11
By the time we reached the house again, my body had stopped pretending it wasn’t undone.
The cold no longer shocked me. The snow no longer registered as hostile or beautiful. Everything narrowed to sensation—heat pooling low in my belly, the echo of his mouth between my thighs, the way my body still felt open even though my clothes were back in place.
Cassian didn’t rush me.
That was the cruelest part.
He held my hand as we walked, his grip steady, anchoring, as if he hadn’t just taken me apart and left me trembling on a table in a hunting shelter. As if my legs weren’t still weak. As if my pulse wasn’t still skipping every time his thumb brushed my skin.
We entered through the side door. The house welcomed us with quiet warmth—wood and stone and the low crackle of a distant fire. He removed his boots first, then mine, kneeling without ceremony to unlace them. The intimacy of that simple act hit harder than the explicit things he’d denied me.
“You’re still shaking,” he said, matter-of-fact.
“I’m fine.”
His gaze lifted, sharp and knowing. “You don’t lie well when you’re like this.”
“Like what?”
“Open.”
The word settled into me with weight. Open wasn’t naked. It wasn’t spread or wet or begging.
It was psychological.
He stood and guided me deeper into the house, not toward the bedroom, but toward a smaller room tucked behind the main living space. A study. A place of intention. One wall lined with books. Another with maps—topographic, detailed, marked with notes I couldn’t yet read.
This wasn’t a place for rest.
This was where he decided things.
“Sit,” he said, gesturing to a heavy leather chair.
I did.
He didn’t sit across from me. He leaned against the desk instead, arms crossed, watching me the way he had watched the land earlier. Assessing not what I did—but how I occupied space.
“You’re frustrated,” he said.
“Yes.”
“You’re aroused.”
“Yes.”
“You’re angry about both.”
I exhaled sharply. “You did that on purpose.”
“Yes.”
No apology. No softening.
“I need to know something,” he continued. “Before we go further.”
My pulse thudded. “What?”
