Cierra:
The room smelled like smoke and s*x and the faint, stubborn musk of him. Light hacked through the blinds in slats, cutting across my skin in pale, honest bars. For a long, careless minute, I lay there with my cheek pressed to the curve of Dominic's shoulder, listening to the steady thud of his heart and the slow, shuddering rise and fall of his breath. Everything was raw and ridiculous and absolutely, achingly real.
When I blinked, the world shifted.
Between my ribs, something else answered—a slight, luminous tightening that started at my sternum and slid out like liquid wire. It had happened before, a whisper of warmth when we'd brushed palms in the kitchen, a flutter when he'd kissed me in the stairwell. This was different: brighter, older, the kind of pressure that rearranged
