This one was deliberate.
His whole body reacted in a single visible wave of tension, every instinct in him surging forward only to be dragged back under control. He kissed me back hard enough to make my pulse leap, but the restraint in him was just as palpable. He was waiting for me, and the knowledge of it lit my skin from the inside out.
I kissed him again, my hands sliding up into his hair, and his own hands found my waist, firm and hot through the fabric of my dress, but no lower. Just there, as if reminding both of us that he could take control of this if he wanted to and was choosing not to.
My mouth parted against his.
"Bedroom," I whispered, and felt the shudder that ran through him.
He opened his eyes then, the blue gone dark enough to seem unreal. "Emily."
I didn't let him turn that into another pause.
"I mean it," I said quietly. "And I want you to let me do this my way."
Something in his face shifted—hunger, yes, but also something more careful, almost reverent.
"Your way," he repeated.
"Yes."
He nodded once. "All right."
He took my hand and let me lead him.
That, more than anything, nearly undid me. Pietro walking into a bedroom behind me still felt like power in human form—and choosing not to use it did something to the deepest, most bruised parts of me.
His room was as restrained as the rest of his apartment. Dark wood, dark fabrics. Nothing out of place. The kind of room that belonged to a man who kept himself on a short leash and never let anything spill over the edges.
I turned back to him in the middle of it and watched the leash on his composure pull tight.
He stood there in black and gray, shoulders broad, hair already wrecked from my hands, eyes fixed on me with such concentrated hunger that for a second I forgot how to breathe.
I reached for the buttons of his shirt.
He didn't stop me but didn't help either. He just stood there, chest moving a fraction too fast, while I opened him up one button at a time. The first glimpse of skin decorated with far more tattoos than I had expected didn't satisfy my curiosity. His body was all hard muscle and old discipline, built rather than gifted, and the sight of it made my mouth go dry.
When I pressed my palm flat to his chest, over the dark sweep of a dragon that looked both wrong and completely natural on him, the hard, uneven beat of his heart under my hand made me bolder.
I pushed his shirt from his shoulders and let it fall, then stepped closer until I could feel the heat of him all along the front of my body.
"Sweetheart," he said, his voice dropping into something rougher, almost unrecognizable, "you're making it very hard for me to be good."
The warning should have made me stop. Instead, it made me reach for his belt.
His hand shot out to brace against the bedpost. His fingers curled around the wood, and for one fierce, trembling second I understood exactly how much patience it was costing him.
The fact that he didn’t touch me, didn’t take over even when every line of him wanted to, was what finally sent me to my knees.
His whole body went still.
"Emily."
My name came out like a warning and a prayer at once.
I looked up at him through my lashes. "Do you trust me?"
"With my life," he said.
