Her hand on the latch was cold. The metal bit into her palm, grounding her in the space between what she'd done and what she was about to do. Behind her, the lamp cast her shadow long across the rumpled sheets—still warm, still smelling of her and him and the hollow ache she'd tried to fill with her own fingers.
She pulled the door open.
Kael stood in the hallway, one hand braced against the opposite wall, his head bowed. He hadn't moved since she'd heard him walk away. His uniform was still perfect—sharp creases, polished buttons—but his breathing was wrong. Shallow. Unsteady. The kind of breathing a man did when he was trying not to do something he couldn't take back.
He looked up. His ice-blue eyes found hers, and something in them cracked—just for a second—before the walls slammed back into place. "You should be sleeping."
"You should be anywhere else." Her voice came out steadier than she felt. Her body was still humming, still wet, still wanting. The scent of him filled the doorway—winter pine and steel, undercut by something darker. Something hungry.
His jaw tightened. "Iris." Her name in his mouth was a warning and a plea. "This can't—"
"It already did." She stepped forward, close enough to feel the heat radiating off him. Close enough to see the pulse jumping in his throat. "You walked away. I heard you. You heard me." She let the words hang between them, raw and undeniable. "And you came back."
His hand moved before his mind could stop it—fingers closing around her wrist, thumb pressing into the soft skin where her pulse hammered. "You don't understand what you're asking."
"Then show me."
The air between them thickened. His grip tightened, not enough to hurt, enough to hold. Enough to say mine before his voice could. "If I step through that door," he said, each word dragged from somewhere deep, "I'm not walking away again."
She didn't answer. She stepped back, pulling him with her, the threshold disappearing beneath their feet.
The door clicked shut behind Kael. The sound was small, final—a lock engaging, a world closing. Silence filled the space where his breathing had been, where her heartbeat had hammered loud enough to drown thought. The lamp cast their shadows long across the floor, two shapes that touched at the edges.
Neither moved.
Kael stood just past the threshold, his back to the door, his hands at his sides. The sharp lines of his uniform seemed wrong in this room—too rigid, too formal for the rumpled sheets and the lingering scent of her arousal. His chest rose and fell too fast for a man who had just been standing still. His jaw was tight, a muscle jumping beneath the skin.
Iris watched him. The air between them was thick with everything unsaid, everything already done. She could smell him from here—winter pine and steel, undercut by the raw, hungry scent she remembered from the alcove. Her body remembered it too. A pulse of heat low in her belly, a clenching between her thighs that she couldn't control.
"You're in my room." Her voice came out quiet. Not accusing. Just stating the thing they both knew.
His eyes met hers. Ice-blue, dark in the low light. "You pulled me in."
"You let me."
Something shifted in his expression—a crack in the fortress, there and gone. He didn't answer. Instead, he moved. One step toward her, then another, closing the distance until she could feel the heat of his body, could see the way his throat moved when he swallowed.
His hand rose. Slow. Deliberate. His fingers found her jaw, tilting her face up, his thumb brushing across her lower lip. The touch was light, almost reverent, and it undid something in her chest.
"If I touch you again," he said, his voice low and rough, "I won't stop. I won't be gentle. I won't give you time to change your mind."
She felt the words in her bones. Felt the promise and the threat wrapped together. Her breath came shallow, her pulse a wild drum against her ribs.
"I don't want you to stop."
His thumb pressed harder against her lip, parting them. His eyes followed the motion, darkening. "Say it again."
"I don't want you to stop."
He kissed her.
His mouth was hard on hers, a claiming that started at her lips and went straight to her knees. She felt the shudder that went through him—a tremor of control breaking—and then his hands were on her hips, pulling her body flush against his. The rigid planes of his uniform pressed into the soft silk of her nightdress, and she could feel him, the hard length of his cock already straining against the wool of his trousers, a blunt demand against her belly.
He didn't kiss like a man who was gentle. He kissed like he was taking ground. His tongue swept into her mouth, tasting her, and she opened for him with a gasp that he swallowed. Her hands came up, fingers tangling in the short, rough hair at the nape of his neck, holding on as the world tilted. The scent of him—winter pine and clean sweat and that dark, hungry alpha musk—filled her lungs until it was all she could breathe.
One of his hands slid from her hip to the small of her back, pressing her closer, arching her into him. The other came up to cradle her jaw, his thumb still pressed against her lip, holding her mouth open for his kiss. She could feel the calluses on his palm, the sheer size of his hand against her face. A whimper escaped her throat, high and needy, and he answered it with a low growl that vibrated through her chest.
He broke the kiss only to trail his mouth down her jaw, his teeth scraping the sensitive skin beneath her ear. "You smell like you've been dreaming of this," he muttered against her throat, his voice raw. "Like you've been touching yourself and thinking of my cock."
The words, filthy and direct, sent a fresh rush of wet heat between her legs. She arched into his mouth, offering her throat. "I was."
His hand left her jaw, sliding down the column of her throat, over the frantic pulse there, and lower. He palmed her breast through the silk, his thumb finding her nipple and rubbing it into a tight, aching peak. She cried out, her head falling back. "Kael—"
"You said my name like that before," he said, his mouth moving back to hers, kissing her deeply, possessively. "When you were alone. I heard you. It was all I heard." His hand left her breast, gripped the neckline of her nightdress, and pulled. The silk tore with a sound like a sigh, baring her to the waist.
The cool air hit her skin, followed by the heat of his gaze. He looked at her—at her pale breasts, her peaked nipples, the rapid rise and fall of her chest—and his control visibly frayed. His ice-blue eyes were black with want. "Mine," he said, the word a vow.
He bent his head and took her nipple into his mouth. The shock of it—the wet heat, the suction, the rough drag of his tongue—drew a broken sob from her. His other arm banded around her waist, holding her up as her legs gave out. He lavished one breast, then the other, biting gently, sucking hard, until she was writhing against him, her fingers clenched in his hair.
He straightened, his lips wet, his breathing ragged. He looked from her flushed face to her ravished breasts, then back to her eyes. "Tell me you want it."
"I want it."
"Say what you want."
Her storm-grey eyes held his, defiant and desperate. "I want your cock. I want you to fuck me. Here. Now."
A muscle jumped in his jaw. He released her just long enough to shrug out of his uniform jacket, letting it fall to the floor. His hands went to his belt. The click of the buckle was loud in the quiet room.