Page 7 of The Enforcer (Damn! #2)

Still, she wasn’t finished. She reached for the gauze rolls, unwrapping a clean strip and moving closer again. Zane didn’t say a word, just sat still, watching her through heavy-lidded eyes as she positioned the bandage against his side.

Her hands brushed his skin, firm and steady now despite the tremble beneath.

She circled behind him, blanket dragging against her legs, and leaned in to wrap the gauze around his ribs.

Every time she pulled it tight, her fingers brushed muscle, and every time she circled around, she caught his scent, blood, sweat, male, and something sharper that made her pulse skip.

Worse, every time she leaned in, the blanket slid ever lower.

He exhaled roughly as her hands skimmed along his side again. “You’re really going to survive this,” she muttered, trying to focus on the wrap.

“You sound disappointed,” he murmured.

She shot him a glare. “I’m still deciding.”

But even that landed too soft.

She stepped back, barely. Just enough to breathe.

“You’re done,” she said.

“Not yet,” he said, voice quiet but firm. “We’re just getting started.”

Lily didn’t answer. She turned instead, stepping toward the sink to wash the blood from her hands. The water hissed to life, warm and steady. She braced her palms under the stream, watching red swirl into pink and vanish down the drain.

The blanket slid lower with every motion.

She felt it slip, felt the cold air prick her bare skin and the invisible pull of his attention like a brand between her shoulder blades.

The blanket hit her waist, and her breath stuttered.

Not fear, not exactly. Not even shame. Just raw, skin-tight awareness.

Her breath hitched. Awareness crawled up her spine, not just from exposure, but from knowing he could still see her. She yanked the blanket back up with a sharp tug, heart thudding hard against her ribs.

When she turned, Zane hadn’t moved. Still perched on the counter, still shirtless, wound freshly wrapped, the blood finally stanched.

And despite everything she’d just done, despite the blood on her hands, the closeness, the threat hanging between them, Lily couldn’t stop the flood of confusion crashing through her.

Relief battled with irritation, with something hotter and harder to name.

Because she’d just bandaged up the man who might still kill her.

And he’d let her. Hell, he’d insisted she do it.

And he’d watched her every step of the way.

She pulled the blanket tighter around her breasts and met his gaze head-on.

“Now what?”

Zane didn’t answer right away. His gaze dragged over her face, down the line of her throat, settling at the edge of the blanket she’d just pulled back into place. There was a long pause, long enough for her pulse to start thudding again, for her skin to prickle under the strength of his attention.

Then he pushed off the counter with a slow, deliberate motion.

“Now,” he said, voice low, “you tell me exactly what you accessed. Where. When. How deep. Every detail.”

Lily blinked, tension snapping tighter.

“And if I don’t?”

His lips curled, not a smile. “Then maybe I stop asking nicely.”

She lifted her chin. “You think threatening me will get you better intel?”

“No,” he said. “But it’ll make me feel better.”

The air stretched between them again, charged, sharp, the kind of silence that hummed with unspoken consequences.

It wasn’t just the force of the threat, or the tension simmering beneath his words.

It was the knowing. The way he watched her, not as a hacker who’d broken through something dangerous, but as the detonator itself, ticking in his hands.

“I’ll talk,” she said finally, voice soft but steady. “But I want answers too.”

He crossed the space between them in two steps, close again, heat radiating off his bare chest. She could feel it brush against her skin even before he got close enough to touch, warmth that dragged along her nerves like a fuse.

Her breath caught. He wasn’t just standing near her, he was surrounding her, consuming the air between them, the scent of blood and skin and something darker curling into her lungs.

She didn’t step back. Couldn’t. His proximity was magnetic, unbearable and electric, the drag of it pooling low in her belly. His gaze dropped once more to the blanket wrapped around her, slow and deliberate, and her whole body tightened in response. Not out of fear.

Not anymore.

“You’re not in a position to negotiate.”

“Maybe not,” she whispered. “But you’re listening.”

She wasn’t sure what surprised her more, how close he got, or how thoroughly her lungs forgot what to do.

A strange tightness filled her chest, like she didn’t trust the air swimming between them, like drawing a breath might break whatever thin thread held her upright.

