Not a kiss yet. A test of where I would let him be. Warm breath. The brush of his lower lip against the corner of mine. He stayed there. My breath caught.
Then his mouth slid over mine, slow and careful. His thumb traced once along my jaw, and the trace ran lower this time, and stayed. Heat gathered at the seam of my mouth, asking. My mouth softened under his without my permission. He felt the give. He didn’t take more.
He kept his mouth on mine until my breath had reorganized itself around the fact of his patience.
Then he eased back half an inch.
His thumb was still at my cheekbone. His eyes, pupils now slits, met mine, asking the question hismouth hadn’t.
I leaned toward him, and my mouth found his.
Rhain’s hand slid into my hair, and he moaned, rough.“Kjære.”
The Norwegian landed somewhere south of my ribs.
He kissed me deeply, and he never hurried. His tongue passed the seam of my lips, and the drag of it inside my mouth was careful and taking all at once. The taste of him hit me. Cold air. Sharp green branches. Juniper. And beneath all of that, the dark heat of dragon under skin.
My breath went out of me. The hand I had been keeping at my side came up and caught the lapel of his coat. The wool gave under my fingers. The other hand had moved, without my noticing, to the side of his neck. I could feel his pulse against my palm.
A groan caught in his throat.
My pulse climbed into my throat, then dropped, where want gathered fast and heavy. Standing still took effort.
His taste landed and stayed.
The sound I made into his mouth was small and involuntary. He caught it. The hand in my hair tightened. The other hand at my jaw slid back along the line of my throat, slow, the slowness giving me a chance to pull away, and stopped at the side of my neck. He didn’t press. He kept the contact light.
He kissed me through it.
I don’t know how long we stood there. The corridor behind him had emptied of sound.
The enforcer at the end of the hall cleared his throat once.
Politely.
The window had run out at one. It was past one. Protocol was protocol, even when everyone involved had the good manners to hate it.
Rhain pulled back by the smallest amount. “Soon,” he said.
That was all.
He walked down the corridor with his hands back in his coat pockets, looking back once at me with a lopsided smile.
One of Yuki’s deputies stepped to my elbow before I closed the door. “A note arrived at the consulate gate this morning,” he said. “Addressed to the State Department translator currently at Ashenmere. Yuki’s office is holding it.”
He waited until I had registered the wording, then withdrew.
* * *
I sent word to Yuki and asked to meet. She didn’t ask why I had called. She walked in, set a folded sheet of paper on the small kitchen table, and waited.
I didn’t sit.
“I’ll take the phone.”
Yuki didn’t move.
“I’m not your asset,” I added. “I’m not your double agent. I’m not your operative. If Davis sends me a directive, the answer he gets is the answer I decide to send. You can monitor every word. You can’t edit one. You can’t send anything on my behalf without my knowledge.”
