Page 22 of The Boss
The silence that followed seared her skin. Mariah shifted in the chair, trying to ignore the ache pooling low in her belly, the damp heat that betrayed her. She wanted to cross her legs, torock her hips, to do anything that would ease the burning desire, but she couldn’t—not with his eyes on her, not with his restraint coiling tight across theroom.
Leif said nothing for a long time. His jaw ticked once, twice. Then he turned back to the monitors with brutal precision, swiping to another set of feeds. “Three families absent,” he said, voice low, clipped. “Each with motive. Each with weakness. We’ll pull at every thread.”
Mariah dragged in a breath and forced herself to focus. The screen lit with profiles, names, histories. The first was a man with watery eyes and a mouth set in a permanent scowl. She knew him—everyone did. Old money. Old grudges. Too proud to bend, too greedy to walkaway.
“He lost a son last year,” she said quietly, almost against her will. “Car crash. The Dantes sent flowers. The Severins didn’t.”
Leif’s eyes flicked to her. Amuscle jumped in his cheek. “He’d kill over less.”
“Would he risk everything?” she pressed. “A bomb in your building? That isn’t just revenge. That’s suicide.”
“Desperate men don’t measure cost,” Leif muttered. His gaze held hers for a long beat before he turned back to the screen.
The next profile loaded. Another face. Another history. Another web of debts and betrayals. They argued over each one, voices snapping sharp in the quiet. He pushed. She pushed back. The monitors glowed, casting their faces in pale light, and every time he leaned close to point at a line of text, every time his arm brushed hers, she had to fight to keep her body still.
Heat crawled over her skin. Her nipples rubbed against silk with every shallow breath, hard and needy. She shifted, and thefabric of the lounge pants clung damply between her legs. She prayed he couldn’t see it. She knew he could smellit.
Leif’s voice dropped lower the longer they worked, rasping with something that wasn’t just frustration. “They all have motive. Money. Power. Blood. The difference is who had the guts to light the fuse.”
Mariah’s hand trembled on the desk. She curled it into a fist. “And who had the contacts to hire a man like that courier. He wasn’t street muscle. He was trained. Scrupulous.”
Leif leaned over her shoulder to enlarge the courier’s still photo. His chest pressed into her back, hard muscle burning through the thin barrier of her shirt. His breath stirred her hair, hot against her ear. She froze, pulse racing. The heat of him wrapped around her, suffocating and intoxicating all at once. Her thighs parted automatically, asmall shift, and the wetness between them slicked. She bit her lip hard to hold back the sound that wanted to break loose.
“Focus,” he murmured, voice harsher than it should have been. His mouth was so close, it was as though the words brushed herear.
“I am,” she whispered back, though they both knew it was alie.
His hand came down on the desk beside hers, caging her in. His thumb brushed over her knuckles, dragging slow circles. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Heat arrowed through her, sharp and merciless. The Brand pulsed hard, lighting up her palm, answeringhis.
Her legs squeezed together under the desk. She knew he noticed. His voice dropped, guttural. “You’re wet.”
Her breath hitched. “Leif—”
“Don’t lie.” His thumb stroked across her knuckles again, harder this time. “I can smell you.”
Her face flamed. She wanted to deny it. She couldn’t. The damp heat clung to her, undeniable. She tried to look away, but his hand lifted suddenly, fingers gripping her chin, forcing her to face him. His blue eyes burned.
“You’re sitting here in my clothes, no panties, no bra, dripping for me while we hunt the man who tried to kill us.” His voice was low, lethal, intimate. “Tell me that’s not the truth.”
Her lips trembled. “It’s the truth.”
A growl tore through his throat. For a heartbeat she thought he’d devour her. His mouth hovered a breath from hers, his grip tight on her chin, his body radiating heat and hunger. Her thighs parted further without permission, eager, aching.
Then he let her go, snapping back like a man reining in a wild horse. He turned on his heel, braced his hands on the desk, head bowed. His shoulders rose and fell with slow, measured breaths. Control slamming down over him again, iron and merciless.
Mariah sagged back in the chair, trembling. Her thighs pressed tight together, futile. She dragged her hand over her mouth, trying to catch breath. The air still burned with the heat ofhim.
To her frustration, they pressed deeper into the work. Profiles. Alibis. Accounts. She forced herself to focus, to ask questions, to throw theories. He answered with clipped precision, sometimes dismantling her ideas, sometimes conceding with the faintest tilt of his mouth. But every exchange was layered with more than strategy. Every glance carried heat. Every silence pressed tighter.
At one point, he slid a file across the desk toward her. His fingers brushed hers in the transfer, skin on skin, electric. She jolted, biting back a sound, but his eyes caught hers, burning with knowledge. He knew exactly what he was doing.
She shifted in her chair, her foot tapping restlessly against the floor, betraying the tension coiled inside her. His gaze flicked down, then back up, sharp and dangerous. His mouth curved faintly, not with humor but with possession.
“You’re mine, Mariah,” he said quietly, almost to himself, eyes still on the monitor. “You can fight it. You can lie. But your body already knows.”
Her chest squeezed, breath catching. She wanted to deny it. She couldn’t. The truth was written in every tremor of herbody.
She clenched her hands together, nails biting her skin. “We’re supposed to be finding suspects.”
