“It isn’t Rhen I want.”
The statement struck with more force than it should have.
Dax went still.
Veya moved closer, her mouth brushing the line of his jaw as she spoke.
“I noticed you before the pain started. I noticed you in the guest room and in the garden, and I noticed every time you gave me a choice instead of an order.”
Her words penetrated the restraint he had been relying upon.
“You are not thinking clearly.”
“I am clear enough to know who I’m touching.”
She kissed him.
For one fraction of a second, Dax remained motionless.
Then he answered.
His mouth closed over hers, and the reaction moved through him with enough violence to erase the room. Her hands fisted in his shirt while one of his slid into her hair. The kiss carried desperation and heat, but beneath both existed something recognizably theirs: her fury, his restraint, her insistence upon choice, and the dangerous ease with which he wanted to surrender his.
This was not affection borrowed from the tether.
It was not Rhen’s blood redirecting itself toward the nearest available body.
Dax wanted her.
Veya wanted him.
The crisis had not created that truth, but it had removed their ability to pretend it was not there.
Dax broke the kiss.
He stepped back far enough that her hands slipped from his shirt.
Veya stared at him, dazed and furious.
“Why?”
“Because I want you.”
Confusion crossed her face.
“That makes no sense.”
“It makes perfect sense.” His voice had roughened. “I want you, and right now I cannot know how much of what you feel is yours and how much has been amplified by what happened downstairs.”
“I told you it was me.”
“I believe you.”
“Then why did you stop?”
“Because believing you want me is not the same as knowing you are able to choose what happens next.”
Veya’s anger faltered.
