Taste of Virgin Blood

As the city sinks into the night and emerges with dawn, so do I trail the borderland between reality and dream. Here, everything feels muted, underwater, and so I clutch to coffee as my lifebuoy, resting on the waves of hums, scent, and hot drink the machine produces. My eyes close. For just a second.

"Working late again, Miss Knight?"

His voice slides across my skin before I even turn around. James Bloxham stands in the doorway of the break room, his suit jacket gone, sleeves rolled to his elbows. The dim light catches the angles of his face, all sharp lines and shadows.

"Someone has to keep this place running," I say, and my voice sounds different. Lower. Confident in a way I never am.

He moves closer. Too close. Close enough that I can smell something clean and expensive, like cedar and cold air. His hand reaches past me, but not for the coffee. His fingers brush the counter beside my hip, caging me in.

"You work too hard," he says.

"Maybe I like working hard."

"Do you?" His other hand comes up, fingertips grazing my jaw, tilting my face toward his. "Or do you just like the way it feels when someone finally notices?"

My breath catches. His thumb traces my lower lip, slow and deliberate, and heat pools low in my stomach. Wrong. This is wrong. He's my boss. He's twenty years older than me. He's untouchable.

But his mouth is so close to mine I can feel the warmth of his breath.

"Tell me to stop," he whispers.

I can't. The word won't form. Instead, I lean into his touch, desperate and shameless, and his gray-blue eyes darken with something that looks like hunger.

The coffee machine beeps.