Overwhelming, aching, euphoric tears slipping free not from hurt but from the sheer depth of feeling safe enough to be this wrecked, this open, and this utterly his.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Red
The room is still heavy with last night, thick with the kind of quiet that only comes after something intense has burned itself out. For a moment, I stay exactly where I am, not touching Blue, just listening to the sound of her breathing and letting the reality of the morning settle into my bones.
She curls toward me, one knee tucked up, her cheek pressed into the pillow like she fell asleep mid-thought. Her hair is a mess of colorful strands across her face and shoulder, and there's a faint crease between her brows that wasn't there before last night.
She looks claimed.
She is.
My chest tightens slowly with possession. I drag my gaze over her, taking inventory of all the ways I marked her. The bite at her throat has already darkened, blooming into a deep bruise that I know she'll feel every time she swallows today. My fingerprints linger on her hips in soft, unmistakable crescents. Her ass has a faint flush and will surely ache when she sits.
A thought sends a sharp, unwanted pull through me.
She asked for that ache.
She needed it.
I gave it to her without holding anything back.
I reach out and trace one finger lightly along her hip, barely touching, and she shifts, pressing closer like her body already knows who it belongs to. Her hand slides over my chest, her palm warm and trusting in a way that settles and unsettles me at the same time.
I love her.
Love isn't something I give lightly. So the word sits heavy in my mind now that the heat of the moment is gone. It's leverage and exposure. It's the one thing that can be used against you if you let it. Yet there's no way I can give her up. And there's no regret in the thought, but there is weight.
Things shifted last night that won't unshift just because the sun came up.
Am I a Dom now?
I stare at her marks, trying to grasp how I've gotten in this spot. In my practice, I've worked with several submissives, and twice with a dominant. I'm aware of the BDSM community, but I never saw an attraction to it.
She needed me to do it.
I enjoyed it.
I run my finger over the bite mark on her collarbone. Another surge of my ego rises, and my cock aches.
The harsh ring of my cell cuts through the room, too sharp and loud in the stillness.
Blue makes a small sound of protest, her body tensing before relaxingagain. I carefully reach for the phone, click the button to send the call to voicemail, and glance at the screen.
The hairs on my arms rise.
Mikhail.
What does he want?
I wait for a voicemail, but nothing comes.
Blue stirs, and her lashes flutter as she drags herself up from sleep. Her eyes find mine almost immediately, soft and unfocused, and she gives me a lazy smile that makes my chest tighten in a way I don't have a name for yet.
"Morning," she rasps.
"Morning, Bluebird," I reply, brushing my thumb over her cheek.
