Chapter 407: I want you.
Sylvia looked down at his hands on her waist, then back at his face.
"You are holding me like I am a classified weapon."
"You are."
"I am wearing a blanket."
"That is not a meaningful defense."
Her mouth curved.
Then she kissed him, but not with the careless familiarity of the two years before, when touching him had been simple because her body had not answered him in a language older and more dangerous than thought.
This kiss was slower.
Thomas went rigid beneath her.
For half a heartbeat, Sylvia thought he would pull away.
Instead, his hands tightened on her waist, not enough to hurt, never that, but enough for her to feel the restraint cracking through his fingers. His mouth moved against hers once, careful and devastating, and the room changed.
Her scent bloomed.
The medicinal barrier around the collar dulled it but did not stop it. Jasmine unfolded into the warm air, soft at first, then richer, threaded through with rain and the faint.
Heat.
Not yet there but close enough that Thomas made a sound low in his throat and broke the kiss like it physically hurt him.
Sylvia breathed against his mouth. "Tom."
"No."
"I did not ask anything."
"You were about to."
"I was going to say I am fine."
"You smell like heat."
"I know."
His eyes darkened. "Sylvia."
"I know," she repeated, softer. "And I am fine."
"You are recovering."
"I am also sitting in your lap and kissing you."
"That is part of the problem."
Her hands slid to the front of her robe.
Thomas caught her wrists instantly.
"Sylvia."
She looked at him.
His pupils had widened. His scent had thickened, dark steel and smoke turning warmer, heavier, almost rough at the edges. It made her skin feel too aware beneath the robe.
But his hands were gentle.
"If you tell me to stop," she said, "I will."
His jaw tightened as if the words struck him somewhere vulnerable.
"You should not have to reassure me."
"I want to." Her fingers flexed beneath his. "Because you are trying so hard not to frighten me that you might end up making me feel unwanted."
The pain that crossed his face was immediate.
"Never."
"I know. But my body is new, and your restraint is very noble and very annoying."
"That is not a medical category."
"It should be."
He closed his eyes for one second.
A mistake.
Because Sylvia used it to slip one wrist free and loosen the tie of her robe.
Thomas’s eyes opened.
"Sylvia."
"Yes?"
"You are undressing."
"Slowly."
"That does not improve the situation."
"It improves mine."
His field flared, then folded back with brutal discipline.
The collar at her nape pulsed. The scent monitors on the low table blinked once, registering the change, but no alarm sounded. Sylvia glanced toward them deliberately.
"See?" she whispered. "No emergency."
"Not yet."
"Then stay until there is one."
His gaze shifted to her mouth, then to the loosened robe, and finally back to her eyes, as if he were facing execution by desire.
"No mark," he said.
The words were rough, and the low voice gave Sylvia butterflies.
Sylvia nodded. "No mark... unless..."
Thomas went still.
The word hung between them, small and impossible.
Outside, the house remained quiet. Somewhere beyond the closed door, staff moved with careful steps, guards watched gates, Draxil lied itself into political ruin, and Dean had probably fled to Arion with the guilty relief of a man who had lit a fire and escaped before the curtains caught.
Inside the sitting room, Thomas Lancaster stopped breathing.
"Unless?" he asked.
His voice had changed into something low and dangerously careful.
Sylvia’s fingers tightened in the loosened robe. The scent beneath her collar warmed again, jasmine deepening into something softer, wetter, threaded with rain and the first golden edge of need.
She felt it before he did.
Or perhaps she only felt him feeling it.
That was still new.
"I want it," she said.
Thomas closed his eyes.
"No."
Her brows lifted. "You are saying no very often today."
"Because you are trying to kill me."
"I am trying to ask for something."
"You are not fully healed."
"I am cleared."
"Your gland is new."
"It is mine."
His eyes opened.
That stopped him more effectively than any monitor could have.
Sylvia leaned closer, the robe slipping lower over one shoulder. Thomas’s gaze followed the movement and then dragged itself back to her face with visible suffering.
