“Thank you.”
“You are welcome.” His eyes moved over her face with that careful, seeing quality he possessed. “You slept well?”
“I did.” She took a sip. Perfect. “Your bed’s comfortable.”
His jaw tightened a fraction. “I am glad.”
They stood in the small hallway and drank coffee in silence, and it should have been awkward, but it was not. It was the quietest, most peaceful five minutes she had spent with another person in years, and when the mugs were empty, she carried them both to the kitchen and washed them in his sink before she handed them to him to dry.
“I should get dressed,” she said, noticing the breathiness in her voice and not knowing what to do about that.
He was pulling his uniform jacket over his shoulders when she returned fully dressed twenty minutes later. The minty flavor of the emergency dental kit she kept in her bag reminded her of him, and a thought flashed through her mind faster than she could stop it.I wonder what he tastes like?
She pushed the thought aside and ignored the heat climbing from her neck up her cheeks, flushing her dark skin even darker.
She gathered her things. Coat on. Bag over her shoulder. He came to the door and reached past her for the handle, his arm crossing her body close enough that she could feel the cold radiating from his forearm through her sleeve.
“Thank you,” she said, and wondered if his truth sense could read the unspoken words she hadn’t said.
Thank you for coming when I called. Thank you for giving me your bed. Thank you for going out in the cold before dawn to buy cream because you remembered how I take my coffee. Thank you for pulling my hand off your wrist last night when you could have kept it.
He nodded. His hand found the door handle.
She kissed him.
Her lips decided before her brain had given permission.
Her body had decided on her behalf, one hand bracing against his chest, rising onto her toes, her warm mouth against his cold one.
He froze.
One full second of absolute stillness passed with his hand locked on the door handle. His whole body was rigid, every muscle seized, not breathing. The cold radiating from him hard enough to prickle against her palm where it pressed to his chest, and his heart hammered against her hand at a rate she was fairly certain was not Mentharian-standard.
Then he kissed her back.
The careful discipline that had held him at arm’s length for weeks cracked open like ice breaking on a river, and she felt it in the way his mouth moved against hers. The press of him was both unhurried and starving at the same time. Thorough and desperate. His cold lips parted hers with a precision that was entirely, unmistakablyhim.His free hand came up and cradled her jaw. His icy fingers spread along the side of her throat, his thumb against her cheekbone, and the cold of his palm againsther flushed skin sent a shiver that traveled from her face to the base of her spine.
She tasted peppermint and frost and an ache that had been wanting this very thing for longer than she had known, and the moan that came from her was not dainty or polished. It was pure want given sound.
He pulled back. Not far. And pressed his forehead against hers, his breath unsteady and visible in the cold air between their mouths. His hand still on her jaw, his thumb still against her cheekbone, trembling.
He leaned toward her. She watched the war happen behind his eyes in real time: the want, the discipline, and the fear all visible for once on a face that showed nothing to anyone. The sight of Thorne losing a fight with himself over kissing her again was more intimate than the kiss itself.
He stopped.
“We should go.” His voice was rougher than she’d ever heard it, scraped raw and barely recognizable as the measured bass that gave commands on his comm. “There is a full security review before tonight’s performance. I need to make sure you are safe.”
His fingers slid away from her face, and he opened the door. The cold air hit her flushed cheeks. She walked into it carrying the taste of him on her mouth and the print of his hand on her jaw and the knowledge that the most controlled man she’d ever met had kissed her back like he was drowning and she was the air.
Ember tookone look at Phoebe’s face when she walked into the bakery, and her eyes went wide with delight.
Kaelor was behind the counter, his hands and forearms flour-dusted and radiating enough warmth that the windows had fogged at the edges. He glanced from Phoebe to Ember and back again with a quiet half-smile that said he had already guessed exactly what had happened.
“Sit down,” Ember said. “I just pulled cinnamon rolls.”
“I’m fine. I don’t need?—”
“Sit. Down.”
