His mouth curved against my hair.
“I would like it noted that I suffered with considerable dignity.”
“Oh?”
“I did not say perfect dignity.”
I laughed again, softer this time, and the sound moved through both marks before I could think to hold it back.
The bond carried the warmth of it outward. Rhain above me, still joined to me. Dominic on the other side of the door, steady and awake, feeling only the shape of what I let reach him: the aftermath, the settled warmth, the new channel opening beside his.
I felt him acknowledge it.
Then let it go.
He held the line open and chose, with every breath, not to pull on it.
Rhain felt the knot begin to release before I did.
His body shifted, but he did not pull away at once. He stayed inside me through every small change, watching my face as if leaving me deserved the same attention as entering me had. Then he lowered his mouth to mine and kissed me once, slow.
Only then did he ease out of me, one hand firm at my hip, his breathcatching softly when the bond loosened but did not let go.
He lay down beside me and pulled me against his chest.
The warmth of him was different from Dominic’s. Not less. Different. Leaner. A quicker pulse. Heat closer to the surface and something colder beneath it.
I could feel both of them now. Three beats in the same body, running together for the first time and for the rest of my life.
My eyes drifted shut.
Rhain’s breath moved slowly against my hair.
“I was not certain you would invite me to the morning,” he said. “My plan was to leave quietly.”
“Never.”
“No,” he said softly.
As we lay there the world beyond the room began to return.
The door. The corridor. Dominic standing guard on the other side of it. Martin Solberg waking to a public fact he could no longer erase.
And the agency.
Watch
Dominic
The corridor outside Catalina’s wing ran east-west. Twenty-seven feet from her door to the landing. One window at the western end. No alcoves, no secondary access points.
A bench stood against the north wall. I had not used it. I would not.
The brass sconces stayed unlit. Yuki preferred standing watches that way. In the dark, the eyes adjusted to the corridor instead of the lamp. A man saw more. More than the staff expected. More than an intruder planned for.
I had stood longer watches.
I shifted my weight from my left leg to my right, and the bond at my throat answered, deep and warm.
