39. Zeir
THIRTY-NINE
ZEIR
She stood at the windows in his shirt. White, oversized, the sleeves rolled to her elbows, the hem brushing the tops of her thighs.
She’d stolen it from his bathroom door while he was pouring wine and hadn’t apologized.
The cotton hung open at the collar, exposing the line of her throat and the edge of black lace beneath.
“This view is absurd.” She pressed her forehead against the glass. “You can see all of Central Park. The entire park. Do you just... look at it? While you drink your morning espresso?”
“Sometimes.”
“That’s revolting. I live in a walkup where I can see my neighbor’s fire escape and a pigeon who I’m fairly certain pays rent.”
He set the wine on the counter. Crossed the room.
Stood behind her—close enough that his reflection overlapped hers in the glass.
Her back almost touching his chest. The warmth radiating off her skin carried the champagne-sweetness of an evening spent being adored by strangers. His hands stayed at his sides. Not yet.
“You’re doing that thing.” The words barely carried past the glass.
“What thing?”
“The protective positioning thing. Between me and the window. As though a sniper might be targeting me from the Met.”
“Force of habit.”
“It’s the forty-sixth floor.”
“Snipers are patient.”
She turned. Looked up at him. Her hair was loose—down past her shoulders, dark, the kind of careless he’d never seen her wear in public.
The paint stain on her collarbone was still visible.
The bruises from Red Hook had faded to yellow shadows on her wrists.
She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen and he’d spent a decade working with artists who specialized in beauty.
“Zeir.”
“Hmm?”
“I’m going to kiss you now. This is your advance notice so you can do whatever alpha preparedness protocol the situation requires.”
“Noted.”
She rose on her toes. Her fingers curled into the front of his shirt—the same way they’d curled around a chain three weeks ago, with the same deliberate grip. She pulled him down.
The kiss started gentle. Her lips on his, testing—the careful pressure of someone who’d been building toward this for months and wanted to feel every second of the arrival.
Her mouth was warm and soft and tasted like wine and the lip balm she applied compulsively while inking.
She kissed the way she drew—with total attention, nothing wasted, every point of contact intentional.
He held himself still. Let her set the pace. His hands at his sides, fingers curling against nothing, because if he touched her now he wasn’t going to stop and she needed to know this was her choice. Every part of this was her choice.
She studied his face with the focus she used on difficult compositions—the slight narrowing of her eyes, the tilt of her head. Reading him.
“You’re restraining yourself.”
“Yes.”
“Stop.”
His control broke clean.
His hands came up—one at the back of her neck, fingers threading into her hair, the other curving around her waist to pull her flush against him.
He kissed her the way he’d wanted to since the first afternoon in the studio when she’d put a brush in his hand and the world had rearranged itself.
Deep. Thorough. His tongue tracing the seam of her lips until she opened for him, and the sound she made when he tasted her sent heat straight down his spine.
She melted into him—arms locking around his neck, rising on her toes to press closer.
The kiss turned urgent. Her teeth caught his lower lip.
Pulled. Released. His grip tightened on her waist and she arched into it, her breasts pressing through the thin stolen cotton, and the friction of that contact—the lace he could feel beneath the shirt, the heat of her through the fabric—shortened his breathing.
His hands slid lower. Down her waist. Over her hips. His palms settled on her bare thighs where the shirt ended and her skin began, and the smoothness of her made his jaw clench. She inhaled sharply.
“Bedroom.” She breathed the word into the kiss. “Unless you want to do this against the window, in which case I have concerns about the forty-sixth floor and also the pigeon.”
“There’s no pigeon here.”
“I’m establishing boundaries for future reference.”
He gripped her thighs and lifted. She wrapped her legs around his waist—lightweight, compact, fitting to him in a way that aligned everything that mattered.
Her heat pressed against his stomach. Her laughter pressed warm into his neck as he carried her down the hallway, her fingers already working the buttons of his shirt.
She got three buttons open before they reached the bedroom. The fabric hung loose. Her palms slid inside—flat on his sternum, his abdomen, mapping the terrain with the focused intensity of an artist studying form. Her touch was light and deliberate and it set every nerve ending on fire.
