Black coat. Black sweater. Eyes vertical. No expression. “Catalina.”
“Dominic.”
His gaze moved over me once, fast and precise. Face. Throat. Mouth.
The line between us went hotter.
Mine.The word didn’t arrive in my head. It arrived in my body, primitive and dragon-shaped.
“May I come in?” he asked.
Every inch of him looked like a creature holding itself back from crossing the threshold and taking the room by force, and he had still asked.
“Yes.”
He stepped inside. The door closed behind him. The lock engaged from the inside.
He didn’tmove closer immediately.
Good.Maybe both of us had learned one or two things in the last three weeks.
His gaze stayed on my mouth for one more second before he forced it back to my eyes. “You said you love him,” he said.
“I did.”
His hands stayed at his sides. Open and still. Forcibly relaxed.
The line between us pressed at me, hot and possessive. The bond translated what his mouth wouldn’t.
Mine.
Mine.
Mine.
“Did you mean it?”
“Yes.”
I felt the word hit him. A hard, clean impact through the bond.
Deeper than pain. Claim meeting history. Dragon hating the chronology. A man had existed before him.
His jaw shifted.
“I meant it the way I have meant it for four years,” I sighed. “I love a man who loved me politely from a distance and never really knew me.”
Dominic’s eyes, not human enough to pretend, didn’t leave mine. “And now?”
I took one breath. “I ended it.”
The line went so hot I almost stepped back.
Mine.
This time, the word came with heat, with hunger, and with relief so violent it didn’t feel like relief at all.
“Say it,” he said.
