“And toward both of you.”
“Then we plan for both.”
It was the most Dominic response possible. Romance, but make itoperational. I let out a breath that was almost a laugh and shook my head. At him. At me. At the council, at Norway, at the fact that my love life now required legal strategy, witness coordination, and possibly airspace awareness.
Then I kissed him and for half a second, he let me lead it. Then the heat between us widened. The discipline he had been using to hold himself at the edge finally ran out of room.
He closed the space, and the kiss stopped being conversation. His hand slid from my jaw into my hair. The other settled at my back. He pulled me against him until no air was left between us. His mouth moved from mine to my throat. To his claim.
The moment his lips touched it, heat flooded up from the mark without warning. Pleasure snapped through my hips. My hand fisted in the front of his shirt. My breath broke against the curve of his collarbone. The sound that left me didn’t feel entirely civilized.
Dominic didn’t move his mouth. He held there, lips pressed to the mark, everything in me ringing against him. He read every degree of what happened to me through the exact place his teeth had set into my skin three weeks ago.
Then his teeth grazed the mark. Lightly. What his mouth had already done came back doubled. The pull came harder this time, and pleasure broke again, bright and entirely unconcerned with my dignity. I pressed my forehead into his shoulder and made no effort to swallow the sound that left me.
“Dominic.”
“Yes.”
I lifted my head enough to look at him. “What do you need?”
His pupils were vertical and full of heat when he raised his head.
“You.”
Simple.
Rougher than I expected.
My breath caught. “You have me.”
His mouth opened like he meant to say it again.
I didn’t let him.
I put two fingers against his lips, and his breath stopped under my touch.
“Sit down.”
He didn’t move.
“Dominic. Sit.”
This time, he did. He lowered himself into the chair behind him. The one Rhain had used.
I stepped between his knees and unbuttoned his shirt one button at a time. The fabric opened under my hands, slowly enough that I felt the bond react to every inch of skin I uncovered. When the bite at his collarbone came into view, clean and dark against him, something possessive rose in me.
My claim on him.
Dominic’s breath was no longer steady. His skin ran hot under my fingertips everywhere I touched him, answering before either of us could pretend this was measured.
I knelt.
His hand came to my jaw at once. Careful. Asking nothing. Just holding for one second, as if he needed the shape of my face in his palm before he let himself be undone.
“Catalina.”
“You said you need me.”
