The monitors hummed, their cold, blue light the only thing cutting through the shadows of the archive. I had been staring at the encrypted Vance ledgers for three hours until the strings of code began to look like the bars of a cage.
The heavy steel door groaned open.
I didn't have to look up to know it was him. The air in the room simply changed-it grew heavier, charged with the scent of rain and expensive scotch. Renzo didn't go to the cot. He walked straight to the high-backed leather chair I was sitting in.
"Progress, Secretary?" he asked, his voice a low vibration against the back of my neck.
"It's a triple-layer cipher," I said, my voice tighter than I wanted it to be. "It takes time to reconstruct the fragments."
Renzo didn't answer. Instead, he reached over my shoulder, his large hand covering mine on the mouse. His skin was a searing brand against my knuckles. He clicked through the screens with a predatory efficiency, then suddenly, he gripped the arms of my chair and spun me around to face him.
"You're shaking," he noted, his gold eyes tracking the way my chest rose and fell beneath the black silk.
"The room is cold," I lied.
"Then let's fix that."
Before I could breathe, Renzo sat in the massive chair and pulled me toward him. My knees hit his, and with a single, dominant tug at my waist, he hoisted me up.
A sharp gasp escaped me as I was forced to sit across his lap. The tight pencil skirt rode up my thighs, leaving nothing but the thin barrier of my stockings between my skin and the expensive wool of his suit.
"Renzo, let me go.."
"Quiet," he commanded, his hand settling firmly on the small of my back, anchoring me against him. "You said you needed a better angle to see the fragments. From here, you can see everything."
He reached around me to the keyboard, trapping me within the circle of his arms. Every time he moved to type, his chest brushed against my breasts, the friction sending jolts of traitorous heat through my nerves. I was pinned between the desk and the man who had destroyed my life, my heart hammering so loud I was sure he could feel it through his shirt.
"Focus, Elara," he mocked, his breath hot against my cheek as he stared at the monitor. "Or is my 'company' more distracting than the view?"
I bit my lip, my fingers trembling as I reached for the keys. I tried to focus on the Vance Cipher, but all I could feel was the solid muscle of his thighs beneath me and the way his other hand had begun a slow, agonizing crawl from my waist to the exposed skin of my thigh where the skirt had bunched.
"If I finish this..." I breathed, my head light. "Will you let me go?"
Renzo stilled. He turned his head, his lips so close to mine that I could taste the scotch on his breath.
"I'll let you breathe, Little Ghost," he whispered, his thumb hooking into the top of my stocking, grazing the bare skin above it. "But I never said I was letting you go."
He leaned in, his forehead dropping against mine as the monitors flickered with the data of a dead empire. For a moment, the "Debt" didn't feel like money or blood. It felt like the oxygen we were stealing from each other.
---