Like it was charged with something hot and wild and wrong, and she wanted more of it anyway.

Zane stopped just short of touching her. The want coming off him blurred the distance between them, each breath tighter than the last. Her skin buzzed with awareness, his presence pressing against her without ever making contact.

He didn’t speak. Just stood there, watching her like he expected her to unravel.

And maybe she would have, if she hadn’t already survived worse.

Lily knew that look. Not just analysis. Obsession.

The way someone stares at a problem they can’t solve and hates themselves for not solving it.

And in that moment, she realized, he wasn’t just trying to figure her out.

He was trying to decide what she meant to him. Risk. Asset. Something else entirely.

And maybe that was what kept her standing, spine stiff under the blanket, chin tilted up. Because fear would’ve crumbled her by now. Fear said run. Pride said stand. But whatever was pulsing between them wasn’t either of those.

It was molten.

Or maybe something worse. The kind of energy that slid under the skin and made her forget everything but the space between them. It shouldn’t exist between enemies. And yet it curled low in her stomach like it had always belonged, like her body recognized something her mind refused to name.

She crumpled the edge of the blanket in tight fists, yanking the make-shift garment upward. “You said you want answers. So do I. What did I trip that made your entire operation blink red?”

He gave a low exhale, half breath, half amusement. “You don’t even know what you walked into.”

“That’s why I’m asking.”

He didn’t laugh, but something in his expression shifted. Lighter. More dangerous.

“You didn’t just touch Dante property,” he said.

“You accessed a blacklisted shell company, off-grid, sealed, rigged with silent counter-alerts. It was designed to flag any intrusion silently, no alarms, no alerts, just a buried notification logged for internal review. If someone accessed it, we wouldn’t stop them right away.

We’d study how they did it. You were never supposed to leave a trace. ”

“I didn’t.”

“You did.” He tilted his head. “Which means someone built an access point beneath the firewalls. A hidden backdoor, not ours. One we didn’t authorize, didn’t know about, and weren’t monitoring.

That’s how we were alerted. The system flagged the intrusion because it came through something foreign, something buried so deep it wasn’t supposed to exist. The system noticed the backdoor and that anomaly raised a red flag. ”

“That red flag didn’t trigger the usual review protocol,” he added, voice hardening.

“It activated a secondary layer, an old-world failsafe coded into the system when we first acquired the shell. Something only triggers if a dormant asset is accessed through unauthorized architecture. It’s not meant to flag the intruder.

It’s meant to flag the breach point itself. ”

His gaze narrowed. “Which means when you hit that transfer button, you didn’t just trip an alert. You activated the lockdown clause. Instant trace. Full system wake. You didn’t just show up on our radar, Lily.” He leaned in. “You lit it up.”

Lily froze. Her throat went dry.

“So, I was lured in.”

“Looks that way.”

“And you think I built the door?”

He hesitated before shaking his head. “No. But I think whoever did might’ve used you to test if it still worked.”

Silence.

Colder this time.

And deeper.

This wasn’t just a data breach anymore. Someone had fed her into the system like bait on a hook, and she’d bitten. Hard.

And from the look in Zane’s eyes, he wasn’t sure if she knew that or not.

Lily forced herself to breathe. Just once. Just enough to keep her spine from locking up completely.

“So what now?” she asked, the words flat, almost hollow. “You think I’m dangerous because I tripped the wrong wire? Or just stupid enough to be someone else’s pawn?”

Zane didn’t answer immediately. His gaze grew unreadable again, like he was weighing every angle, every possible motive, every reason not to trust her.

Then, finally, he moved.

Not with violence. Not with warning.

Just a slow step forward that set her nerves screaming all over again.

“You tell me everything,” he said. “Every site. Every trace. Every shift in your code. Every instinct that made you go deeper.”

“And in return?” she asked, voice thin.

He didn’t blink. “In return, I don’t lock you in a room until I figure out who you’re working for.”

Her skin prickled. It wasn’t the threat.

It was the dark note in his voice, rough, intimate, too close to something she wanted and shouldn’t.

