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Not cold. Not threatening. Roman.

Hands slid around my waist, slow and sure. Warm breath brushed my shoulder. Roman’s chest pressed against my back, and I stilled only long enough to forget how to breathe. The steam swirled between us. My heart stuttered once, traitorous and loud, before settling into a rhythm I only seemed to find with him.

“Sharing’s caring. Gotta save water. For the environment, you know?” he murmured, mouth grazing my ear.

And then he pressed me against the tile.

I didn’t protest. I leaned into the heat of him and let his hands roam. Let his mouth find mine in that familiar, hungry way that made it impossible to keep pretending this was casual. The shower was a blur of sensation. Steam. Water. Skin. The slide of his hands over my hips. The way he kissed like he was anchoring himself to the moment.

Like I was the moment.

He spun me around and lifted me easily, like I weighed nothing, pinning me gently to the cool tile. His mouth moved from my lips to my jaw, down my throat, and I clung to his shoulders, lost in the sound of our breathing and the rush of water between us.

Time disappeared. There was only him.

Eventually, he shut the water off, kissed my shoulder once, and carried me out of the bathroom. I looped my arms around his neck like it was the most natural thing in the world.

He dripped water across the hardwood as he walked us toward his bedroom, not bothering to grab a towel. I was still floating somewhere between dazed and giddy when he set me down on the floor and I hopped onto the bed.

I bounced once on impact, laughing… until Roman froze. He blinked, staring at the bed and then at me.

“Oh shit,” he whispered, horror blooming across his face. He swallowed as if trying to hold back the words he wanted to say.

I looked at him, confused, still breathless. “Roman?”

He hovered, wide-eyed, arms flailing like he was trying not to startle an endangered bird. “You’re wet. On the bed.”

My brow furrowed. “That was kind of the point?”

He looked at me like I’d committed a war crime. “Umm… I can fix this. Hop down. I will lay towels. This bedding is cashmere. Or… is it suede? Microfiber? Or maybe it’s rayon. I can’t even remember now. I’m panicking.”

A giggle burst out of me.

“This is why we have clauses, Mags. Clauses. Like civilized people. You agreed to towel etiquette in Section Four, Subparagraph B.”

I folded my arms over my knees and smirked. “Are you serious right now?”

“This bed has seen things,” he said, darting toward the linen closet, “but moisture will be its downfall.”

“You have two-point-five seconds to get the damn towels,” I warned, still grinning.

Roman vanished at werewolf speed. He returned and laid the towels out with surgical precision, one for under the hips and one folded into a square I didn’t ask questions about.

I watched him the whole time, amused and—God help me—completely turned on.

When he finished, he stood at the edge of the bed and narrowed his eyes like a man making a final inspection before battle. He stalked toward me, grabbed my waist, and dragged me down into the blanket fortress with a grin that was all teeth and trouble.

“Now it’s legal,” he growled against my skin.

I didn’t stop laughing until his mouth found mine again.

And after that, neither of us said much at all.

23

ROMAN

She was laughing. Still breathless from teasing me about the towels, still grinning as I kissed the sound right off her mouth. She tasted like toothpaste and steam and something sweet I hadn’t earned, but I kept chasing it anyway. Kept kissing her because I wanted to memorize her with my mouth.