After a beat, he nods. “I don’t. But coming from you… it might be all right.”
I stroke his ear as I pet him, and he makes a sound in his throat almost like a purr.
“I mean, ritzy Wall Street investor was not really on my romantic radar at all before this…”
Rupert snorts.
“But I get the sense that’s not who you are now,” I finish.
He falls still under my hand, but I keep running my fingers over his ear and through his mane, untangling it as I go. Though he isn’t moving, his long, scaly tail winds around my ankle, caressing me.
“I hope not,” Rupert eventually says. “I want to believe I’m a better person now. But I have nothing to go on. I’ve been here, interacting only with Kellen and Giancarlo, for more than a decade.” He shudders. “What if I am still that man? What if this were undone, would I simply become him again?”
Undone?That thought hits me in the belly. I can’t imagine Rupert being anyone but himself. I don’t like that idea.
“You wouldn’t.” I lean down next to him, curling my arm around his broad shoulder and only reaching partway. “You aren’t greedy or cutthroat, Rupert. You are kind and earnest, though a little touchy.”
“If only you knew.”
I laugh. “I have an idea after the morning I was late and Kellen came out, furious. You had driven him a little crazy, I think.”
Now that he’s lifted the weight of truth from his spirit, I wonder if Rupert is willing to be himself with me. I bring mylips to the side of his face, where his scales recede and fur takes over, and gently brush them over his skin.
His whole body shivers underneath me.
“Rupert.” I skim upward toward his ear, just gently breathing on it. He gasps, and his ear flicks. I can feel him swallow hard.
“Yes?”
“If you could do anything,” I ask quietly, right in his ear, “what would you do with me?”
He goes still for so long I wonder if I’ve broken him. Then, his arm snakes out and clutches me around the waist, bringing me in against the side of the chair. Now his head is level with my chest, his horns curling away from me.
“Anything?” he asks, leaning closer, so his muzzle is almost between my breasts.
“Anything.”
He huffs in a breath. “I would take you to my bedroom. Now.”
nineteen
. . .
rupert
“Are you ready for that?” Peony asks.
I would not have said it if I weren’t. Just bringing her not-lavender smell into my nostrils, I can already feel my sheath parting, my cock emerging from it.
She heard my story. She did not run away. She comforted me, and was honest with me, and for the first time in a decade, I felt fully seen.
“Yes,” I say.
“You’ll have to show yourself to me.” Peony peers down and searches my gaze. “This goes two ways, Rupert.”
I nod, understanding her rules.
“And like I said, I may need time,” she adds. “The way it takes time to get to know any lover.”
