I took a slow breath, turning back to him and meeting his eyes head-on. He lifted his brow as he took another spoonful of his porridge. Porridge, of all things.
If it weren't for his good looks and youthful physique, anyone would've thought that he would've been my grandfather's age with the way he carried himself. White shirt, dark trousers, all crisp and clean. And that dark hair, perpetually tousled, like he had run his hands through it, one too many times and gave up.
"Well then," I said, letting the challenge bleed into my voice as I lifted my bound wrists between us, "aren't you going to untie me?"
His gaze dropped to the bandages. For a heartbeat, just one, something sharpened in his eyes. Darkened, then ultimately softened, before it vanished behind that infuriating calm as he lifted his coffee again.
"And why," he murmured, "would I do that?"
"Because you brought me here to have breakfast."
"I didn't offer you the food, did I?" he countered.
I blinked, glancing down at the plate in front of me...then back at him.
A smirk tugged at his lips. Dangerous and lazy, almost boyish, if it weren't dripping with cruelty. "Those pancakes could've been for me," he said. "Maybe I put them there just to watch you stare at them."
My stomach knotted painfully, but I kept my expression schooled, shoulders squared.
"You're unbelievable," I muttered.
"I've been called worse." He leaned back in his chair, the picture of unbothered arrogance. "Usually by you."
I narrowed my eyes. "Unlock me."
His gaze dipped to my wrists again. This time, the flicker in his green eyes weren't subtle. It was heat, memory, something unspoken and terribly familiar.
"You want something from me," he said quietly, "you'll have to ask nicely."
The words slid over my skin like a touch, raising heat where there should've been only anger.
I lifted my chin. "Then I'd rather starve."
His smile deepened. Slow, knowing.
"Then starve, Princess. I'm not the one shaking."
I pressed my lips together, glaring at the stack of pancakes like it had personally betrayed me. The buttery smell curled into my lungs, warm and sweet, impossible to ignore. Maple syrup glistened over the top, dripping in slow amber ribbons onto the fluffy cream beside it.
My mouth watered. Traitor.
I glanced back at him. He looked utterly unbothered with his porridge almost gone, coffee half-finished, eyes on his phone like I wasn't dying inside just three feet away from him. While mine still remains untouched.
God, I need my coffee.
Oh, fuck it.
It was either this...or starve to death in front of a man who would enjoy narrating my downfall.
I leaned forward, parted my lips and caught the edge of the pancake between my teeth. A clean, decisive bite, with its maple syrup dripping down my chin. Sticky and sweet. Still, victory exploded on my tongue. Sweet, warm and glorious.
And that was when he looked up, his cup paused halfway to his mouth.
For a moment, he simply stared. As if his mind couldn't quite reconcile with what he was seeing and what he believed I was capable of. It was satisfying to see, as I chewed and leaned down to take another bite.
All while I refused to look away, though something about that seemed to unravel him further. His gaze flicked from my mouth to the pancake still on the plate, then back to me, lingering in a way that made it feel like he was watching something he had no right to want. And yet, couldn't help stop wanting.
"What the hell are you doing?" he breathed, his voice rough around the edges. I couldn't tell if it was disbelief tightening his throat...or something far more primal.
I didn't answer him. I just kept chewing, slow and unbothered, because I was hungry enough to bite into the pancakes like a feral thing.
Whilst I kept my eyes on him.
His gaze stayed locked on mine when I noticed the shift happen in him. The flicker of his shock fading, melting away into something heavier. His posture loosened, the rigid line of his shoulders lowering a fraction. Those green eyes of his darkened, not with anger nor irritation, not with control but with something even far more dangerous.
Something that made the air between us thicken.
"You look feral," he murmured, the words shaped like a taunt but spoken like a confession. "Like a starving little predator."
I smirked around my chew. I couldn't even wipe my mouth. So I let him see all of it. The hunger he instigated in me. The stubbornness, the refusal to submit to his will.
"Maybe I am," I said mid-chew, my voice low. "Maybe you should worry."
His breath hitched. Not loud, but sharp enough that I caught it.
"Is that what you're trying to do?" he murmured, leaning back against his seat as if unfazed, though the tight swallow of his coffee betrayed him. His gaze locked on me, unblinking, hungry. "Trying to seduce your way out of those cuffs?"
The heat in his eyes told me that he knew damn well that it wasn't intentional. That it was worse. This was real.
I tilted my head, syrup still glistening on my lips, and gave him a slow, razor-edged smile.
"I'm hungry," I murmured, letting the words curl lazily between us. "And it would've been terribly boring to die this early...of starvation, no less. It's not like you planned to uncuff me anytime soon. So why," I dragged my tongue across a stray streak of syrup, "do you care how I eat?"
For a moment, he didn't move. Not a breath. Not even a blink.
"It's almost pathetic to think I'd try to seduce you," I added, letting the bite of my words soften into something deliberately careless. I took another slow chew, then lifted my gaze to his, meeting it head-on. "After all...don't you have a missing wife to hunt?"
His jaw snapped tight. And something hot, like anger and grief, want, flared in his eyes. Bright enough to burn me where I sat.
Because I knew he cared. I could see it in every tense line of his body. The way his fingers tightened around his cup, in the way he looked at me like wanting me was a betrayal he didn't have the strength to resist. Watching me eat like this, helpless and hungry, defiant, was undoing him inch by inch.
And nothing gave me more satisfaction than watching his own plan turn against him.
"You're playing with fire," he murmured, his voice low, almost reverent. Like a warning. A promise. "I could kill you for that. Right now. I've killed for less."
I leaned back, letting the syrup shine on my lips, letting him see exactly how unafraid I was.
"Then do it," I whispered.
His breath stilled.