Chapter 183: Untouched

CASSIAN

I turned. My full attention snapped onto them, and both men froze as if they’d walked into a predator’s cage.

“Where did they go?” I asked.

The first coworker looked like he was having a minor medical event. He stuttered out the name of the bar, and I was already walking before he could finish the sentence.

And now, back in the present, a senior staff member was currently mid-anecdote, trying to impress me with a story about a deal he’d closed three years ago.

It was long-winded and transparently self-congratulatory. I checked the time. Five more minutes had already passed. I wasn’t listening. I was thinking about the car. About Noah waiting in the car.

“—and that’s when I told him, I said, the numbers don’t lie—”

I stood up mid-sentence. The man stopped abruptly, his mouth still open.

“Apologies,” I said, putting on my practiced “regret” face. It was believable. “Early morning tomorrow.”

“Of course, sir!”

“Completely understand!”

I was already moving. “Enjoy your evening.”

The cool night air was a relief. The noise of the bar faded behind me, replaced by the low hum of the city. My car was parked across the street, the driver already standing by the door. I crossed the street unhurriedly and slid into the back.

“Home, sir?”

“Drive,” I said.

I turned to the other occupant. Noah was already in his corner, turned away from me, staring out the window. His arms were crossed over his chest, his jaw set. He was pointedly ignoring me.

Sulking, I thought. Adorable. He’s actually sulking.

I let the silence stretch for a long time, watching his profile in the passing streetlights, the tension in his shoulders, the stubborn set of his chin.

“You look like an angry puppy,” I remarked casually.

Noah didn’t even twitch.

“A rabbit, maybe,” I tried again. “When they flatten their ears.”

Still nothing.

His commitment to the silence was actually impressive.

I shifted, sliding across the seat until the space between us vanished. I leaned in, my mouth inches from the shell of his ear, the scent of him, mixed with the faint, lingering traces of my own cologne, filling my head.

“If you keep up this attitude,” I whispered, “I’ll have him pull over. And I’ll fuck you right in the middle of the highway.”

Noah snapped. He turned on me like a cornered cat, his hand flying up to shove against my face. His palm was flat against my mouth, pushing with a strength born of pure, unadulterated fury.

“You HORNY BASTARD!” he hissed.

I didn’t move. I let him shove. I watched him over the bridge of his hand, finding his rage unreasonably enjoyable. Then, slowly, I stuck out my tongue and licked a wet, deliberate stripe across his palm.

Noah recoiled, his face flashing with a mix of shock and heat. He snatched his hand away. “You’re the actual pervert! You’re unbelievable.”

“You’re angry,” I said.

“I’m not angry,” he snapped, his voice trembling with the effort to remain quiet for the driver’s sake. “How can I be angry at my boss? I’m just an assistant. An ’Executive Liaison’ who gets handled in alleys.”

The amusement shifted. Something more level, more grounded, settled into my chest. “You’re allowed to be angry at me, Noah.”

Noah paused. The sarcasm he was preparing stalled in his throat. He looked at me briefly, the seriousness of my expression catching him off guard. He looked away again, his shoulders sagging as his voice dropped to a mutter.

“I don’t have the right to be angry at you. It’s not like I’m entitled to your time.”

I heard it. I always hear everything. The words landed somewhere uncomfortable, a tightness I couldn’t quite name.

He was right. According to every contract, every social norm, every rule of our engagement, he wasn’t entitled to anything..

Our professional relationship didn’t include entitlement. It didn’t include me checking in, or hunting him down, or giving him handjobs in alleys.

And yet, I had done all of it. I had cancelled a follow-up briefing to go to a karaoke bar. I had tracked his location because the thought of him being “out” with people I didn’t know made my skin itch.

The thought appeared before I could stop it: How do I make it up to him?

The question surprised me. Since when did I make things up to people? Since when did I feel the need to balance the scales of someone’s feelings?

I realized then that I didn’t actually know what Noah liked. Not really. I knew the surface things, the dramas, the sweets, the ambiguous relationship he seemed to have with his family, but the rest was a blank map. I had a file on my desk, a background check Reid had compiled a month ago. It was thick with information. Everything Noah Bennett.

And it was untouched.

I had opened every other file Reid had ever given me within minutes of receiving them. I dissected the people around me; I mapped their weaknesses like topographies.

But Noah’s file was gathering dust.

I’d told myself he was irrelevant. Too harmless to be a threat. But as I sat in the back of the car, I realized that wasn’t the truth.

The truth was that if I read that file, Noah would become a subject. He would become an asset or a liability. He would become a weakness to be exploited.

And I didn’t want to use him. I didn’t want to see him as a collection of data points.

The reason I was hesitant was forming slowly as I watched him stare out the window. My mind was elsewhere, my filters down, a rare occurrence.

“I think…” I said, the words coming out quiet, almost to myself. “I think I just want you to tell me yourself… Everything about you Noah.”

The silence that followed was immediate. I registered what I’d said half a second after the words left my lips. It was too honest. Too open.

Noah turned slowly. He looked at me, his eyes wide in the dim light of the car.

“…What?”

I looked back at him, the weight of the admission hanging in the air between us.

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