Page 24

I bury my face in the pillow and laugh until my sides hurt. He holds me through it, his chest shaking against my back, and I realize he is laughing too. Quiet. Low. The kind of laughter that sounds like he hasn’t had enough practice and is just now learning how it works.

“Your dragon,” I say, when I can breathe, “is something else.”

“He is efficient. He identified a dual-purpose use for a pantry staple.”

“Dual-purpose.”

“Culinary and romantic. He is proud of his resourcefulness.”

I turn my face enough to see him over my shoulder. His eyes are shifting back, gold fading to amber, warm and crinkled at the corners. There is honey on his chin. On his chest. There is almost certainly honey on the sheets, the headboard, and possibly the antique clock.

The funny thing is, I don’t want to move. Not because of the bond or the lingering warmth in my body. I just like being here. With him.

I like the way he takes everything so seriously. The way he can discuss expensive sheets and investment portfolios with the same intensity. The way his dragon says outrageous things and Silas tries to pretend he’s above all of it.

And I really, really like being the person who makes him laugh.

I think I could get used to this. Which is a dangerous thought to have about a man I’ve known for barely twenty-four hours. But apparently my heart is as bad at taking things slowly as my omega.

“We need another shower,” I say.

“We do.”

“Together?”

His hand tightens on my hip. “My shower has multiple heads. A rain setting. Bench seating.”

“Is that a yes?”

“That is a description of facilities.”

“It’s a yes.”

His mouth finds the back of my neck. Presses there. My omega hums and his breath hitches and we both know what that proximity means.

“After the knot eases,” he says.

“After the knot eases.”

We lie there. The fire is down to embers. The rain has shifted to a kind of quiet steady rhythm. His hand stays on my stomach. My hand stays on his.

I think about the honey on the sheets and the man behind me who decided, in the space of a heartbeat, that his immaculate linens were less important than what he wanted to do to me. A man who has maintained a filing system since the 1890s and who just ate honey off my body on expensive linen sheets without a single flicker of hesitation.

I press back against him. He presses forward. The knot is easing, slowly, and the shower is waiting, and somewhere downstairs there’s a pot of first-flush Darjeeling that never got poured.

“Silas.”

“Yes.”

“I never got my tea.”

“I will make you a new pot.”

“With honey?”

His chest shakes against my back. “I believe we’ve depleted the immediate supply.”

I close my eyes. His heartbeat thumps against my spine. Slow. Patient.