MAVERICK
I opened the workshop door with Demi’s kiss still burning through every disciplined part of me. Slow, she had asked. Slow, I had promised. The word should have steadied me. Instead, it made every detail impossible to ignore: the tremor in her breath, the careful courage in her yes, the way heat had gathered between us without becoming permission for me to take more.
She chose us, my wolf said, low and certain. To him, a kiss meant acceptance. Wanting meant safety. The bond flaring between us was proof enough that fear had lost and fate had won.
No, I told him, hard enough that my jaw ached. She asked for slow. She asked to choose. A kiss is not a claim. My wolf recoiled, wounded by restraint, but I held the line. If I turned her first real yes into a door she had not meant t
