Page 75 of Slashed Bonds

Not hard. Firm. He tips my face back toward him and pulls me in until our noses touch and our mouths are an inch apart, and his scent climbs. Juniper first, cold and sharp. Then blackcurrant. Then, under the mint, the white musk goes warm and heavy, and I feel the growl before I hear it, a low vibration built in his chest and transmitted straight through his hand into my jaw.

Possessive. His possessiveness.

He’s ready to ruin the world for daring to frighten his Red Riding Hood.

Except he’s the wolf, and he doesn’t want Red for a meal.

He wants to stand between her and the woods.

“You have a Switch, too.”

It’s an odd moment to bring it up.

I arch one eyebrow at him, slowly, and that’s all the answer either of us needs, and neither of us says the word again.

He kisses me.

So tenderly I forget to breathe.

For one moment. One fragile, undefended moment, lost in the impossible thought that this man can kiss like this.

Like the thing he’s holding might break.

I know he can. I’ve known for two years. But in the Underground it was masked, in the dark, in a room with a locked door, a manager who’d been paid to forget, and the tenderness was a thing we could both pretend hadn’t happened when the mask went back on.

This is different.

The lights are on. There’s a stall with my name on a strip of tape. There’s a roster on the wall and a dog asleep on a pile of towels in the corner and a whole team somewhere down the hall.

More vulnerable.

More dangerous.

He breaks the kiss.

“I’d kill anything that dares make you quiver,” he growls against my mouth. Then his lips move, crooked, wicked. “Unless it’s my fucking cock seven inches deep and driving you senseless.”

I smirk.

Because that’s us.

That’s the language. Two years of building a connection out of the only material either of us trusted, and the material was sex, and neither of us apologizes for it.

“Sure, sure,” I say, light, and try to slip out of his hand.

His grip tightens.

Not enough to hurt. Enough to say no. He holds my chin and holds my eyes and there’s something in his that’s looking for something in mine, and I can’t tell what.

“What, Nikolai?” I whisper.

He’s seeking. I can see it.

I can’t name it.

“You have to be ours.”

I blink.