The tension in the apartment had become a living thing.
By late afternoon, the distance between Shawn and me felt like a wire pulled taut — three feet of deliberate space that hummed with everything we weren’t allowing ourselves to do. He stood near the windows again, arms crossed, watching me work at the desk like a man guarding the last unbroken thing in his world.
I could feel his gaze on my bare legs, on the way his shirt slipped off one shoulder, on the slow rise and fall of my breasts as I breathed. Every time I shifted, his jaw tightened. Every time I glanced at him, his fingers flexed like they ached to close the gap.
We were both losing the fight.
Slowly.
Painfully.
Exquisitely.
Then the elevator chimed.
Shawn’s head snapped toward the sound. His entire body went rigid — n
