Chapter 14 — "The Kiss"

The seventy-second floor was empty at this hour, mostly. Cleaning crew still two floors down. The city glowed through floor-to-ceiling windows, a circuit board of light and steel, and Aurelia stood in front of Damon's desk with her arms crossed so tight her knuckles had gone white.

She'd watched the press conference five times. Then a sixth. Then she'd thrown her phone across her apartment and paced for twenty minutes before she got in a cab.

"You don't get to decide that."

Damon hadn't moved from behind his desk. His jacket was off, sleeves rolled to his elbows, forearms resting on polished mahogany. Calm. Like he'd been expecting her.

"I know."

"Then *why.*" Her voice cracked on the word, and she hated herself for it. "You stood in front of every camera in the city and—and *claimed* me. Public. Permanent. Without a single conversation. That's not how this works. That's not how *we* work. We don't even—"

"We don't even what."

"We don't even *know* each other." She threw her hands up. "Three months, Damon. Three months of dinners and negotiations and you looking at me like I'm a puzzle you're trying to solve. And then you do *that.*"

He stood slowly. The chair didn't scrape. He was deliberate about everything, she'd noticed. Every movement measured.

"Because I'd do it again," he said. "Every time."

He rounded the desk. She held her ground. The room smelled like cedar and that sharp metallic edge she'd never been able to place—ozone, like after a lightning strike. She'd stopped noticing it weeks ago. Now it filled her lungs.

"I don't need a savior."

"I'm not trying to be one."

"Then what are you trying to be?"

He stopped a foot away. Close enough that she had to look up to meet his eyes. Pale gray in this light, almost colorless, with that ring of darker gray she'd memorized across too many boardroom tables.

"Yours," he said. "If you'll let me."

The word hit her like a physical thing. *Yours.* No one had ever been hers. Lucian had been *the pack's.* The company had been *hers* but that was different—that was structure, strategy, something she could control.

Damon was not something she could control.

She should leave. She knew she should leave. Walk out, get in another cab, go back to her apartment with its too-quiet rooms and her too-ordered life. Text him tomorrow with something professional. *Let's discuss this when we've both cooled down.*

Instead she stepped forward.

The kiss was not gentle. It was not tender. It was teeth and desperation and three years of starving, and he met her with exactly the same intensity. His hands found her waist, pulled her against him, and she made a sound she didn't recognize—somewhere between a sob and a growl.

Her back hit the desk. Papers scattered. A lamp wobbled and he caught it without breaking the kiss, set it aside, both hands back on her, one fisting in her hair, the other flat against her spine, pressing her into him.

She tasted coffee and something darker. Whiskey, maybe. His tongue slid against hers and she *felt* it everywhere—her skin too tight, her pulse too fast, the wolf stirring in her chest for the first time in three years, a distant thrum she'd thought she'd killed.

His hand slid under her shirt. Warm. Callused palm against her ribs, thumb brushing the underside of her breast, and she arched into it without thinking, without the careful armor she'd worn so long it felt like skin.

"You have no idea," he breathed against her mouth, "how long I've wanted to do that."

"Don't talk." She pulled him back down.

His laugh was low, rough. "Bossy."

"You like it."

"I do."

She hooked her legs around his waist and he lifted her onto the desk properly, settled between her thighs, and for a moment—a single, crystalline moment—it felt like she could have this. Like she deserved this. A man who looked at her like she was a discovery, not a convenience. A man who *chose* her, publicly, without negotiation.

But the wolf was too loud now. And beneath the thrum of arousal was something colder—memory. Lucian's voice, formal and flat, reciting the three-sentence rejection. *You are released. You are no longer mine. You are nothing to this pack.*

She went still.

"Aurelia." Damon's voice had changed. Lower. Careful. "What's wrong."

It wasn't a question. He knew.

"I can't." The words scraped out of her. "I can't do this. Not like this. Not tonight."

He held for a beat. Then he stepped back, slow, his hands falling to his sides. His breathing was uneven. There was a flush riding his cheekbones, a darkness in his eyes that made her want to forget everything and pull him back.

But he didn't push.

"Okay," he said. "Okay."

She slid off the desk. Her legs felt wrong. Her hands were shaking. She straightened her shirt with fingers that wouldn't cooperate.

"Aurelia." His voice caught her at the door. "I'm not him. I'm not going anywhere."

She didn't turn around.

"I know," she said. But the door clicked shut behind her before she could hear if he believed her.

The elevator ride was thirty-seven seconds. She spent all of them with her forehead pressed to the cold glass, breathing through the ache in her chest.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket.

Damon: *I'll wait.*

Three hours later, she was still sitting on her bathroom floor, staring at the message, the wolf howling in her chest.