"You shouldn't look at me like that in public," I murmured, my voice low, almost a growl, though my eyes never left hers.
Her breath hitched, and I could see the flush creeping up her neck.
"And why not?" she whispered, almost daring me.
"Because," I said, closing the small distance between us, "I can't control myself around you."
The words hung in the air, heavy and charged, and for the first time, the mall, the crowd, the outside world, none of it mattered. It was just her, just me, and the pull that had been building between us all day.
"You do know this is a fitting room," she whispered, breath uneven, "and anyone could walk in at any moment… right?"
I listened carefully, more to what her body betrayed than her words. The way her breathing stuttered, the way her gaze struggled to stay steady on mine. She didn't realize it, but she was unraveling me. I could feel it, the subtle shift in the air, the way my presence was already overwhelming her senses.
"I'm aware of our situation, bunny,"
I replied calmly, a teasing edge slipping into my voice on purpose. I liked seeing that flicker of uncertainty in her eyes, liked how it mixed with something warmer, something she wasn't ready to name.
I leaned down, slow and deliberate, brushing a gentle kiss against her neck. Nothing rushed. Nothing careless. Just enough to make her inhale sharply, just enough to remind both of us how thin the line was between control and instinct. Inside, every part of me strained to go further, to lose myself in her completely, but for now I stayed right there, suspended in that charged, dangerous closeness.
I lifted my head and met her red eyes, and the sensation hit me all over again. Those eyes had never belonged to someone fragile. They felt like standing on a battlefield after the noise had faded—ground soaked in old blood, bodies buried beneath my feet, walls stained with things time refused to erase. They carried memory, violence, survival. I'd known it from the first time she looked at me like that, long before she realized I was watching closely enough to understand.
As a man who knew violence intimately, I recognized it immediately.
She wasn't innocent. She only wore innocence well. Harmless wasn't the word either. Careful was. Observant. The way she stared at me this morning, like she was piecing something together she didn't have language for yet, confirmed what I already suspected.
She'd found my guns. That much was obvious.
What she didn't know was that I'd noticed her reaction long before that. The way her breathing changed when she caught my scent. Not fear. Recognition. Steel, oil, and gunpowder lingered on me beneath everything else, and no one reacts to that combination unless they've lived with it. Unless it's familiar.
She didn't flinch away from it. She leaned into it.
And the way she moved in public told me more than she ever could. Always aware of exits. Always positioned just slightly to the side. Shoulders tense but ready. That wasn't instinct born from comfort.
That was learned.
She thought she was hiding it. Thought I saw only what she allowed me to see.
But I knew.
I'd known for a while now.
And whatever story she thought she was keeping from me, whatever past she hadn't shared yet, it ran closer to my world than she realized. That truth settled deep in my chest, heavy and steady.
Because it meant one thing very clearly.
She wasn't just tangled in my life by accident.
She belonged closer to it than anyone watching us would ever guess.
And I wasn't going to be the one to look away first.
I slide my gloved hand beneath her shirt, my skin grazing hers as I bring my lips to meet hers. My fingers trace a slow, deliberate path upward, like a serpent moving to a dangerous and intimate rhythm.
The kiss deepens, a slow, deliberate exploration that holds no urgency, only a profound certainty. I learn the softness of her lower lip, the hidden warmth within, the soft sigh that escapes her as I tilt my head to taste her more completely. Our tongues intertwine in a heated, breathless dance that slows, then quickens, a silent conversation that speaks of want and waiting.
Minutes, or perhaps only seconds, stretch and dissolve into the warmth of her mouth, the shared breath that becomes our own atmosphere. I only pull back a fraction, just enough to look into her eyes as they flutter shut. My free hand threads into her hair, gently tugging her head back. Her eyes open again, glazed and deep, locking onto mine. Her breath comes ragged against my lips, a shared rhythm now broken into unsteady pulses.
"Do you really want me to stop, Bella?"
I whisper, the words a soft vibration against her kiss-swollen mouth.
Consequence, then.
A low sound, almost a growl, vibrates in my throat as my hand flattens against her ribs, feeling the frantic drum of her heart. The kiss I take now is not an exploration, but a claim. It is deeper, more devouring, a deliberate blurring of the line where she ends and I begin. The leather of my glove is a stark, cool contrast against the feverish skin of her stomach as my fingers finally find the lower edge of her bra, not a question but the promise of an answer.
I don't let her breathe. I steal the air from her lungs and give it back, flavored with my own need. My hand in her hair tightens, not to hurt, but to hold—to anchor her here, in this moment that is tipping over the edge of something irreversible. When I finally break the kiss, it's only to drag my lips along the desperate line of her jaw, down the taut cord of her throat.
"No," I murmur against her pulse, a dark and velvet truth. "You don't."