She stirs. Her fingers curl tighter against my ribs. Her eyes open.
She looks at me and she doesn't flinch or calculate. She looks at me the way a person looks at the thing they chose.
"Last night," she says. "You didn't use anything."
The air shifts.
"I know," I say.
"Was that deliberate?"
I take a slow breath in, steeling myself for what happens when I tell her the truth. "Yes."
She's quiet. Her finger stops on the scar. "I said not now, Dominik."
"You also said yes. You said don't stop. You saidyours. And you didn't ask me to pull out."
Her cheeks flush. She holds my gaze.
"That's not the same thing."
"I know it's not." I roll onto my side. Cup her jaw. Run my thumb across her cheekbone. "If you tell me you're not ready, I'll stop. Every time. Until you say otherwise."
"And if I am ready?"
My heart slams once. Hard.
"Then I will fill you tonight and every night after until it takes. And I will marry you before it shows. And every man in this city will know that Wren Calloway is mine in a way that goes beyond paper or money or territory."
She stares at me. Her lips part. "That's not how this works."
"Then explain to me how it works, Wren. Explain how I looked at you on that stage and felt something click into place that was never there before. Explain how I walked away from a kill I'd spent three weeks planning because the thought of another man touching you made my vision go red. Explain how I kneel between your legs every night like a man at prayer because the taste of you is the closest thing to God I've ever found."
Her breath catches.
"I can't explain it," I say. "I've tried. I've run every equation I know and none of work out. You're the variable I can't predict. The outcome I can't control. And instead of terrifying me, which it should, it makes me want to build my entire life around the uncertainty of you."
Her hand comes up. Presses flat against my chest. Over my heart.
"Your heart is racing," she says.
"It does that when you're close."
"The big scary bratva king has a racing heart."
"The big scary bratva king has a lot of things he didn't have eleven days ago."
She looks at me. Something shifts behind her eyes.
"Yes," she says.
"Yes what?"
"Yes, I'll marry you. Yes, I want this. Yes, you can..." She falters. Color floods her face. "You know..."
I kiss her, rolling us so she is on top of me, all soft and warm and naked.
She pulls back, looks at me for a moment.