Page 47 of Corrupt

Because this moment, this confession, wasn’t about guilt or privilege. He wasn’t trying to make me feel bad. He was telling me because he wanted me to know. Who he’d been. Who he was beneath the Razor edge. Who I was already falling for, even though I’d been caught by the man he’d had to become a while back.

So I whispered, “Stay.”

He snorted softly. “And watch tennis with you? You got strawberries and cream lying around? Pimm’s on ice?”

I did actually.

But I assumed that was a question not meant to be answered.

Especially when he did up his fly. He didn’t step away though. He turned in my arms, shirt still hanging open, letting my hands slide around to his back, allowing me another stolen look at the ink carved into him.

“Don’t you have work in the morning?” he asked, then kissed me.

“I do.” I kissed him back. “Though we might’ve ruined half my prep back there.”

“Shouldn’t be so messy, should ya?” He kissed me again. Soft, sweet, and heartbreakingly normal. A kiss that could unmake a person. Me. “Keep your line clean. My motto.”

I tilted up, kissed him deeper, sliding my tongue against his, and it hit me how close I was to falling so catastrophically under that I might never crawl back out. He felt it too. I knew he did. Because he clamped his hands on my arse, pulling me flush to him, holding on as if he didn’t know how to let go.

“Stay,” I whispered again. “You can’t be working tomorrow. It’s Monday.”

“Laundry day.” He kissed me again.

I knew he wasn’t talking about clothes. Bed sheets. A trip to the launderette. No, he meant money laundering. Moving the weekend’s cash. The part of his life I couldn’t touch. Not even with clean hands.

He kissed me again. Lingering. Languid. And it hurt in a way sex never had.

“You don’t want me staying.” He pulled back for the air between us to cool. “I’ll ruin your perfect palace.”

Then he traced my jaw with his thumb, giving one soft, dangerous stroke, making my chest tighten, before stepping fully out of my hold. I watched him button his shirt, tuck it in, piece himself back together as if the last five minutes hadn’t unravelled him completely. He met my gaze. Took a breath. Heavy. Chest rising. Then leant to steal one more kiss before walking out of the bedroom.

I followed him through the flat to the door where he hesitated long enough to kiss me again, as if he couldn’t help himself.

Then, he was gone.

Down the stairs.

Out of my building.

Out of a moment that could have shifted everything.

Leaving behind the taste of him on my tongue, the tremor of him still in my bones, and a week’s worth of case files crushed under a man I wasn’t sure I’d ever recover from.

But he was wrong.

Not about ruining my perfect palace.

About me not wanting him to.

chapter ten

Razor

Monday. Laundry day.

And while, yeah, I shoved my jeans, shirt and boxers in the washing machine in the Wick apartment before I dressed down, that wasn’t what I was talking about.

Cash. Favours. Problems.