He nuzzled my neck—right where the bite mark still throbbed—and something between a sigh and a whimper climbed up my throat. I pressed my lips together to trap it. My hands gripped the edge of the closet door, knuckles white, because if I let go I was going to turn around and do something reckless.
“Rocco, I don’t think we should be doing this.”
The words came out breathless. Unconvincing. Even I didn’t believe them.
His lips brushed the shell of my ear. “You heard Rose. It’ll take two hours until the spell is ready.”
Two hours. Alone. In this bedroom. With his hands on my skin and his blood still humming through my veins.
And Rose and Valentin just on the other side of the door—but right now, I couldn’t bring myself to care.
This was either going to be the best or worst decision I ever made.
“Rocco.” I was going to ask him to stop, but it sounded more like a plea, a plea for him to keep going.
His lips traced a slow, burning path down the side of my throat, each kiss lingering long enough to make my pulse stutter.
My eyes fluttered shut. My head tipped back against his shoulder without my permission, giving him access I shouldn’t have been offering. His mouth found the hollow at the base of my neck and I bit down on my bottom lip to keep from making a sound I couldn’t take back.
He was waking something up inside me. Something I’d spent two years burying—smothering under anger and distance and the constant, exhausting work of pretending I didn’t need him. Something tender and reckless and terrifyingly hopeful that lived in the same place the bond did, right behind my ribs where it hurt the most.
Something that could get destroyed if I let it out and he shut me down again.
I opened my eyes. Stared at the wall in front of me. Made myself ask the question even though I was afraid of the answer.
“Am I just a distraction until the spell is done?”
His mouth stilled against my skin. His hands tightened on my shoulders—not painfully, but like my words had hit something he wasn’t prepared for.
The silence lasted three heartbeats. I counted every one of them.
“No.” The word was rough, almost raw, like it had been scraped from somewhere deep inside him.
His hands slid from my shoulders, gripping me gently and turning me around to face him. I looked up and his eyes caught mine—dark, burning, stripped of every wall he’d ever built between us. There was no mask. No prince. No careful distance. Just Rocco, staring at me like I was the only thing in the world that mattered.
His thumb slid along my jaw, tilting my face up toward his.
“I’ve tasted you once.” His voice dropped low, the words vibrating between us like a confession dragged out against his will. “I want to taste all of you.”
My breath left me. My knees nearly buckled. The air between us turned molten—thick and charged and heavy with two years of denied longing.
This wasn’t a distraction. The way he looked at me—like he was starving and I was the only thing that could save him—that wasn’t a man killing time.
That was a man who’d finally stopped running.
And I knew, as he slowly skimmed his fingertips across my skin, leaving a trail of fire, I was going to let him catch me.
Cool air kissed my bare skin, but I didn’t feel cold. Not with the way his eyes moved over me—slow, reverent, like he was seeing something sacred and couldn’t quite believe it was real.
He swept me up into his arms as if I weighed nothing. I looped my hands around his neck, my fingers brushing the warm skin at his nape, and felt his pulse hammering beneath my touch. Fast. Hard. He wasn’t as steady as he was pretending to be.
He laid me on the bed, the blue comforter soft beneath my back, and braced himself over me. His dark hair fell forward, framing his face, and for a moment he just looked at me. Really looked at me. Like he was memorizing every detail in case this turned out to be a dream he’d wake up from.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” His voice was strained, barely controlled, the words costing him everything. “Once we consummate the bond?—“
He was giving me a way out. Even now—with his body trembling over mine and two years of denial crumbling around him—he was giving me the choice he’d taken away before.
I reached up and pulled him down to me.
