My pulse fluttered. “Wolf…”
“I wasn’t planning on leaving your room,” he added quietly. “Not tonight. Not any night until this man is caught. Maybe not after that either.
My breath caught.
Hard.
“You were… planning to stay with me?” I whispered.
“I was,” he said. “I am.”
Emotion surged through me—fear, relief, heat, tenderness—all tangled into something that felt dangerously like falling.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked softly.
“I didn’t want to overwhelm you,” he said. “Your safety is already a lot to take in. And I didn’t want you thinking it was about last night. Or that I was assuming anything.”
“It wasn’t about last night?” I asked, voice small.
He searched my face. “It was partly about last night.”
I looked down, heart hammering.
He tipped my chin up with two fingers.
“Nora,” he murmured, “I’m not going to pretend I don’t want to be in your bed. Holding you. Keeping you safe. Feeling you breathe next to me.”
His thumb brushed my cheek. “But even if nothing happened, even if you didn’t want anything more tonight… I’m still not leaving you alone.”
Warmth spread through me so fast it made my knees weak.
“That’s not overwhelming,” I whispered. “That’s… comforting.”
His brows lifted slightly in surprise. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
I stepped closer, letting my fingers rest lightly on his chest. “In fact… I thought you were staying in your room tonight.”
He gave a soft, humorless laugh. “No chance.”
Silence stretched, thick and intimate.
Then he leaned down, lips close to my ear.
“Say the word, Nora,” he murmured, voice rough velvet. “Tell me you want me in your room tonight.”
I shivered. “I do.”
His breath left him in a slow, controlled exhale—as if those two words unraveled something inside him.
But he didn’t kiss me.
Not yet.
Instead, he pressed his forehead to mine, steady and grounding.
“Then I’m yours,” he whispered. “All night.”
