Something at his shoulder shifted, half a centimeter.
Infuriating man.
“No,” he said. “I imagine you are not.”
He wore a black sweater instead of a coat, no formal enforcer lines, no crisp institutional shape. The sweater changed him in a way I resented on principle. He looked less like Ashenmere’s enforcer tonight. He had been awake too long. Too much was happening inside his head.
I stayed at the door. “I had a dream a few minutes ago,” I said.
“Yes?”
“It was yours.”
His jaw shifted once. “I am sorry,” he said.
“You didn’t warn me.”
His shoulders set, the movement small and controlled. A man making himself report instead of react. “I did not know it would cross that clearly.”
“So that’s a thing?”
“Sometimes,” he hedged.
“Dominic,” I sighed.
“Bonded pairs can share dreams,” he said. “Not always. Not cleanly. Usually only fragments. Sensation. Emotion. Want, if it is strong enough.”
“Convenient.”
“No.” His voice stayed rough. “Dangerous.”
“Make it stop.”
“I cannot.” That landed badly and his face told me he knew it.
I held on to the doorframe. I needed both hands occupied. “I know what kind of dream it was.”
Every line of him locked.
Caught.
Useful.
“You don’t get to think about me that way,” I said. The words came out sharper than I meant them to.
Dominic didn’t look away. For one long second, I thought he might apologize, or lower his eyes, or offer me some careful piece of remorse I could reject on principle.
He didn’t.
“No,” he said.
I recommitted to the doorframe. “Excuse me?”
“I will not lie to you.”
“That wasn’t a request for honesty.”
“I know.”
