The water moved below us, black and indifferent.
“Tell me.”
“I would rather not.”
My grip tightened on the railing.
“Your turn,” he said.
“My turn?”
“What is making you anxious?”
I considered lying. I had ten or fifteen lies ready for this exact question. Good ones. Useful ones. None of them sounded right at one in the morning on a balcony with a man I was trying very hard not tolook at.
“Doing my job badly because I’m distracted.”
“Mm—”
“Don’t.”
The set of his shoulders eased.
“And the dinner,” I said.
His amusement vanished. “Why?”
“Because everyone is watching everyone else, and half the room knows more than they’re saying.”
“That is every dinner.”
“Not for humans.”
“For humans too. You are simply less honest about it.”
I looked at him then.
His eyes were on me. The light didn’t reach them. They looked black in the dark, and there was something inside them older than the conversation we were having.
There was maybe a foot of distance between us at the railing. His eyes dropped to my mouth for less than a second. Every line of his body shifted forward. On another man, it would’ve been invisible. On Dominic, it was a confession. His weight moved toward me.
My body answered. A quarter inch. The smallest concession of weight I had ever made.
I had a mission. I had a boyfriend. I had a state dinner in eighteen hours.
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. Hislips 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.