"It is mine," she repeated. "Not Andrea’s. Not Nero’s work. Not a medical event. Mine. And I want you to mark it."
His hands shook once at her waist.
Then he forced them still.
"You do not know what your first heat will do to your body."
"No," she agreed. "But I know you."
"That is not enough."
"It is for this."
Thomas’s jaw tightened.
Sylvia softened her voice, because beneath all his restraint and hunger was fear. She could feel it now, dark and brutal and wrapped around the shape of her.
"You think if I ask during heat, it might not be me asking."
"Yes."
"Then listen now. I am asking before it comes properly. Before I am lost in scent or pain or whatever terrible poetry biology has prepared for me." Her fingers rose to his face. "I want you. I want the mark. I want the bedroom. I want everything I was too afraid to name when we were pretending this was temporary."
The last word hurt them both.
Thomas’s expression broke around it.
"Sylvia."
"I was stupid."
"No."
"I was scared."
"Yes."
"I thought if I called you temporary first, it would hurt less when you left."
"I was never leaving."
"I know that now." Her thumb brushed his cheek. "So do not leave this time because you are afraid of wanting too much."
His field folded around her, shaking at the edges with the effort of remaining gentle.
"You do not understand what you are offering me," he said.
"I do."
"No." His voice went rough. "You understand the word. You understand the romance of it. You do not understand what my body will hear when you say mark. What my field will do. What every instinct in me has been waiting to take and has been denied because I love you enough to deny it."
Heat moved under her skin at the words.
She took his hand and placed it over the collar at her nape.
Thomas froze as if she had put a blade in his palm.
The protective fabric separated his skin from the new gland, but barely. Even through it, Sylvia felt the pulse answer him.
His eyes darkened past anything civilized.
"Careful," he said.
It sounded like a warning to himself.
Sylvia held his gaze. "I am choosing you."
His hand flexed against the collar. "Again."
"I am choosing you."
"Again."
She smiled faintly despite the ache in her throat. "Thomas Lancaster, if you make me repeat it until Seven arrives with a clipboard, I will scream."
His entire body reacted with the old instinct she had once teased awake before she knew what it did to him, before he had explained, shaken and furious and afraid, that her scream made every part of him prepare to fight the world.
His mouth lowered to hers.
He stopped a breath away.
"No screaming," he said.
"Then stop arguing."
His control broke very quietly.
Thomas kissed her.
This time there was nothing careful about the first touch except the way he still measured her response.
Sylvia’s scent bloomed harder.
Jasmine filled the room, warm rain beneath it, heat threaded through the edges like sunlight through a storm cloud.
The monitor blinked.
Thomas did not look at it.
Sylvia smiled against his mouth. "Progress."
He made a sound that was almost a growl.
Then he stood with her in his arms.
The robe slipped further, and his hands adjusted instantly, one beneath her thighs, one around her back, possessive and reverent in the same impossible hold.
"Bedroom," he said.
It was not a question.
Sylvia’s arms went around his neck. "Yes."
"If anything hurts—"
"I tell you."
"If you change your mind—"
"I tell you."
"If the monitor alarms—"
"Thomas."
He stopped.
She touched his mouth with two fingers. "I want everything. But I want it with you still listening."
The darkness in his eyes softened.
"I will hear you," he said.
Then he carried her from the sitting room.
The hall outside remained empty because Florian was intelligent, Mrs. Avel was merciful, and the entire household had apparently developed survival instincts.
Sylvia buried her face against Thomas’s throat and breathed him in.
His door opened before them. Their door, Sylvia corrected silently, because Thomas had become ridiculous about that and she had decided to let him win.
This once.
The bedroom waited in pale light, the bed turned down, the medical equipment quiet, the air filtered and warm.
Thomas crossed the threshold and stopped.
He looked down at her. "Last chance."
Sylvia’s heart twisted.
She could have teased him.
She almost did.
Instead, she answered properly.
"I love you," she said. "I want you. I want your mark. I want tomorrow with it still there."