I trace the fading cut at his throat with the edge of my finger.
He goes still.
“You like it,” I say quietly.
His gaze doesn’t leave mine. “Da.”
“I thought you’d hate it or be upset after.”
“I like knowing you can make me bleed.”
A little shiver works through me.
Hot and dangerous.
My fingertip lingers over the mark. “I like it too.”
That changes the air all over again. His hand tightens once against my stomach.
Then he shifts, climbing fully over me now, his weight careful but absolute, all that restless violence banked down into something quieter. More intimate. Which, somehow, feels riskier.
His mouth brushes mine once.
Twice.
Slow enough to make me want to drag him down by the throat and ruin the mood on purpose.
Instead I whisper, “Still never getting a tattoo.”
His forehead drops to mine.
I feel his laugh before I hear it. “We’ll see.”
The words are light.
Too light.
I open my mouth to tell him exactly where he can shove his ink, but the vodka is catching up to me now, warm and mean and softening my edges despite myself. The bed is too comfortable. His body is too heavy in a way my body has already started recognizing as safe, which is probably the most dangerous part of all of this.
My eyelids dip.
He notices immediately.
His thumb strokes once across my side, thoughtful. Possessive. Quiet.
“Tired?”
“Drunk,” I mumble.
“Same thing.”
“It’s not.”
“It is on you.”
I glare at him lazily. “I hate you.”
“No.”
