Chapter 1: First Encounter: The Devil in the Glass
The air in the visitation room tasted of stale disinfectant and despair. Sloane Mercer smoothed her hands over the thighs of her tailored trousers, the wool blend expensive and stiff. It was a suit designed for battle, for courtrooms and corporate boardrooms, not for this… this cage. The fluorescent lights hummed a flat, dead note overhead, bleaching all color from the scuffed linoleum floor and the thick, scarred plexiglass that separated her from the man on the other side.
He didn’t look like a caged man.
Damien Voss lounged in the bolted-down chair as if it were a throne, his orange jumpsuit hanging on his frame with a strange, careless grace. His hands, cuffed and resting on the small metal shelf, were elegant, with long fingers that looked like they should be holding a paintbrush, not picking locks. And his eyes… they were a shocking, piercing blue, and they tracked her every movement from the moment the heavy door clicked shut behind her.
Sloane settled into the cold, hard seat opposite him, placing her leather folio on the counter. She didn’t speak first. She never did. Let them break. Let them fill the silence with their guilt, their excuses, their pleas.
A slow, wicked smirk tugged at the corner of Damien’s mouth. He leaned forward, his voice a low, intimate rumble that the speaker system somehow made even more potent. “Counselor. Tell me… do you always defend men you’d rather arrest, or am I special?”
His words hit her like a physical touch, unwanted and electric. She kept her face a mask of professional indifference. “I defend clients, Mr. Voss. The court has appointed me to your case. My personal feelings are irrelevant.”
“I doubt that.” His gaze dropped, a deliberate, slow drag from her eyes, down the column of her throat, over the crisp white silk of her blouse. It felt less like a look and more like a violation, a phantom caress that left a trail of heat on her skin. “I think your feelings are very, very relevant. I can see them fighting right there, in the tight line of your jaw.”
She refused to acknowledge the accuracy of his statement. She opened the folio, the snap of the binder loud in the quiet room. “We need to discuss the evidence the DA has against you. The security footage from the Kensington Museum is—”
“—inconclusive,” he finished for her, his smirk widening. “It shows a blur in black. It could be anyone. They have no fingerprints, no DNA. All they have is… a hunch. And the fact that a Voss was in the city when a multi-million dollar painting vanished.” He shifted in his seat, the chains on his cuffs clinking softly. The sound was obscenely suggestive. “It’s a weak case, and you know it. That’s why you’re really here. You’re bored with the guilty ones. You want a challenge.”
Sloane’s pen stilled on her legal pad. He was dismantling her, piece by piece, with an unnerving precision. She felt a flush creeping up her neck. It was anger, she told herself. Pure, professional fury.
“What I want is to build a defense,” she said, her voice clipped. “Your arrogance isn’t going to help you.”
“My arrogance,” he murmured, leaning so close his breath fogged the glass between them, “is the only thing keeping me from going insane in this shithole. That, and the fascinating view.”
His eyes locked with hers, and for a dizzying second, the room vanished. There was no glass, no guards, no case. There was only his predatory blue gaze and a pull so visceral it felt like a hook in her navel, yanking her toward him. She imagined, with a sudden, shocking clarity, what it would be like to have that focus entirely on her in a different context. Not as a lawyer, but as a woman. To have those hands, uncuffed, on her skin. That mouth on hers. The thought was so vivid, so unwelcome, that a jolt of pure, undiluted lust shot through her, settling low and heavy in her belly.
She crossed her legs, a nervous, reflexive gesture.
His eyes followed the movement, and his smirk turned knowing. “There they are,” he whispered. “Those feelings.”
“Stop it,” she hissed, her composure cracking.
“Why?” he challenged, his voice dropping to a husky, conspiratorial tone. “You think I can’t see the fire under all that ice, Sloane? You think I don’t know what a woman like you needs?”
“You know nothing about me.”
“I know you’re wet right now,” he said, the words crude and deliberate, meant to shock. They did. A hot wave of shame and excitement washed over her. “Just from this. Just from me looking at you, talking to you through this fucking glass. You’re clenched tight, imagining it, aren’t you? Imagining what I’d do to you.”
Her heart hammered against her ribs. She couldn’t breathe. The sterile room felt suffocating, the air thick with a tension that had nothing to do with the law and everything to do with the raw, primal game he was playing.
“I could make you come without ever touching you,” he continued, his voice a dark promise. “Just my voice. Just my words. I could have you squirming in that prim little chair, desperate for it, begging for it before the guard comes back to take me away. Your professional facade in ruins. Because you don’t want a boy, Sloane. You want a man who’s not afraid to take what he wants. A man who sees the wild thing you keep chained up inside and wants to set it free.”
She was frozen, mesmerized by the graphic picture he was painting. Her skin was on fire. The ache between her legs was a relentless, throbbing demand. It was insane. He was a criminal. Her client. And he was right. God, he was right.
She saw it then. Not the fantasy he was spinning, but the reality. Him, pinning her against the cold glass, his body hard and demanding against her back. His hand snaking around her hip, sliding under the waistband of her trousers, those elegant fingers delving into the wet heat he’d so accurately predicted. His mouth on her neck, his teeth scraping her skin as he worked her with a ruthless expertise, his low laugh in her ear as she came apart against him.
The vision was so intense, so explicit, that a small, choked sound escaped her lips.
Damien’s eyes darkened with triumph. He saw the surrender in her face, the crack in her armor. He leaned back, the moment breaking. The smirk was back, but it was softer now, more intimate. “Think about that tonight, Counselor,” he said, his tone casual, as if they’d been discussing the weather. “When you’re alone in your big, empty bed. Think about how much you want to fuck the man you’re supposed to put in a cage.”
The heavy lock on the door behind him clanged open. A guard stepped in. “Time’s up, Voss.”
Damien stood, his movements fluid and unhurried. He didn’t take his eyes off Sloane. He gave her a final, lingering look that felt like a brand, then turned and followed the guard out without a backward glance.
Sloane sat there, trembling, for a full minute after he was gone. The room was silent again, save for the hum of the lights. She could still feel the ghost of his gaze on her skin, the echo of his filthy promises in her ears. She slowly, carefully, gathered her papers and placed them back in her folio. Her hands were not quite steady.
She stood, her legs feeling weak, and walked out of the room on unsteady heels. She had a defense to build, a case to win. But all she could think about was the look in his eyes and the devastating, terrifying truth in his words. He was a challenge, all right. And for the first time in her meticulously controlled life, Sloane Mercer was afraid she was already losing.