After a second chessgame with Alex, where I redeemed myself with a beautifully executed checkmate after two hours of play, I returned home at precisely a quarter to nine.
It took me less than one minute to determine that something was amiss.
The door to my office was open, and I always closed it before leaving.
I granted very few people access to my apartment when I wasn’t here. None of them would come this late at night.
Adrenaline burned through the scotch-fueled murkiness in my blood.
I’d taken advantage of Valhalla’s private car service to shepherd me home given how much I drank, but I had enough presence of mind to soften my footsteps as I inched toward my office.
I glimpsed dark hair through the opening before I pushed open the door, crossed the room in two long strides, and pinned the intruder to the wall with my hand wrapped around their throat.
Icy rage misted my vision with red-tinged white.
I did not appreciate people invading my personal space. Touching my things without permission. Breaking into my house and challenging my authority.
My fingers flexed around the soft column of their throat.
The vibrations of a fear-laced gasp trembled against my hold before it spilled into the air.
“Christian.” The familiarity of the soft plea tugged the haze away from my eyes until all I could see was green.
Huge, lush green eyes, framed by inky lashes and acrid with panic.
Fuck.
An arctic splash of recognition wrenched my hand from her throat.
We stared at each other, our breaths ragged in the quiet space between us—hers from fear, mine from adrenaline and regret.
A tendril of anger worked its way into the mix and stretched my words taut. “Ms. Alonso. Care to explain what you’re doing here?”
She was one of the few people on earth who had a key to my apartment, but I’d instructed her to visit during specific time windows. Friday night wasn’t one of them.
She was lucky I wasn’t the shoot first, ask questions later type like some of my men.
An image of Stella shot passed through my mind, and coldness gathered in the pit of my stomach.
She lifted her chin, clearly unimpressed with my greeting and sharp tone. “I was watering your plants like you’d asked me to.” Despite her pointed tone, her breaths remained shallow, and tiny shivers worked their way through her body until my tendril of anger dissipated.
It was only then that I noticed the shattered watering can on the floor. The escaped water formed a small, glistening puddle against the customized wood, and the can’s shiny black ceramic pieces reflected my face back at me.
A hundred different faces, broken up with jagged edges and distorted features.
I dragged my eyes back up to Stella’s. “You’re watering my plants at nine o’clock at night?”
“I forgot earlier because I was busy. You said only to come in on weekdays, and I didn’t want to leave them all weekend. They’re very sensitive to—”
“Busy doing what?”
I no longer cared about the plants.
“Personal things.” Instead of collapsing beneath the weight of my heavy stare, she straightened and tilted her chin another inch higher. “We’re not actually together. You’re not entitled to know my every move.”
Annoyance wisped through me at the reminder.
“I am when your busyness leads you to break into my apartment at nine o’clock at night.”
“I didn’t break in. I had a key!”
“Used outside the allotted time frames. A good lawyer could argue the case in my favor.”
Stella’s eyes narrowed. Her breaths had finally evened, and I suspected her flushed cheeks weren’t due to embarrassment. “You’re the security expert. If you’re that worried, perhaps you should create a key that can only be used during your specified time windows. That wouldn’t be difficult for a genius like you, would it, Mr. Harper?”
I allowed a soft laugh to slip free.
Stella’s sass came and went like flashes of lightning. Every time it appeared, it electrified me, because that was when I glimpsed the real her. The one lying semi-dormant beneath her carefully cultivated calm and desperate desire to please. Somewhere within that cocoon of mild manners was a brilliant butterfly yearning to break free.
“It wouldn’t be difficult at all.” My gaze grew heavy-lidded as I perused her from head to toe. “But then I wouldn’t come home and find you waiting for me.”
A sliver of toned stomach peeked out from under her cropped gray sweatshirt while matching terrycloth short shorts clung to her hips and thighs. An endless expanse of smooth, golden brown legs ended with bare feet and red-polished nails.
My throat ran dry. I yearned to run my hands up her body, to hear her sigh with pleasure as I explored the sleek contours of her curves.
She was dressed for bed, with not a stitch of makeup on her face or jewelry adorning her limbs, but she glowed so brightly it reached the darkest corners of my soul.
“I thought you didn’t want that.” Breathless nerves surfaced in her reply.
“Don’t assume what I want, Ms. Alonso.” I kept my voice placid, almost disinterested, but there was nothing placid about the current crackling in the air.
One touch, and the room would ignite.
“Noted.” Stella’s fingers curled around the hem of her shorts until her knuckles whitened.
My eyes dipped to her thighs, and desire flamed hotter in my veins when they clenched beneath my attention.
It was a small movement, nothing more than a subtle tensing of her muscles, but she might as well have reached down and caressed the hardness aching at my groin.
“You should leave,” I said softly, the words rough with restraint.
She didn’t move.
“Unless...” I raised my hand and skimmed it down the side of her neck until I reached the frantic flutter of her pulse. “You want to stay.”
I should stop touching her, and I should keep my distance, but I was mesmerized.
Stella’s swallow was audible in the thick, condensed silence.
“I don’t.” She wavered the tiniest bit on the word don’t.
“No?” I grazed my thumb over her skin. The small point of contact seared through flesh and bone until the heat spilled into my blood. I lifted my eyes to hers again, my voice hardening. “Then why are you still here?”
Distraction. Obsession. Confoundment.
She was all those things and more.
She should’ve been a simple puzzle to break apart and piece back together, but she was proving more complicated than expected. She was like a jigsaw missing one piece. No matter how hard I searched, I couldn’t find the missing piece, and until I did, she’d continue haunting my thoughts.
There was, of course, another explanation, but I dismissed that one the second it surfaced.
The one that told me I didn’t want to solve Stella Alonso, because once I did, the thread connecting us would be severed.
And for some galling, unknown reason, I didn’t want it to be severed.
She opened her mouth to respond, but I released her and stepped back, cutting her off without a word.
“It’s time for you to leave.” It was no longer framed as a suggestion but an order. “Don’t let me find you in my apartment outside the permitted times again, or you’ll discover there are limits to my generosity.”
Indulging her tonight was a mistake. I’d already bent too many rules for her.
If it had been anyone else in my office, I would’ve punished them for the transgression, not fantasize about how their skin would feel against mine.
Fire sparked in Stella’s eyes.