“I knew something changed,” he said. “I didn’t know what it was. Or that it was you.Not until today.”
Her hand lifted again, slower this time, hovering near hispalm.
“Is it always like this?” she asked quietly, as if afraid that saying it out loud might make it worse. Her gaze flicked to his mouth, then to his hand, then back to his eyes. “This pressure. This heat. Like my body already knows something my head hasn’t caught up to yet.”
“Yes.”
Her fingers brushed him.
The contact was electric.
Alaric’s breath locked in his chest as the Brand flared under her touch, heat racing up his arm and straight down to his cock. Sera inhaled sharply, her pupils dilating.
She didn’t pull away.
Neither did he.
The space between them collapsed.
Her mouth met his in a kiss that was anything but tentative, fierce, desperate, fueled by days of restraint snapping all at once. His hand came up without permission, fingers threading into her hair, tipping her head back just enough to deepen it, to take more. The kiss turned hungry fast, mouths opening, breath tangling, the sound of it uncontained inthe quietroom.
She made a sound low in her throat, desperate and unguarded, and pressed closer, her body answering him before her mind could catch up. Heat and softness and urgency collided between them as he pulled her in, fitting her to him, his palm sliding down her back to her waist. He dragged her closer there, possessive, the contact over clothes still electric, still toomuch.
Her fingers slid from his shirt to his shoulders, then under the edge of his shirt, working the buttons and shoving it back just far enough to bare skin. She touched him like she needed proof he was real, her hands roaming, clutching, learning. His other hand followed instinct, spanning her hip, then curving around to cup her ass, squeezing once through fabric.
She gasped into his mouth.
The sound wrecked him.
He broke the kiss only to take her again, his mouth trailing to the corner of hers, then back, not letting her go, not letting her settle. Her breath came fast and shallow now, chest rising hard against his as his hand slid higher along her side, thumb brushing the edge of her jacket, threatening to push it off her shoulder.
They hovered there, right on the edge, bodies tight, hands everywhere and nowhere all at once, close enough thatundressing her became inevitable, close enough that stopping was like tearing somethingopen.
It took everything he had tostop.
Alaric broke the kiss abruptly, breath ragged, forehead resting againsthers.
“No,” he said hoarsely. “Not yet.”
She was breathing just as hard, eyes dark, lips swollen. “You don’t get to tell me that,” she whispered.
“I do,” he said, forcing control back into his voice. “Because if we cross that line right now, there’s no going back. And we need evidence of your innocence… or your guilt.”
Her hands were still clenched in his shirt.
Slowly, she let go.
The distance between them returned, thin and aching and charged with promise.
They stood there like that, neither willing to move first, the air between them heavy with everything unsaid.
The Brand burned.
And neither of them pretended it didn’t.
Chapter 6
THE DISTANCE BETWEENSera and Alaric returned, thin and aching and charged with promise.
