Chess #3
Dominic moved slowly. His hand came up. His palm settled at the back of my head, fingers sliding into my hair with such precision that the rest of the world briefly lost resolution.
Dragons didn’t touch casually.
He paused there. Waiting. One breath. Two. I didn’t step back. I leaned in.
His mouth found mine. Soft for the first second. Then more pressure. A question I had already answered by not moving away. His lips opened against mine, and the question stopped being asked.
The first taste of him hit before I could brace for it. Heat. Cedar, and something darker underneath, skin-warm. My breath went out of me.
His other hand settled at the small of my back. He drew me forward off the railing and against him. The last half inch of distance disappeared. His mouth opened wider over mine, his tongue sliding past the seam of my lips, slow and certain.
The front of his chest pressed into me through his dress shirt. My hip met the line of his belt.
Claim. The word arrived in briefing cadence. I ignored it.
I made a sound into his mouth that I hadn’t made for anyone in years. Involuntary. His grip in my hair tightened.
My hands decided without me. Two fistfuls of his shirt at his waist. Then up the line of his chest. Then one hand at his jaw and the other at the back of his neck, fingers in the short hair there.
I was kissing him back. Not politely. Not strategically. Ravenous. I had felt the weight of his gaze on me all week. Apparently, I needed to feel the weight of his body too.
His hand at the back of my head pressed in. Holding. His fingers spread wide against my skull, and the kiss deepened until I felt the railing press into the small of my back. Cold iron through my jacket. Eight floors of air behind me. Dominic’s arm the only warm thing between my body and the drop.
His tongue against mine. His teeth at my lower lip. The drag of stubble along my chin, grown out since morning.
My pulse answered something he was doing with his mouth. My body answered lower.
Somewhere inside the kiss, his breath caught. A small intake against my mouth. Fast. Audible. His hand at my back flexed once, fingers digging in through fabric, then went deliberately flat.
He took half a step forward. The pressure of him moved into me. Hip. Thigh. The line of his ribs. He was hard against me.
My body stopped pretending this was a conversation. His teeth caught my lower lip. A moan started deep in my throat and got out.
The kiss went on. The word came back.
Claim. The second time, it was louder.
On the page, a claim was always the good part. The part I reread. The part where instinct outran good sense and somehow got rewarded for it. It had never once been a real mouth on mine, or Dominic Graves holding himself still enough to let me decide whether I wanted him closer.
That was not what this was.
He was kissing me. Only that. Nothing I had not walked into myself. He had asked without words, and waited for an answer I had given.
But the word landed and wouldn’t leave. Claim.
I put my hand flat against his chest and his mouth came off mine. Slowly. Enough to breathe.
His forehead stayed against mine. His hand stayed in my hair. The breath between us was warm and uneven on both sides.
I said his name once. “Dominic.”
Then I said the thing that would still close a door. “I have a boyfriend.”
For one second, nothing happened.
Then his eyes changed. Older than the slitted flicker I had seen when I touched his arm. Hotter than the corridor focus.
The black of his eyes sharpened, the pupils snapping to vertical lines. The dragon rose to the surface, and it wasn’t interested in the word boyfriend as a category.
His gaze fixed over my shoulder. Through me. Past me. Toward an imagined man who had never been reckless in front of Dominic Graves and had just become a problem anyway.
My pulse stopped being romantic about the situation.
His hand stayed in my hair for one more breath. The black of his pupils stayed wrong for the light. The want didn’t cool. He had been fed once, and whatever lived inside him had liked the taste. That made every trained piece of me come awake.
I knew then, with sudden certainty, that the only thing between his hand in my hair and every possessive instinct in him was discipline.
His eyes narrowed at the obstacle. At the word I had put between us. Boyfriend.
The night went very still.
His fingers loosened. One by one. He dropped his hand. Then the one at my back. The second release was slower. Harder.
The cold moved back into the space between us. He didn’t speak. I was grateful.
I pushed off the railing. “Goodnight, Mr. Graves.”
He said nothing. He only looked at me with dragon eyes, silent and narrowed, still doing whatever ancient, violent math the word boyfriend had handed him.
I left the balcony and didn’t look back. The door closed behind me.
I walked the length of the library at a pace very slightly too fast. I went down four flights of stairs. I went back to my quarters. I closed my door.
I didn’t sleep.
He had followed me down. I heard him in the stairwell again. Twenty paces back. And he would still be there in the morning.