"WAIT," Grayson said suddenly, his hands stilling on her waist.
The silence stretched between them, heavy and breathless.
Mailah's pulse thudded in her ears, every nerve alive, waiting for him to move, to speak—anything. But Grayson just looked at her. His pupils were wide, near-black, edged with faint silver light—the kind that shimmered along his skin whenever his control started to fray.
"Grayson?" she whispered, still straddling him, palms pressed against the smooth, hard plane of his chest.
He blinked, as if dragging himself out of some internal storm. "We should… not here."
Her breath hitched. Not here didn't sound like no.
He rose in one fluid motion, steadying her as though she were fragile glass. His touch contradicted that—firm, deliberate, almost reverent. When he caught her gaze, the faintest smile ghosted over his lips, a silent challenge, a promise of what he wasn't saying.
