"Scoot over."
"There is nowhere to scoot."
"Then make room."
The springs whimper beneath him. That hairline fracture in his stoicism splits wider and something raw and hungry pours through.
He shifts three inches to the left.
The bed frame pops a bolt. It clatters across the floor like a spent bullet casing.
I climb in anyway.
The mattress dips so far under his weight that I roll straight into him. No gap. No graceful repositioning. Just gravity and physics conspiring to press me flush against a wall of warm green skin.
His arm hovers above me. Shaking.
Not a tremor of weakness. A tremor of restraint. Every tendon in his forearm stands out, the muscles locked in arigid cage around empty air, because he won't drop that arm onto me without permission. Two hundred and sixty pounds of mercenary discipline holding position over my body like I'm made of spun sugar and one wrong breath will shatter me.
"You can touch me."
"The contract..."
"Dash."
"...does not cover this contingency."
I take his hovering hand and place it on my waist. His palm spans from my hip bone to my lowest rib. His fingers curl around my side and the tips nearly meet at my spine. One hand. That's all it takes to hold my entire midsection.
The sound he makes is not human.
Low. Guttural. Something from the bottom of a mine shaft, from the roots of old mountains. It vibrates through him and into me where we're pressed together, and every hair on my body stands straight up.
"Magnolia." My name again. Gravel and broken glass and something underneath that sounds like prayer. "I could hurt you."
"You won't."
"You don't know that."
"You tied a griffin's beak shut with a necktie and then checked me for scratches like I was porcelain. I know exactly what I know."
His hand tightens on my waist. A fraction. Testing. His pupils swallow the last ring of gold and he's all black, all hunger, a predator who has caught something he refuses to consume and cannot release.
I yank the first thorn from his forearm.
He flinches. I press my lips to the wound.
Green blood tastes like copper and pine sap. His entire body goes rigid, a full-system lock, every muscle fiber engagedsimultaneously. The bed frame loses another bolt and the headboard cracks further against the wall.
I pull a second thorn. Kiss that wound too.
"Stop," he breathes.
I pull a third.
His control snaps.
He rolls. The bed nearly collapses. Springs shriek and the wooden frame bows outward and suddenly I'm underneath him, bracketed by arms as thick as my thighs, caged by a body that blocks out the ceiling and the lamp and the entire observable world. He holds himself on locked elbows, hovering. Shaking. His face inches above mine.
