“I don’t make threats. I make room.” I let my knuckles skim the line of her jaw.
“Oh, Dominic. . .” She leaned into the touch and sighed. “My mind says this is wrong, but my heart says this is right. Is this what love and protection feel like?”
“It is.”
“I wouldn’t know. You’re the first man to truly give it.”
“And I’m the last man too.” My palm cupped her throat and my thumb rested on the soft beat of her pulse.
This is a case of obsession too, Teyonah, but I can’t tell you that because for me there is no cure.
Her eyes glimmered in the candlelight like they were wet with some grief they hadn’t had time to name. It made me furious at the world that had taught her to be afraid of the exact thing built to shelter her.
My heart ached. “I’m in love with you.”
A sound left her—too soft to be a laugh, too rough to be a sob. “You shouldn’t say that until my mess is gone.”
“I am in love with you, and you are my queen. I don’t care about your ex or that fucking court order.”
“You should. This situation is a toxic mess.”
“I want your toxic mess. I want your mornings. I want to be at the table with your kids and laugh. I want the dull days, not just the bright ones. I want your pain. I want your love.”
Her eyes watered.
“If he doesn’t leave before the seven days, I will make him stop breathing.”
“No. We will wait for those seven days. We will do things the right way.”
“This man is trying to take and destroy what’s mine.” I kissed her.
Not soft.
Not asking.
I kissed her like I was writing her name into me with fire. My mouth pressed hard against hers, sealing every protest before it could rise.
Her gasp fed me and it was sweet oxygen to a man who’d been starving all day.
I framed her face with my hands, thumbs stroking her jaw even as my teeth scraped her bottom lip.
Mmm.
She trembled, but she didn’t pull away.
Inside my chest, the wolf and the man snarled the same truth: she was mine.The kiss deepened—my tongue demanding, claiming, not just tasting her but erasing every trace of him.
Scott’s voice.
Scott’s smell.
Scott’s fucking gaslighting shadow.
Gone.
Burned out of existence by me.
When she finally let herself melt into me, her arms lifted, fingers knotting in my hair. That small surrender nearly broke me. I dragged her closer, grinding the length of my body into hers, breathing her in like she was the only thing keeping my lungs alive.
