Page 7 of Snag
He crowds up against me, lowering his voice again. “And dancing, like at the clubhouse?”
I nod, head fallen back to look up at him, cheeks flushed and utterly fixated. On Rought. I’ve never wanted anyone as much as I wanted him while dancing last night. And with Rath watching us together …
“And at night?” Rought teases knowingly. “When the darkness encroaches on the day. I’m in your bed, yes? For more … cuddling?”
I laugh, again involuntarily. “Cuddling? Is that how you earn your keep?” Just about everything I knew about my past has been blown wide open. I’ve been dealt what should have been a mortal wound, even a death sentence, for most — the loss of three soul-bound mates — and I’m fuckingflirting with him.
“Well,” he says feigning seriousness. “I’m pretty good at fixing things. Cars, appliances …”
“I see,” I say, pretending to consider his proposition.
“And I’m a great tech.”
“I have Coda for that.”
He blinks at that, absorbing it. “You have … Coda … ?”
“Not like that!”
He barks a laugh. “No … I didn’t think …”
“We rescued each other years ago,” I say, feeling oddly earnest. I haven’t been without sexual partners, as sporadic as the impulse to connect with another human has been, but I don’t want any misunderstandings between Rought and me. “From awry hunters. But there has never been anything other than a mutually beneficial … partnership between Coda and me.”
Still grinning at me as if I’m utterly adorable, he says, “I know who Coda is.”
“I know you do.”
“Which … that means …” His face crumples, shoulders suddenly sagging. “That I … I … could have fucking asked! I could have asked Coda about you. I fucking searched and searched on my own —”
“I’m impossible to find that way, Rought.”
Head bowed, he scrubs a hand over his face. His heavy despair, his old grief, actually rips through me. Viscerally. And that should frighten me, should concern me, because I’m not empathic. But somehow, it only anchors me further.
I’m not alone.
I’m not alone in this world. In my grief.
I grab his shoulders, suddenly desperate to patch this newest wound. “You couldn’t have found me like —”
Rought pulls me into his arms, lifting me up — chestpressed to chest. I twine my legs and arms around him, as if it is pure instinct to do so. Maybe even muscle memory? I bury my face in his neck. Skin to skin.
He holds me tightly. Though I’m so much smaller, I’m not fragile to him. Though I’m so much, much more powerful, I’m not dangerous either.
He takes multiple deep breaths, of my hair, of my neck, filling his lungs with me over and over again. Essence — mine, his, and the power underlying the intersection point — twines all around us, cocooning us.
Iknow. I know what he needs in this moment. And I know how to give it to him. I want to give it to him.
Because he is mine. He feels like mine. Oh, fuck. He felt like mine the first time I saw him. And right now, I don’t care that there are no actual threads between us. That I can’t see or sense our soul bond.
“Have you got me?” I ask, whispering into the skin of his neck. Because this is what he needs. He needs to know I’m here. That he’s found me.
“Yes,” Rought says gruffly. “Always.”
I pull back just enough to look him in the eye. He shifts me slightly up in his arms so that my legs twine around his torso rather than his hips, leveling out our faces. I thread my fingers through his hair, greedily snatching thick handholds of it, gazing deeply into his eyes.
He groans, dropping his head back. Gold-rimmed eyes narrow contentedly … like a cat’s.
“You want to know how we create more threads?” I ask. “More anchored connections between us?”
