Instead of pulling away, I pressed closer.
We moved toward the bedroom without breaking the kiss, stumbling a little, laughing against each other’s mouths.When had I last laughed during this?When had any part of what we did together felt like joy instead of war?
The bedroom was dark except for the moonlight through the windows.This room where we had torn at each other in anger so many times, where I had used his body to feel powerful and then left before he could see me vulnerable.
Tonight I did not want to leave.
He undressed me slowly, and I let him.Each button of my gown, each clasp and zipper, his fingers careful and reverent.The emerald silk pooled at my feet, and I stood before him in nothing but the moonlight.
His gaze traveled over me like a physical touch, my skin heating in its wake.
“Tell me what you want,” he said against my throat, his lips brushing my pulse point.
All the times I had demanded and taken and used him as a way to feel in control.How I had never once asked for tenderness because tenderness required trust I had not been ready to give.
“I want you to look at me,” I said.“Really look at me.And I want to look back.”
His breath caught.“Lena.”
“Raphael.”His name on my lips, and I heard how different it sounded.Not like a curse.Not like desperation.Like I was giving him back his name after months of using it as a weapon.
He shuddered at the sound of it.
“Say it again,” he breathed.
“Raphael.”A gift this time.An offering.
He kissed me like I had given him something precious.His mouth moved over mine, gentle and searching, and when his tongue slid against my lower lip I opened for him without hesitation.His hands found my hips, my waist, the curve of my spine, learning me all over again as if this were the first time.
Maybe it was.The first time without defenses.
His hands on my bare skin were gentle in a way that made my breath catch.He touched me like I mattered.Like my pleasure was more important than his own.When his palm cupped my breast, his thumb brushing over my nipple, I gasped into his mouth.
“Sensitive,” he murmured, and did it again.
I arched into his touch.“More.”
He gave me more.His mouth trailed down my throat, across my collarbone, closing over the peak of my breast.The heat of his tongue made me dig my fingers into his shoulders.I was not used to being touched this way.Every other encounter between us had been about control, about release, about the friction of two people who wanted each other but refused to admit it.
This was about connection.And it left me shaking.
But I did not pull away.
I pulled at his clothes instead, needing to feel his skin against mine.He helped me, shedding his shirt, his trousers, until we were both bare in the moonlight.His body was a map I knew now, the hard planes of muscle, the black patterns that wound down his arms, the scars that told stories he was only beginning to share with me.I traced the claw marks across his ribs, the punishment he had taken for caring about me, and he went still under my touch.
“These are because of me,” I said quietly.
“These are because of me,” he corrected.“Because I made the choice to protect you.I would make it again.”
When the feral look surfaced in his gaze, I did not flinch.I touched the sound of his growl, pressing my palm over his heart where the beast lived beneath his skin.
“Both of you,” I whispered.“I want both of you.”
He went very still.
“You don’t know what you’re asking for.”
“I know exactly what I’m asking for.”I traced my fingers along his spine, where I knew fur would grow when he shifted.Down his shoulders, his jaw.The places where the man ended and the beast began.“I accepted this.I accepted you.All of you.”