Page 48 of The Boss
“Don’t thank me,” Mariah said. “Thank him.” She tilted her head towardLeif.
The woman looked. Whatever she saw in his face made her eyes go big and then calm. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Leif only inclined his head. He didn’t do humble. He did truth. “Go,” he told thegirl.
They stepped into the back hall, dry and humming with utility. The noise of the dining room fell away. The corridor smelled like coffee and bleach and expensive food. Her heart was a drum. His hand didn’t let go ofhers.
He pressed her into the wall before they reached the door, not hard, just enough to shield her with his body from anything that might come down the passage. His mouth hovered above hers, not touching, cruel and kind in the same way he always was withher.
“You scared me,” he said, low, as if admitting it cost him blood.
She tipped her chin, accepting the confession like a jewel. “Good,” she said. “Now you know what it feels like.”
His laugh was harsh. “I want you,” he said. “Right now.”
“Then take me,” she whispered.
He didn’t. He leaned forward and breathed her in, aclaiming that was somehow worse and better than his hands. “I’ll make you shake when we get home,” he promised. “I’ll make you forget your name.”
“Just make me remember yours,” shesaid.
He kissed her then—quick, brutal, perfect—and pulled back before she could fall through it. “Car,” he said, voice scraped. “Now.”
They hit the door like a single body. The night outside was steam and streetlight, wet pavement shining, the city trying to look ordinary again. Tomas held the back door of the car. Magnus’s silhouette was at the alley mouth, watching the world decide whether it wanted to try them again tonight.
Mariah slid into the leather and the brand in her palm went hot, then settled. Leif followed, closed the door, and the car became a small universe where only their breathing mattered. He didn’t touch her. She didn’t touch him. They stared at each other like two animals in a trap that had accidentally let themlive.
“Home,” he told Tomas.
The car moved. The city slid by. Mariah let herself lean into the seat, into the hum of an engine that meant safety, into the gravity that was Leif Severin looking at her like she was a problem he intended to enjoy solving.
“Tomorrow,” he said softly, “we open your brother’s river and pour out everything that doesn’t belong.”
“And tonight?” she asked, adare.
“Tonight,” Leif said, “I prove you’re mine.”
Her pulse blew her open. She smiled at him the way a woman smiles when she knows exactly what’s coming. “Then hurry.”
The city lights ran like rain down glass. Behind them, Voss & Vine drained, mopped, resumed pretending. In front of them,apenthouse and a bed and a man who’d just shown her what he was willing to do to make sure she lived. She wasn’t a parcel. She wasn’t a thing. She was his problem and his pleasure and tonight she planned to be both until neither of them couldwalk.
Mariah lifted his hand and set her mouth against the brand in his palm. Heat jumped between them like a line pulled tight. He hissed softly, the sound that always undid her. His fingers closed at the nape of her neck andheld.
“Later,” he said again.
“Soon,” she corrected.
“Soon,” he agreed. And the car took them into the kind of night you only get after you don’tdie.
Chapter 14
THE ELEVATORopened on a hush of pale stone and city light. Mariah stepped out first, heels silent on the runner, pulse sprinting while the rest of her kept its cool. She didn’t look back to see if he followed. She sensed him, heat and gravity, apresence that sharpened the air until it tasted like lightning.
Leif keyed the door. The mechanism clicked. The penthouse acceptedthem.
Inside, the lights were low, amber along the floor, asoft wash up the walls, the city beyond the windows glittering like a thousand witnesses. She stopped halfway to the living room, the slit of her bronze dress whispering around her thigh, and turned. He’d already closed the door, thrown the deadbolt, and set his palm against it, like he was staking claim to the night.
“Say it,” he told her, voice quiet and demanding. “Say you want this.”
