“Oh! Really?”
“Yep.” I’m reaching for her when the door to her father’s office bangs open.
So much for not snapping his head off. Now he’s gonna get it. For. Fucking. Sure.
As I straighten and turn with a war march in my ears, Eagle flattens herself to the wall behind me, her breath escaping in a rush, hitting my skin with teasing heat.
“Don’t do anything dumb, Kane.”
Dumb? I think taking her father out is the best idea I’ve had in eons. When she hooks her delicate hand into the back of my belt, she drives her point home, tugging, pleading. “Please.”
Dammit.
It’s physically impossible for me to ignore her wishes when Paul McKenna explodes into the hallway, blustery expression, dead eyes flicking around, cell phone glued to his ear.
Usual asshole CEO shit.
“Kane! Follow me, I need you to deal with something.”
His loafers click like high heels on the hall floor, quickly fading as I turn to rest my hand on the wall above his twenty-year-old daughter’s pretty head.
This is an epically bad idea. But since when did I do what was right? Pretty much never.
Pinning Eagle beneath my angled lean puts me at the perfect angle to take what I’m hungry for.
“Don’t push your father, little girl. I’ll have to kill him if he hurts you. I don’t think you’d really want that.”
“Kane,” she whispers in shock, worry tensing her delicate, young face. “You think he’d really hurt me?”
In truth, I don’t know. But I trust the man less every day, and her safety is all that matters.
“Don’t find out,” I warn as I wrap a locket of glossy, thick hair around my finger and tug her closer, my mouth thirsting for hers. “Be a good girl for me, Eagle.”
She inhales sharply. “Aren’t I always?”
The girl knows how to needle her father into madness. Most of the time, making me laugh. She’s just trying to be free of his ridiculous repression, his need for ultimate control.
But the dark side of me wants to control her too. Command all her attention. Capture all that sweet, spirited light just for me.
The steady dilation of her pupils hits me, knocking my heart up into my throat. A sledgehammer to the balls would have less effect than seeing arousal in the girl’s eyes.
“No. You’re not. Give me your phone.”
“What? Why?” she stammers, her gaze rapidly searching my face. But she digs into the waist of her tights and produces a cell phone with a gold, sparkly case.
Light and bright. That’s Eagle.
“You are to call me and only me if he upsets you. Got it?”
“Okay.” Her hand shakes with a tiny tremor as she passes the iPhone to me. “Thank you. That makes me feel better. I like knowing I can call you.”
Every number I thumb into the phone feels like one more click on a dial that’s sealing our fate.
Fuck. I’m doing it. I’m crossing the line.
“There,” I rumble when I’m done. I bunch up her shirt and slide the phone back into the band of fabric against her hip. “Memorize it in case he takes your phone or some bullshit like that. I saved it under KC Chief.”
She looks up at me, still a little confused, almost dazed. Is my touch having the same effect on her that it is on me?
