I pulled him close and kissed him.
Not the quick ones from earlier. This was slower and more deliberate. He made a soft sound against my mouth and leaned into me, his hands finding my shirt. I walked him back until his shoulders met the wall, and he let out a breath that was half laugh and half something else.
“Every day,” he murmured against my mouth. “I will choose you every day.”
“Every day,” I said firmly and kissed him again.
His fingers worked the buttons of my shirt, and I pulled it off and dropped it somewhere behind me, then returned the favor. I carefully removed his glasses and placed them on the end table before running my hands up his sides and lifting his shirt over his head. He shivered when I palmed his chest, his skin warm and slightly flushed, and tipped his head back against the wall.
“Bedroom,” he said. Not a question.
I walked him there.
He went down onto the bed and pulled me with him, and I settled over him, my weight braced on my forearms. He looked up at me in the low light with an open, entirely unguarded expression, and something in my chest tightened.
I kissed his throat. His collarbone. The soft skin below his ear that always made him gasp, and his fingers curled into my hair.
I took my time with the rest of it. Enjoying all the things I'd learned about him over the last few weeks. The sounds he made when I dragged my mouth down his stomach. The way he arched when I slowly wrapped a hand around him, working him until he was breathing hard and pulling at my shoulders.
“Gideon.” His voice had gone low and rough. “I swear to God?—”
“Mm.”
“Don’t yoummme right now.”
I moved back up his body and kissed him once, deep and unhurried, while he made a sound somewhere between frustration and desperation that I felt everywhere.
Then I gave him what he was asking for.
He cried out softly when we came together, his legs wrapping around me, his hands gripping my back. We found our rhythm the way we always did—like this thing between us had always existed—and everything else fell away. The case, the festival, all of it, until all that was left was this. Just the two of us and nothing else.
When he came apart beneath me, his magic flared, announcing his pleasure like fireworks. He called out my name, and I followed him over with no resistance at all.
Later, the room was quiet. The window was cracked and the night air moved through it, cool against the warmth of our skin. Declan was tucked against my side with the bone-lessness of someone who’d fully let go of the day, his breathing slowed to the edge of sleep.
Licorice had relocated to the windowsill outside the bedroom. I wasn’t sure when. She sat with her wings folded, keeping watch.
My wolf was quiet too, as if even he had accepted that, for tonight, things were good.
Every day, Declan had said.
I could do that.
I pulled him a little closer and breathed in his scent.
It was enough.
For now, it was exactly enough.
Chapter Thirteen
Misfits Hit the Road
Declan
Tuesday arrived with a bang.Literally. I jolted upright and grabbed for my glasses on Gideon’s bedside table. That’s where I usually put them, but they weren’t there. Then I remembered they were in the living room.
“What the hell was that?”
