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She rises almost all the way off me and sinks back down.

“Good God, Nina. You are going to make a liar out of every claim I have ever made about my self-control.”

“Okay,” she breathes at last. “Hands.”

I have them on her before she finishes the word. I wrap an arm around her waist and pull her back against my chest, her feet leaving the floor as I spread her thighs over mine.

“Is this what you wanted, honey?”

Her answer is breathless. “Yes.”

“Then hold on to me.”

I drive up into her, hard. She cries out and reaches back to grip my neck and holds on while I give her every stroke she has been teasing me with.

“So tight,” I say. “So perfect. I can smell how close you are.”

“You are making it exceedingly difficult for me to maintain even the appearance of composure,” I tell her, my voice rough against her ear.

She laughs, breathless and delighted. “You talk so much more when you’re inside me,” she gasps.

“I have a great deal to say on the subject.”

She laughs again, and then she stops laughing, because I reach around and press two fingers to her clit and she comes apart in my lap with her head thrown back against my shoulder. “Silas, oh God, yes…”

The feel of her clenching around me drags me over with her, both of us breathing hard under the hot water.

She stays there a long moment, slumped back against my chest, my arms locked around her waist.

“You smell like me now,” I tell her.

“Your dragon must be thrilled.”

Indeed, he confirms, with enormous pride.

She goes to her own room to dress. I do not object, because she has made her position on autonomy clear and because I am a reasonable man.

Move her clothes to our room.

I say nothing to my dragon. He takes this as tacit approval and begins planning closet space.

Twenty minutes later the courier I paid an indecent amount of money to drive up my mountain at nine at night finally arrives. I carry the box upstairs and knock on her door with my elbow.

She opens it in soft leggings and a sweater, hair still damp, and looks at the box. It is roughly the size of a refrigerator. I can see her over the top of it only because I am tall.

“What is that?”

“Blankets.”

“Blankets.”

“Three wool blankets. A cashmere throw. A heated mattress pad.” I carry it past her and set it at the foot of the four-poster bed. “For your room. The east side is cold at night.”

She looks at the box. Then at me. “I’m sleeping in your room tonight.”

I consider this. “Then they are for both rooms.”

“Silas, I haven’t said one word about being cold.”