She laughs—soft, unexpected—after her third glass, and it slips from her mouth like a secret not meant to be shared. Her cheeks are flushed with heat, her eyes glossy with firelight and something softer than I’ve seen from her. It claws at me in ways nothing else ever has.
“You’re trying to get me drunk,” she says, pointing an accusatory finger across the low-lit lounge alcove.
“Trying?” I tilt the bottle, let the crimson liquid coil into her glass like a promise. “Sweetheart, I don’t try. Iachieve.”
She snorts into her drink, but the sound’s unsteady. Her guard’s down. Not gone—never gone—but softened enough that I can see past the walls.
She’s not drunk.
She’s tired.
From fighting. From chasing ghosts. From pretending I haven’t already slid under her skin like a second pulse.
She stands to stretch, a little too fast, and the world tips. Her heel skids on the glossy floor. It happens in a breath—her balance falters, and I’m already moving.
I catch her.
Hands gripping her waist, solid and anchoring, and her breath catches as her chest brushes mine. She stiffens. Not in fear. In tension. In something primal that spikes between us like a live wire. Her fingers splay against my chest, bracing.
And then shelooksat me.
Big, green eyes burning up at me, so close I can see the flecks of gold that only show when she’s not glaring. Her lips part, soft and breathy, and for a heartbeat I see it—want—laid bare on her face. Not lust. Not even need.
Permission.
But I don’t take it.
I don’t close the gap.
Instead, I bring my thumb to her cheek. Just one slow drag along the curve of her jaw. Reverent. Final. A caress instead of a conquest.
“Not tonight,” I murmur, voice rough with everything I’m not doing. “Not until you ask.”
Her breath leaves in a shudder. She blinks, furious and ashamed and wrecked all at once. I step back. Let her go. The loss of her heat is like ripping off my own skin.
I call her transport with a flick of my wrist, and we walk in silence to the exit corridor.
No words.
Just the echo of our footsteps and the hollow roar of everything unsaid.
At the threshold, I touch her again. Light. Ghosting down the line of her spine, from nape to sacrum. She leans into it before she realizes she’s doing it.
And then she’s gone.
Lift doors swallow her whole. I stand there, jaw clenched, wine and stormlight bleeding down the back of my throat like regret.
The restraint wounds us both.
But the wait?
The wait is going to make the fall that much sweeter.
CHAPTER 13
ARIA DAWSON
Iwake to the bitter aftertaste of red wine and regret curled in the back of my throat. The ceiling above me is all too familiar—sterile white with a single hairline crack that’s been staring at me every morning for the last three years. But today, it doesn’t look like a crack. It looks like a fracture line. Like the start of something breaking.