That shift unsettled her. It blurred the edge between fight and surrender, between danger and desire.

And suddenly, she didn’t know which one scared her more.

She should’ve been afraid. She was. But not of him, not exactly.

Zane took another step, and suddenly there was no air between them again. Just his body, too close, too warm. The scent of blood and soap and something else, something male and clean and sharp, wrapped around her like a net.

“You think I’m lying to you?” she asked.

“I think I want to know how far down you went before you realized someone else was pulling the strings,” he murmured. “And I want to know what kind of woman keeps digging anyway.”

His hand came up, not to touch, not yet. Just a hover, his fingers near the curve of her cheek, like he was testing whether she’d flinch.

She didn’t.

The tension snapped tight between them. Her breath stuttered. The blanket slipped an inch lower.

Zane noticed.

His eyes dipped, just once. And when they came back to hers, they were darker. Searing.

“Careful,” she said, voice unsteady.

“Of you?”

“Of what happens if you keep looking at me like that.”

His fingers brushed her cheek then. Just barely. Just enough.

“I’m already looking.”

Lily’s pulse kicked hard, her breath catching as heat flushed down her neck. The air between them shimmered, charged with something reckless. Something that didn’t care about common sense or consequences.

His hand dropped, brushing her shoulder where the blanket had slipped again, fingertips warm and deliberate.

Lily stiffened, half a second of instinct, of alarm, before the sensation bled into something else.

Not comfort. Not exactly. But heat. Awareness.

Her skin lit up where he touched her, her body betraying her resolve.

Then his fingertips grazing bare skin as he adjusted the edge, slowly, deliberately.

Not to cover her. Just to remind her he could.

She should’ve pulled away. Should’ve shut it down.

Instead, she tilted her chin up. “You planning to interrogate me or seduce me?”

Zane’s mouth curved, more threat than promise. “Why not both?”

Lily’s mouth opened, but nothing came out. The desire hovering between them was unbearable now, threaded with hunger, with danger, with the sharp edge of a choice neither of them wanted to acknowledge.

He didn’t step back.

Instead, Zane’s fingers moved lower, brushing the edge of the blanket again. Slipping beneath it this time. Just enough to feel the curve of her breast, the bare line of skin hidden beneath. His touch wasn’t soft, it was claiming. Testing.

It sent a shock through her, equal parts alarm and arousal, a raw spike of awareness that made her knees weaken and her fists clench. She hated the way it made her feel, branded, exposed, wanted. Like she was his, and they both knew it.

Lily’s breath hitched. Her body leaned forward of its own accord, and the blanket slipped once again, baring her from the waist up.

“You really think this is a good idea?” she whispered.

“No,” he said roughly. “I think it’s a terrible one.”

His eyes searched hers like he wanted to find a reason to stop. And couldn’t.

“Tell me to back off,” he said.

She didn’t. Couldn’t. The words refused to come.

And that was all it took.

Zane reached between them and stripped the blanket from her body in one swift, unapologetic motion, letting it fall to the floor.

The air hit her skin like a jolt, every inch of her exposed, defenseless, and burning.

She froze, her breath gone, her skin tightening with the sudden exposure.

Vulnerability slammed into her, raw, electric, total.

She wanted to cover herself, to claw back space or distance, but she couldn’t move. Not when his eyes raked over her like a fiery brand. Not when the hunger in his gaze didn’t even try to hide.

Before she could even gasp, he yanked her into his arms. One arm locked tight around her waist, dragging her against the hard lines of his chest. The other threaded into her hair, holding her, breath to breath.

Then his mouth crashed against hers, hot, punishing, full of everything they hadn’t said and everything they couldn’t seem to stop.

She melted into it, into him, into the heat and the fury and the wild tangle of need that had no business existing.

Desire surged, hot, humiliating, addictive.

Shame curled at the edges of it, but not enough to stop her.

Not when his mouth claimed hers like she was something worth taking.

Not when every part of her ached for more, for the raw connection she hadn’t asked for and couldn’t turn off.

Not when the impossible pull between them had been building from the moment he pinned her to the wall and refused to look away.

It was a kiss that dared them both not to feel.

And neither of them stood a chance.