He caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger. Gentle. So
impossibly gentle for hands that could crush bone. He tilted her face up, and the gold of his gaze swept over her features like he was memorising geography: the flush across her cheeks, the way her lips stayed parted, the rapid pulse she knew he could see fluttering at her throat.
"Later," he said.
One word.
Low and rough and absolute, like a man signing a contract with his bare hands.
Her tail went absolutely haywire — puffed, swishing, wrapping halfway around his forearm before she could stop it. A soft, traitorous whine built in her throat that she swallowed just in time.
"You can't just.. " She pressed her forehead against his sternum because looking at him was too much. The cotton of his shirt smelled like cedar and clean skin and something faintly metallic, gun oil maybe, and she breathed it in like an addict. "You can't just say 'later' in that tone and expect me to function for the rest of the day."
