He devoured it.Not hastily. Not rudely. Just with a focus that told her he’d needed it more than he’d realized. She watched his throat work as he swallowed. Watched the way his shoulders eased fraction by fraction, tension bleeding out of himwith everybite.
She’d seen him eat like that before.After a long day.After a problem solved.After he’d been forced to hold too much for too many people.But tonight it was different. Tonight it wasn’t satisfaction. It was survival.
And the way it made something inside her tighten and loosen all at once was almost unbearable.This is how I love him, she thought. This is how I’ll remember it.She took a slow breath, tasting the air. The house smelled like warm bread and the faint clean scent of Alaric’s cologne, dulled by the day’s cold and the cemetery earth.
When he finished, he pushed the bowl aside and reached for her hand.Just that. No pull. No heat.Grounding contact.
His thumb brushed once over her knuckles, slow and absent, like he was reminding himself she was real.”Come sit,” he murmured.
Sera’s throat tightened. It would be so easy to fold into that invitation. To sit at the table and let him hold her hand while the rest of the world waited outside the door. To talk about nothing. To breathe through the night until exhaustion made everything softer.
But softness wasn’t something she could risk.Not tonight.She shook herhead. “Not yet.”
His eyes narrowed slightly. Not in suspicion. In attention.
She stepped closer instead, until she was within his reach, and placed both hands on his chest.His shirt was still warm from his body, his heartbeat steady beneath her palms.
His breath hitched at the contact. Subtle. Regulated.
But she felt it.Sera gathered what resolve she had left.This was the night.
She’d known it the moment she’d stepped back into the hallway after Lily, the proof hanging over her like a storm cloud. She’d known it the moment she’d returned to Alaric’s side and met his gaze without flinching.
Tomorrow was coming. Lily would deny the proof. The world would demand a choice. And Sera had lived long enough to know that men like Alaric made choices the way they made deals.
Measured. Pragmatic. Justified.
And if he chose her only when it was safe, only when it was clean, only when it didn’t risk the family line or the Severin name, then she couldn’t stay.Not because she didn’t love him.Because she did.Too much.And she wouldn’t survive being held as aconditional thing.
She lifted her gaze to his.Her mouth was dry. Her heart was loud.”Please,” she said.That was all she could manage.One word.A request and a surrender and an ending wrapped together so tightly she could barely breathe aroundit.
Alaric didn’t ask what she meant.He didn’t question timing or motive.His chair scraped softly as he stood. His hands came to her waist, firm and sure, and then he lifted her into hisarms.
The sudden shift of being held made her lungs stutter.She tucked her face against his shoulder and breathed him in.His scent. Clean and masculine, with something darker beneath it, the kind of intensity that never truly left him. The warmth of his body. The solid musculature of hisarms.
The Dante Brand on her palm pulsed faintly, as if it recognized the moment. Not gentle. Not comforting.Demanding.
Alaric carried her down the hall. Inside the bedroom. Past the bed.Surprise flickered, aquestion forming, and then he paused and reached out with one hand to switch on the gas fireplace.The soft rush of flame filled the room with warmth and light. Fire danced low and steady behind the glass, turning the space into something intimate and private and suspended.He crossed the roomand lowered her carefully onto the thick throw rug in front ofit.
The fibers were soft beneath her palms when she steadied herself.The firelight painted him in gold and shadow.It made him look older. Not aged, but… stripped. Like the day had scraped away the smooth surface and left the man underneath exposed in the flicker of flame.
He knelt in front of her.Slowly.As if he wasn’t sure she would still be there if he moved too fast.His hands came to the hem of her dress.
Sera let herself breathe.Let herself experience every second of it.He didn’t rush. He didn’t tug.He eased the fabric upward with care, lifting it over her knees, her thighs, her hips, his gaze following his hands as if the act itself mattered.
Reverence. That was what it was. Not hunger. Not conquest. Reverence.
Sera’s chest tightened.This is goodbye, she thought.The words didn’t come with drama. They came with clarity.She reached for him, fingers slipping to his shoulders, the line of his jaw, the rough shadow of stubble there. She touched him like she was trying to learn him all over again, as if she could carry the memorybeneath herskin.
He lifted his gaze to her face.Something in his eyes shifted.He didn’t ask.He didn’t speak.He just leaned in and kissed her.Not hard.Not demanding.A slow press of his mouth against hers, like a promise he didn’t know he was making.
Sera made a small sound and wrapped her arms around his neck.The kiss deepened, still unhurried, his hands moving to her back, her waist, the curve of her hip. He pulled her close enough that she could feel the strength in him, the restraint, the way he held himself back evennow.
She didn’t want restraint tonight.Not in the way he always used it.But she also didn’t want to be taken.She wanted to be loved.And in the firelight, on the rug, with his hands moving slowly over her skin, the love slipped through. Easy. Gentle. Definite.
He eased her dress the rest of the way off and set it aside.He undressed her like he was unwrapping something precious, his hands lingering at her shoulders, her arms, her waist. His mouth followed, kisses pressed to warm skin, each one a quiet claim.
Sera shivered.Not from cold.From the way tenderness could become like pain when you knew it was temporary.She reached for him again, fingers sliding under the hem of his shirt.He lifted his arms, let herpull it up and over his head.She ran her hands down his chest.The solid plane of muscle. The steady heart beneath. The faint scar near his ribs she’d traced before.