The bedroom was dark except for the city.
Manhattan’s ambient glow filtered through uncurtained windows—silver and gold painting everything in half-tones.
He set her on the edge of the bed. She pulled him between her legs, hooked her ankles behind his thighs, and finished the buttons.
His shirt dropped. Her gaze traveled down his torso—unhurried, appreciative, the frank assessment of a woman who drew bodies for a living.
“You’re staring.”
“I’m a visual artist. It’s professional.”
“You’re biting your lip.”
“That’s also professional.” She pressed her mouth to the center of his chest. Then lower. Her lips tracing the ridged line of his abdomen. His muscles contracted under her mouth and he exhaled hard through his teeth.
He eased her back. Knelt between her legs.
His hands found the open collar of the stolen cotton and peeled it off her shoulders slowly, watching the fabric slide down her arms, watching her appear inch by inch in the city light.
The lace bra beneath was black and simple and the sight of her in it—Lumi, in his bedroom, in his stolen shirt pooled at her elbows, the swell of her breasts above dark lace—made his hands unsteady.
Her lips curved. “You’re shaking.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve wanted this since you walked into my office and told me my villain lore substituted darkness for depth.”
“That was a critique, not a seduction.”
“Same effect.”
He pulled the shirt free. Tossed it. His lips found her collarbone—the paint stain, the warm hollow at the base of her throat where her pulse beat fast. He kissed his way down her sternum. Her fingers drove into his hair and her breathing went ragged.
He unhooked the bra with one hand. She helped—shrugging out of it with the practical efficiency of a woman who didn’t do coy. And then she was bare from the waist up in silver city light and he stopped.
“Zeir.”
He couldn’t speak. The geometry of her—small breasts, dark nipples already tight, the elegant line from her collarbone to her waist—was the most compelling composition he’d ever studied and he’d spent his career building them.
“If you’re going to stare at me like original art, the least you can do is—”
He lowered himself to her breast.
Her words cut off. Her back arched off the mattress.
His tongue circled her nipple—slow, focused, the deliberate attention of a man who had spent months memorizing the rest of her and was now applying the same discipline to the parts she’d kept hidden.
He took her into his mouth. Sucked gently.
She gasped and her grip in his hair tightened to the edge of pain and he wanted more of that, wanted every sound she was capable of making.
He moved to the other breast. Same attention. Same slow, devastating focus. Her hips rocked against nothing and the small, involuntary movement sent a jolt through him.
His mouth traveled lower. Her ribs. The freckle below her left breast that he kissed twice. The soft skin of her stomach. Her hip bone—the scar from a childhood bike accident she’d mentioned once in the studio. He kissed that too. She shivered.
He hooked his fingers into the waistband of her underwear. Looked up at her—a question.
“If you stop now, I will end you and it won’t be metaphorical.”
He pulled the lace down her legs. Pressed his mouth to the inside of her knee. The inside of her thigh. She trembled. His breath was hot and he could smell her arousal now—rich and sharp beneath the vanilla, a scent that made the wolf rise to the surface and his vision narrow.
He parted her thighs. Settled between them. Pressed his mouth to the center of her.
Her hips bucked. She gripped his head—gripping, guiding, holding him where she needed him.
He tasted her—salt and heat and the intimate sweetness that was purely Lumi—and made a sound into her that vibrated through them both.
She was wet. Swollen. Responsive in ways that told him everything about what she needed without a single word.
He gave it to her. His tongue traced her—slow, exploring at first. Learning the map of her pleasure the same way he’d learned her creative process: with patience and total attention.
He found the places that made her thighs clench around his head.
The rhythm that made her breathing fracture.
The pressure that made her hips lift off the bed.
“Zeir—” His name came out broken. “Right there, don’t—don’t you dare—”
He didn’t dare stop. He held her hips with one hand, steadied her, and worked her with his mouth until her whole body tightened like a drawn bow. Her thighs shook. Her grip fisted in his hair. She came with his name on her lips and her back arched clean off the mattress.
He didn’t stop immediately. Eased her through it—lighter now, gentler, kissing the trembling skin of her inner thigh while her breathing came in ragged gasps. She pulled at his shoulders.
“Get up here.”