"Files sent?"
"All of them. My supervisor's briefing federal investigators first thing in the morning." Yvette settled into the chair across from his desk. "I think I can probably go back to work tomorrow. Maybe stay in a hotel until my house is cleared."
His posture shifted, though his expression didn't change. "You think sending the files ends this?"
"Well... yes. They wanted to stop my investigation. Now it's out of my hands and in federal custody. Killing me at this point would only draw more attention to their fraud."
"RareCore's executives are looking at decades in federal prison and hundreds of millions in lost contracts. You think they're going to make rational decisions about risk assessment?"
The confidence Yvette had felt after talking to her supervisor wavered. "But I'm not a threat anymore. I've already given the government everything."
"You're the witness. The person who can testify about how you uncovered the fraud, explain the financial patterns to a jury, make the case compelling enough for conviction." He leaned back in his chair. "Dead witnesses can't testify."
Yvette's stomach dropped. She'd been so focused on protecting the evidence that she hadn't considered her own ongoing value to the case. "So what are you saying? That I'm stuck here indefinitely?"
"You're staying put until they're caged. Days. Weeks. However long it takes."
"Weeks?" Yvette stood up, sudden claustrophobia hitting her. "I have a job, responsibilities. I can't just disappear for weeks."
"You can't testify if you're dead."
"Stop saying that." The words came out sharper than she'd intended. "I get it. There's still some risk. But I can't live in hiding indefinitely. There has to be a middle ground."
He stood as well, and Yvette was suddenly aware of how much space he took up in the room. Not just his physical presence, but the way he moved with absolute certainty, like someone who'd never questioned a decision in his life.
"The middle ground is you stay here while I assess the threat level and coordinate with federal protection. You don't go back to work, you don't stay in hotels, you don't do anything that puts you on RareCore's radar."
"You don't get to make those decisions for me." Yvette was already processing threat assessments the way she processed financial networks, analyzing variables, calculating probabilities, identifying systemic vulnerabilities. He might have combat experience, but she had something equally valuable: the ability to see patterns and predict behaviors that others missed.
"I do while you're under my protection."
Yvette stepped closer, anger flaring. "I didn't ask for your protection. I asked for a place to stay until official help arrived."
"Official help that could take days to arrange." He didn't back down, meeting her gaze with a look that held zero compromise. "Walk out that door if you want. But the next team won't announce themselves by breaking glass. They'll put a bullet in your head before you know they're there."
"So what, I'm your prisoner now?"
"You're alive now. You're mine now. And I protect what's mine."
They were standing close enough that Yvette could see the cut on his jaw from the broken glass, close enough to catch the scent of gunpowder that still clung to his shirt. This man had killed two people with his bare hands to save her life, and now he was trying to keep her alive against her own stubborn independence.
The anger shifted into something else entirely. Awareness of his proximity, of the way his chest rose and fell with his breathing, of the intensity in his eyes that had nothing to do with their argument and everything to do with the tension crackling between them.
Yvette reached up and touched the cut on his jaw where the glass had caught him. "You're bleeding."
He went very still under her touch, his entire body coiling like a predator sensing prey. "It's nothing."
"You could have been killed tonight. Because of me." Her thumb traced the edge of the cut, and she felt him inhale sharply, his jaw muscle ticking under her fingertips. The simple touch made her nipples harden, and she could see her own desire reflected in his eyes. "I never thanked you properly."
"Yvette..." His voice was a warning and an invitation all at once.
She rose up on her toes, intending to kiss his cheek in gratitude. But he turned his head at the last second, capturing her lips with his in a collision that stole her breath. The contact was electric. His mouth warm and firm and demanding against hers. What started as innocent gratitude transformed into something hungry and utterly consuming.
His hands found her waist, fingers digging into her sides as he pulled her flush against him. Yvette sighed at the contact. The solid wall of his chest, the rapid thunder of his heart matching her own frantic rhythm. She used his shirt to anchor herself as the world tilted around them.
"Christ," he breathed against her mouth, and the lust in his voice made her knees weak. "You have no idea what you do to me."
When his tongue swept across her lower lip, Yvette opened for him with a soft moan that seemed to snap something inside him. He explored her mouth with thorough intensity, like he was memorizing every taste, every texture. His hand slid up to tangle in her hair, fingers tightening as he angled her head to take the kiss deeper.
