“How?”
“You're leaning on me.”
“Oh.” Someone end him now, because she bit her lower lip, and he was dying. Actually dying. The wolf whined, desperate. “Is that bad?” she whispered.
“No. It’s very, very good.” Better than good. Perfect. Like every cell in his body had been waiting for exactly this, for her weight against him, her warmth seeping into his skin, her scent filling his lungs with every breath.
He leaned down to brush her cheek, then her temple, with his lips, and her eyelashes fluttered closed. He kept the touch soft, even as the wolf snarled for more. Screw the wolf. He forcedhimself to go slow, to savor, to give her every chance to change her mind. The last rays of sunlight caught in her hair, and the room around them faded into nothing, just background noise to the only thing that mattered.
Her.
With him.
His lips hovered just above hers, close enough to catch the faint sweetness of the lemonade they had earlier, still lingering there. His heart hammered so hard he wasn’t sure he’d survive it. One last chance. One last moment for her to pull away, to change her mind, to—
She closed the distance between them.
Her lips on his. Soft. Questioning. Almost shy.
It destroyed him.
Heat exploded through his veins, spreading through him in a deluge of want. He growled in his throat, half groan and half surrender, and kissed her back. Savoring the taste of her, the impossible softness of her lips, the way she made a small sound of surprise that turned into something deeper and more dangerous. It made the wolf rumble with satisfaction and punished a man already on the edge of reason.
Her scent intensified and made his head spin worse than any wine ever could. He cupped her face with one hand, his thumb brushing her cheekbone, and deepened the kiss. Still careful, still controlled, even as everything in him screamed to take all.
When her fingers grabbed his hair, the world narrowed to nothing but this: her mouth moving against his, the taste of her on his tongue, the small sounds she made, the way she swayed into him, trusting him to hold her steady.
Time suspended. Stretched. The basement, the fading sunlight, the boxes, and the mess. All of it dissolved. There was only her. Only this.
And then something shifted.
No lightning strike, no world-tilting moment of absolute certainty. But somethingchanged—a subtle, undeniable settling, like a puzzle piece sliding home so he could finally see the whole picture of himself, complete.
Recognition kicked his heart so hard he would have stumbled if he weren’t holding her.
The wolf went still. Watchful. And then, quiet and certain as a heartbeat:This one. Her. Ours.
Oh.
Oh.
Like the eye of a hurricane, the realization—or the acceptance of a possibility he’d only guessed—settled over him with surprising gentleness while his system raged. This wasn't just attraction or fascination, wasn’t simply the wolf being drawn to her scent. This was—
He couldn’t finish the thought. Didn’t dare. Because if he was right and this was what he’d thought it was, then everything changed. Everything. And he wasn’t ready to hand that to her yet, wasn’t ready to explain what his wolf had been telling him since day one.
But the certainty built with every breath that carried her scent, with every point of contact between them, with every stroke of their tongues, with the way his wolf had gone from pacing and demanding to something almost sated.
His hands tightened slightly on her waist. His breath came faster, and he could feel the tremor in his muscles, the effort of holding himself in check when everything in him wanted to pull her closer, to mark her, to make it so they’d belong to each other, and to each othe only, forever. Everywhere they touched hummed with awareness, with possibility, with something inevitable and terrifying all at once.
Mate.The word moved through his mind like a current.Mate. Mate. Mate.
He forced himself to breathe, to think past it. This wasn’t the time. She didn’t know what this was, didn’t understand what it meant. The implications, the consequences—and he couldn't,wouldn't, push this on her before she was ready. Beforehewas ready to explain what his instincts were screaming at him.
He broke the kiss.
When she tilted her head back to look at him, breathing hard, eyes still half-closed, he knew she’d see something–a reckoning?–in his face he couldn’t hide. “Rex?”
“Yes.” He swallowed, looking for words that wouldn’t sound insane. Found nothing. “I... I have to go.”
