. It doesn’t catch everything, not even close, but from the right feed, at the right moment, I catch her.
Celeste sits near his desk, the folder clutched in her arms like it might betray her if she loosened her grip. I watch the partial view of her from the reflection off the glass case behind Rourke’s chair—the curve of her spine, the tension in her jaw.
The conversation is short. She nods, says something I can’t catch, and then the chair shifts. She’s dismissed.
I switch feeds quickly, tracking her movement through the corridor as she exits. Her heels strike softly against the vinyl tile, each step calculated, each step practiced in a dance that she doesn’t know I’ve memorized.
She doesn’t know I’m watching.
She doesn’t know I always do.
My gaze holds on the sway of her hips and the slender tension in her shoulders. There’s a precision to her that’s maddening. Every motion is unhurried but tightly wound. I follow her through each camera handoff like a man chasing shadows.
When she reaches her office, I switch feeds again. The overhead cam outside her door catches her slipping inside. I don’t blink.
And then, I watch.
I have clearer angles from the internal cams installed discreetly in her office. I switch back to her office camera as she enters. She shrugs off her coat, and her blouse strains slightly when she bends forward to reach her screen. My eyes trace the curve of her spine and the way her ribs rise under soft fabric.
She has no idea how she looks from this angle, and no idea what she does to me just by existing. It’s not even what she wears. It’s the way she’s made. Like temptation sculpted into flesh.
I shift in my seat, my jaw tight.
There are moments like this, when the hush drags on just long enough that my mind turns to her, and I wonder what her skin would feel like against mine and what her voice would sound like if I made her beg. If I made her whisper my name into the dark with no one else to hear.
I want to pull the light from her screen into my hands, wrap it around her throat like a collar, and make her look up at me. Not through a pane of glass, but for real. I want to make her understand what she is to me.
Mine.
Even if she doesn’t know it yet.
Then, through another feed—one angled just right—I catch a glimpse of Alec.
He’s moving down the hall. Toward her.
He’s heading toward her office.
There is no hesitation in his steps.
I don’t think. I rise. On my way out of the surveillance suite, I snag a file folder from the tray near the back corner. It’s one I’d pulled earlier in the week from the review bin, labeled in her handwriting. It’s something of hers that’s not urgent but familiar. Just believable enough to pass as something she might have left behind in a rush.
She doesn’t need saving.
And she definitely doesn’t need him either.
By the time I reach the hallway, I hear Alec’s voice, faint and casual, the kind of tone he saves for people he wants to disarm. He’s not alone, saying something to one of the internsabout new requisition forms. I can’t see him yet, but I know his gait and the way he tries to sound effortless.
It gives me a window. A sliver of time before he gets to her door.
I slip past the hallway bend and make my way to her office, not rushed, just timed. At her door, I pause. A subtle turn of my head confirms Alec has just come into view, still walking. I let our eyes meet for a brief second and let him see me reaching for her handle.
Then, I slip inside.
The second the door closes behind me, it hits me that I didn’t think this through. This is me slacking off control. This is not how I plan to start my move. It’s sloppy.
She’s startled, already half-risen from her seat. “Kade?”
I keep my voice smooth and steady. “I found this near Rourke’s desk. I figured it might be yours.”
