The Trap is Set

The rain began as a low murmur against the glass floor-to-ceiling windows of the Sterling Estate, but by midnight, it had escalated into a full-scale deluge. Thunder shook the heavy foundation of the house, rattling the crystal decanters sitting on the private study’s dark mahogany sideboard.

Inside the study, the atmosphere was suffocatingly warm.

Clara sat at the leather conference table, surrounded by three stacks of binding financial disclosures for the Vance Logistics acquisition. Her jacket was draped over the back of her chair. Her top blouse button had come undone sometime around eleven, and a few loose strands of hair had escaped her French twist, framing her face.

Across from her, Damon had shed his jacket and tie hours ago. His dark dress shirt was unbuttoned at the neck, his sleeves rolled tightly around his forearms as he scrawled red corrections across a legal brief.

"Section 4.2 is a trap," Clara murmured, her voice thick with late-night exhaustion. She tapped her tablet screen, sliding it toward him. "Victoria’s father built in an arbitration clause that routes all disputes through a tribunal his brother chairs. If we sign this as written, Vance Logistics can leak our logistics tech and we can’t even sue."

Damon looked up from the paper. Instead of checking the tablet, his dark grey eyes locked onto her face.

He watched the way her pulse fluttered at the base of her throat, the flushed warm color of her cheeks after five straight hours of work.

"You caught that on your first pass?" Damon asked, his voice low, gravelly, and laced with quiet appreciation.

"I caught it on my second pass, Mr. Sterling," Clara replied, offering a tired, subtle smirk. "I’m good at my job."

"You’re terrifying at your job, Mercer," Damon growled softly. He reached out to take the tablet, but as his fingers brushed hers, a deafening crack of thunder shook the estate.

Snap.

Every light in the study died instantly.

The glowing monitors went black. The ambient track lights vanished, plunging the massive room into near-total darkness, illuminated only by the dramatic, jagged flashes of lightning tearing through the sky outside the massive windows.

Clara gasped softly, reacting automatically to the sudden dark by standing up. But in the pitch-black space, her heel caught the edge of the heavy rug. She stumbled backward, losing her balance completely.

"Clara!"

Damon moved with terrifying speed. Before she could strike the floor or the hard edge of the desk, a powerful arm wrapped around her waist, catching her weight with absolute ease and pulling her flush against a broad, solid chest.

The impact knocked the breath straight out of her lungs.

Clara was trapped against him. One of his large hands rested firmly at the small of her back, molding her lower body against his, while his other hand instinctively cradled the back of her head, his fingers tangled in her loose hair.

The silence that followed the thunder was absolute.

Clara could feel the thunderous, heavy beat of Damon’s heart hammering against her ribs. The heat radiating off his body was overwhelming, suffocating, burning straight through the thin silk of her blouse.

"I have you," Damon rasped into the dark. His breath hit her cheek, hot and heavy with the scent of bourbon and cedar. "I’ve got you."

Clara couldn't move. She couldn't breathe. Every defense mechanism she had spent two years building shattered into dust. Her hands had automatically come up to rest against his bare chest, her palms feeling the rapid rise and fall of his breathing, the hard muscle beneath his shirt.

"Mr. Sterling..." she whispered, her voice trembling slightly.

"Damon," he corrected in a low, dangerous rumble. He didn't let her go. If anything, his grip tightened, pulling her an inch closer until there wasn't a single breath of space left between them. "Call me Damon. We are far past 'Mr. Sterling,' Clara."

Another flash of lightning illuminated the study, painting his sharp, aristocratic features in silver light. His dark eyes were burning, filled with a raw, primal hunger that he had suppressed behind corporate coldness for months.

His gaze dropped to her lips.

Clara’s heart hammered violently against her ribs. She knew she should step back. She knew she should enforce the boundaries of her contract, the rules of her employment, the safety of her career. But as Damon slowly lowered his head, his warm lips hovering a hair’s breadth from hers, her eyes fluttered shut.

Click.

A metallic sound echoed sharp and loud through the dark room.

The heavy oak door of the private study gave a muffled thud as the electronic deadbolt engaged from the outside.

Damon froze instantly, his lips brushing against her cheek as he turned his head sharply toward the entrance.

From the hallway outside, a tiny, cheerful voice drifted through the keyhole gap.

"Daddy? Clara?" Toby’s muffled voice called out innocently. "The lights went poof! I used your master tablet to lock the storm doors so the monsters can't get inside the study! I put the tablet in the high kitchen drawer and I'm going to bed now. Goodnight!"

Silence dropped back over the darkened study like an anvil.

Clara blinked in the shadows, her breath catching as the reality of the situation crashed over her.

Toby had locked the smart-doors from the outside using the administrator tablet. The study was built with high-security reinforced panic glass and soundproof oak doors. Without the master tablet or the house generator kicking on—which could take hours in a storm—they were completely, hopelessly trapped inside.

Together. In the dark.

Damon let out a dark, low chuckle that vibrated straight through Clara’s body. He didn't release her waist. Instead, he leaned down, his lips brushing against the sensitive shell of her ear, sending a dangerous shiver cascading down her spine.

"It appears my son has set a trap, Miss Mercer," Damon whispered, his deep voice thick with unspoken promises. "And we are stuck in here until morning."

Clara looked up at him through the dark, her pulse racing wildly as she realized there was no escape from the room—or from the man holding her.

"What are we going to do, Damon?" she whispered back, her voice barely audible over the roaring rain outside.

Damon’s hand slid up her back, resting gently against the nape of her neck as his eyes burned into hers.

"We stop pretending," he growled quietly.