My jaw drops before I can stop it. “You bought a house after a week of us dating?”
Talon tilts his head, ginger hair catching the recessed light. “Oh… What happened to this being just alittle arrangement? We’re dating now?”
I bark out a laugh, sharp and incredulous. “You’re insane.”
Dredyn’s voice rumbles behind me. “It’s not insane. It’s smart.” His big hand settles on my hip, hot even through my sweater. “Means you’ve got somewhere that’s ours. Somewhere your daddy’s hounds can’t sniff you out.”
“Ours,”I echo, pulse jumping. “You make it sound like I’m… property.”
His smirk sharpens. “You walked through that door, didn’t you?”
Heat blooms low in my stomach, traitorous and infuriating. I turn to Jasper, desperate for sanity. He hasn’t moved, still against the wall. His eyes are steady, pale, unreadable. But when they meet mine, something in me knots tighter. He knew too. He let Talon pull this stunt.
I shake my head, laughing nervously. “This is insane. You can’t just—just buy a house and expect meto?—”
Talon cuts in, smooth as silk. “Expect you to what? Use it? Enjoy it? Hide here when the marble palace gets too suffocating?” He steps close enough that his cologne curls around me, rich and sharp. “It’s not a cage, darling. It’s a door. You get to choose whether you walk through it.”
The words land warm and ridiculous against my skin. Talon’s grin is smug enough to make me want to sock him, but something in his tone is gentle, almost reverent. For once, I believe him, and my chest loosens like a fist unclenching.
Dredyn’s hand tightens at my hip, firm and possessive. “You doing the walking or am I carrying you again?” he rumbles, amusement threaded through that warning-voice he uses when he wants to tease and terrify at the same time.
I flick him off with my eyes and step forward—daring, reckless. “You can carry me if you want,” I say. He laughs, a sound that vibrates through my ribs and straight into my frozen heart.
Talon pads over to the couch and sits, palms flat on his knees, eyes dark with mischief.
Dredyn lets go of my hip and steps back, his gaze cutting into me. “You’ve been locked in Daddy’s mausoleum long enough. Tonight, you stay here. Eat. Sleep.”
I bite my lip, heat crawling up my neck. “I didn’t come here just to eat and sleep,” I blurt, the words louder than I mean. “I—God—Dredyn, do the thing with your fingers again.”
“You want my fingers again, Hellcat?” he taunts, low and rough.
Heat floods me. I nod before I can think better of it. “Yes.”
“Good,” he says, stepping closer. “Because I can do a hell of a lot more than that.”
Behind him, Talon lets out a low whistle. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he says, sounding half impressed, half amused. “The princess came all this way because she missed us.”
I feel Dredyn tense, and he pulls back slightly to scowl over his shoulder at Talon. “Shut it, Reed,” he snarls, though there’s no real heat in it.
Talon holds up his hands in a placating gesture, but his grin doesn’t fade. “Can you blame me for enjoying this? It’s not every day the damsel climbs down her ivory tower to cavort with the dragons.” He winks at me, and a tiny laugh escapes me.
“You’re something else,” Dredyn says as he brushes a strand of my hair behind my ear
I open my mouth to reply, but someone else steps up beside us.
Jasper.
He doesn’t touch me yet, just watches, making sure. The way he waits feels like permission and possession at the same time. Talon and Dredyn melt back almost—an unspoken agreement between them—and leave an opening.
Jasper’s fingers brush a stray curl from my temple with almost religious gentleness. He cups my jaw, thumbs warm on my cheekbones, and leans down until his mouth is nearly on mine.
His kiss is slow enough to unsettle me and fierce enough to promise that he means it. He doesn’t devour me, he traces me, learns the shape of my mouth and the small noises I make. My knees wobble. I close my eyes and give myself to the motion.
It isn’t clumsy with inexperience, it’s reverent. Jasper’s hands settle on my hips and pull me a fraction closer, patient, measured. He moves his lips against mine with a tenderness that’s edged in hunger. I taste myself on him—salty, desperate, real—and it sparks a volcanic want that scares and delights me.
He tilts my face up toward his, asking me with his eyes. “Do you want this?”
I answer by lifting up on my toes and closing the gap, pressing my lips to his in another soft, trembling kiss.
