Page 25 of Knot Your Sugar

I mentally shake myself.Get a grip, Mercer.This is exactly the kind of distraction I don’t need. Attachments, even fleeting ones, are a liability in my line of work. I’ve seen good men, good firefighters, try to juggle the demands of the job with a personal life. It rarely ends well. Missed anniversaries, forgotten school plays, the constant, gnawing anxiety in their partners’ eyes every time the alarm bells rang. The job always demands its pound of flesh. And I chose this path a long time ago. No room for… complications.

Just as I’m about to drift into an exhausted doze, a sound from next door jerks me back to full alertness. It’s soft at first, a little sigh, then more distinct. A moan. Unmistakably feminine. Unmistakably… intimate.

My body reacts before my brain even has a chance to process the input. Blood, which mere moments ago was peacefully considering a nap across my extremities, stages a sudden rush south. I bolt upright on the couch, every sense on high alert, suddenly very,veryaware of just how paper-thin the walls in this building must be.

Another moan. Slightly louder this time, a little more breathy. The sound slides down my spine like warm, illicit honey, pooling low in my gut with an insistent throb. My uniform pants, already a bit snug after a day of festival food samples, suddenly feel three sizes too small.

Before I can engage any form of rational thought or gentlemanly behavior, I’m on my feet. And then, to my own internal horror, I’m at the wall. The shared wall. My ear pressed against the cool, cheap plaster, straining like some kind oflow-budget spy to hear more. My body, meanwhile, is having an absolute field day, reacting to the muffled sounds with an intensity that is both startling and mortifying. The hardening in my pants is powerful, and frankly a little insulting given my usual iron-clad control.

My hand, now seemingly operating under its own rogue command system, moves of its own accord. Palm pressing against the insistent bulge, then beginning to rub, slow and tentative at first, through the rough fabric of my pants. The friction, combined with the increasingly urgent symphony of pleasure from next door, sends jolts of new heat up my spine. I squeeze my eyes shut, lost in the surprisingly potent rhythm of her sounds and my own increasingly desperate movements.

This isn’t me.This is not Lieutenant Cole Mercer, dedicated public servant, paragon of discipline. I don’tdothis. I don’t eavesdrop on strangers. I don’t… respond to anonymous moans like a teenager with his first Playboy magazine. I am controlled. I am professional. Yet here I am, a slave to a soundwave, my composure melting faster than a vinyl chair in a house fire. Her moans are growing more frequent now, more breathless, more urgent, and each one is a direct command to my own body.

My breathing quickens, unintentionally trying to match the rhythm from next door. The hand against my pants moves faster, harder, chasing a release that feels both inevitable and deeply shameful.Stop this. You need to stop this, Cole.But her sounds… they’re intoxicating, a siren song luring my primal alpha instincts out of the deep, dark cave where I usually keep them locked away.

A particularly sharp, almost broken gasp from 3A makes my hips buck involuntarily against my hand, smacking it on the wall with a sharpthud. I bite down hard on my lip to keep my own groan from escaping, my free hand bracing against the wallas if I could somehow absorb the vibrations of this… auditory torment.

Then, just as abruptly as it began, the moaning from next door stops. Cut off. For a split second, my own body continues its frantic rhythm, and then, with a final, shuddering release, it’s over for me.

What. The. Hell. Was. I. Doing?

I stumble back from the wall like it’s suddenly white-hot as the moans next door resume, my hand falling away from my body, a sticky warmth blooming on my pants. Shame, potent and suffocating, washes over me in hot, relentless waves.

This isn’t who I am. I don’t lose control like this. I’m not some… some rutting animal, driven solely by instinct and the proximity of a female in pleasure.

And yet… that’s exactly what just happened. God, her disembodied moans are like a spark and I'm dry tinder. In fifteen years of fighting actual, literal fires, I’ve never felt so utterly out of control.

I draw a long, unsteady breath, fighting to slow my racing pulse and gather the fragile remains of my self-respect…

Right. Introducing myself to my neighbor. On second thought…Mayyybe it’s better if I just… don’t.Ever.

Chapter fourteen

Elena

The glossy, dark chocolate ganache is doing an unappetizing imitation of mud as I attempt to pipe it into perfect spirals.

This morning's three-hour feedback workshop is all about the delicate art of chocolate work. The assignment is simple: create anything cocoa-based that speaks to us.

But despite chugging down a double dose of DuoBlocks with my coffee this morning, I am struggling to focus. My thoughts keep skittering away toward the X-rated triple-feature that I played out in my shower last night, and the ever-present worry that not even the increased dose will keep me from unraveling like a chocolate teapot.

"Your temper is off,sugar."

I jump, nearly sending a blob of ganache flying. James is standing beside me, radiating an infuriating aura of alphaconfidence, eyeing my chocolate catastrophe with a look that’s one part pity, two parts ‘I told you so’ (even though he hasn’t actually told me anything yet). To think we're stuck together foreveryteam event, judged or not… A fact that was a minor annoyance yesterday has morphed into a major source of internal turmoil.

"It's fine," I mutter, though even I can see the dull, streaky mess I’m producing. He’s right. Again. The ganache is too warm, verging on soupy.

"Here." He doesn’t ask, just reaches over, and expertly adjusts the temperature of the water bath cradling my bowl of ganache, adding a few ice cubes. "You want it glossy, remember? Just below body temperature. Firm enough to hold its shape, but still fluid enough for a clean pipe. Think silk, not sludge."

I grit my teeth. Ihatethat he’s right, but I nod, a curt, jerky movement. James might be an insufferable, egotistical peacock, but the man knows his way around a cocoa bean.

We lapse into a tense, chocolate-scented silence for the next few minutes. He, naturally, proceeds to craft a series of impossibly delicate chocolate curls while I struggle to make my ganache behave.

Around us, the workshop hums with the low-key panic of other contestants: the muffled, increasingly creative cursing from the station where someone’s chocolate has seized into a solid brick; the heartbroken sigh of a baker whose white chocolate mousse has just decided to collapse. It’s a symphony of culinary despair.

"So," James begins, his voice a low, casual drawl that’s far too close to my ear for comfort, "quite the eventful evening you had last night, eh?"

His tone, dangerously familiar, immediately puts me on high alert, a twist coiling in my belly. "Oh?" I manage, failing to sound casual.

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