A soft sound behind me. I turn too fast and nearly betray the whole thing. Zatanna stands in the doorway to the hall in one of my shirts.
Nothing else, as far as I can tell.
It hangs off one shoulder, the hem brushing the tops of her thighs, moonlight catching the loose dark fall of her hair. She looks half asleep and sinfully soft all at once.
“Can’t sleep?” she asks, voice low and rough from sleep.
I move before she can come farther into the room. One smooth step sideways. The ring disappears into my pocket.
Her gaze sharpens slightly. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
She narrows her eyes. “That looked like something.”
I shrug, too calm. “You were asleep.”
“Apparently not anymore.”
She takes a few slow steps toward me, bare feet silent on the tile. The shirt shifts with her movement, showing more skin than it hides. My thoughts derail so fast I almost laugh at myself.
Good. Want is easy. Want I know how to handle.
The ring in my pocket, the thoughts in my head, the possibility that I brought my grandmother’s heirloom to a villa because some doomed part of me already knows who it would fit best on?—
That I do not know how to handle.
So, I do the only thing that makes sense.
I distract her.
When she gets close enough to touch, I catch her wrist and pull.
She gasps once, soft and startled, then lands in my lap as I drop into the armchair behind me, bringing her down over one thigh with just enough force to make the breath leave both of us.
“Aleksei—”
I kiss her before she can finish, and hopefully hard enough to erase questions.
She melts into it faster than pride would allow her to admit, one hand going to my shoulder, the other to the back of my neck, and for a few perfect seconds there is no ring, no inheritance, no future beyond the warm, willing body in my lap.
Her mouth opens under mine, sweet and sleepy and immediately heated, and I slide one hand up under the shirt she’s wearing until I find warm skin and the soft underside of her breast.
She shivers.
“There you are,” I murmur against her lips.
“That,” she says, already breathless, “was suspiciously convenient.”
“Was it?”
“Yes.”
I drag the shirt farther down her arm and push the fabric aside until one breast spills free into my hand. Her breath catches and her head tips back just enough to give me access.
Perfect. I lower my mouth to her.
The nipple tightens under my tongue the instant I touch it, and she makes that low, helpless sound I am becoming dangerously addicted to. I suck gently at first, then harder when her fingers tangle in my hair, encouraging, needy.
