The lemon oil on her rag was sharp and clean, a smell of order and care that cut through the lingering scent of boot polish and male sweat the soldiers had tracked in. Elisabeth worked the cloth in tight, furious circles over the veined marble of the hallway floor, the muscles in her forearms corded with the effort. The rag was hers. The oil was hers. This ritual, this defiance of entropy, was the last thing she truly owned.

Footsteps echoed, deliberate and unhurried, from the shadowed end of the corridor. She didn’t need to look up to know their weight, their cadence. She polished harder.

The footsteps stopped a yard away. “You should be in your quarters.”

Colonel Moreau’s voice was rough, like stone dragged over stone. It was not a suggestion.

Elisabeth didn’t look up. The rag whispered over the stone. “This is still my home. Dirt has no respect for curfews.”

His polished boots entered the edge of her vision. They were scuffed now, the leather marked by gravel and something darker that might have been mud, or might not. He took a step closer. Then another. She could see the fine grain of the leather, the precise lacing. She could smell him—gun oil, rain-damp wool, and beneath it, the cold, metallic scent of the night itself.

Her hand slowed. Her breath hitched. She kept her eyes on the marble.

“Your home,” he said, the words quiet and final, “is now my command.”

His left hand came into view. It was ungloved. In the low light of the hall sconce, she saw the faint, constant tremor in his fingers. It danced along the tendons, a private rebellion. That hand moved, not toward her shoulder, but toward the base of her throat. Toward the simple silver locket resting there.

His fingertips brushed her skin.

Elisabeth gasped. The touch was electric, startling in its heat. It was not the jarring shock of his brush past her in the doorway. This was focus. This was intention.

Her head snapped up. Her eyes met his. In the dim light, his were black, depthless pools holding a stillness that was more frightening than any anger. His fingers didn’t leave her skin. They rested there, just beside the locket’s chain, the tremor transferring into a tiny, thrilling vibration against her pulse.

“Why do you hide that shake?” The whisper left her before she could stop it.

Something flared in the darkness of his gaze. A crack in the ice. Not anger. Something more dangerous.

He moved. It wasn’t a grab; it was an inexorable pull. One arm banded around her waist, yanking her off her knees and against the hard, unyielding plane of his body. The rag fell from her hand, a soft sound on the stone. The scent of him enveloped her completely—gun oil, rain, man. Her hands came up, flat against his chest, but she didn’t push. She felt the rapid, strong beat of his heart under her palms, the coarse wool of his uniform against her skin.

“Because weakness gets people killed,” he murmured, his lips inches from hers. His breath was warm. It smelled of coffee and something bleak, like cold steel.

She was trembling. She could feel the proof of his words in the tremor of his hand where it now splayed against the small of her back, holding her fast. But his other arm, the right one, was rock-steady as it caged her.

“But you…” His voice dropped, a raw scrape of sound. His gaze fell to her mouth. “You make me want to forget the war.”

It was a confession. It was an accusation.

Elisabeth’s mind went blank. All that existed was the heat of him, the solidity, the forbidden promise in his words. Forget. Her lips parted. Not to speak. To breathe him in.

He closed the distance.

His mouth captured hers. It was not a claiming kiss of practiced ease. It was hard. Desperate. A starvation. His lips were firm, demanding a response she didn’t know how to give until she was already giving it. A small sound escaped her throat, and she kissed him back. Her fingers curled into the wool of his tunic, clinging.

He groaned, a low, pained sound that vibrated through her. His steady hand came up, fingers threading into the hair at her nape, loosening her braid. His trembling hand slid from her back to her hip, gripping her through the thin cotton of her dress, pulling her tighter against him. She felt the hard ridge of his arousal against her belly.

The truth of it, the sheer physical fact, shot through her like lightning. Heat pooled low in her own belly, a sudden, slick ache. Her body arched into his of its own volition.

He tore his mouth from hers, his breathing ragged. He rested his forehead against hers, his eyes shut tight. The tremor in his hand on her hip was a frantic drumbeat.

“See?” he breathed, the word tortured. “This is the weakness.”

He was hard against her. She was wet for him. In the middle of a hallway in her occupied home, with war just beyond the walls. It was insanity.

Elisabeth found her voice, thin and frayed. “Is it?”

His eyes opened. He searched her face, looking for mockery, for fear. She gave him neither. She was just there, in his arms, her gray eyes wide and dark with the same hunger he felt.