Chapter 23 The Weight Of Wanting
Davina's POV
His fingers traced my cheek so slowly that I forgot how to breathe.
His eyes were dark, completely dark and fixed on my face with an intensity that made everything else in the room fade away.
The wall pressed against my back, and he was so close, too close that the warmth radiating from him wrapped around me like a cozy blanket, making it hard to think clearly.
"You do things to me effortlessly," he murmured, his voice dropping to a low, rough whisper. "To my body. To my wolf." His thumb traced the line of my jaw, pausing at my chin. "Things I didn’t think were possible."
I should have said something, anything. I had words somewhere, a whole vocabulary built from years of standing my ground with men who invaded my personal space.
But every single one of them had let me down.
He exhaled, a shaky breath that seemed to catch him off guard. "I don’t know how much longer I can control wanting you," he said softly. "How much longer my wolf can wait."
His hand slid from my jaw to the wall beside my head as he leaned in, his face dipping toward the curve of my neck. I felt him inhale deeply, his nose brushing against the skin just below my ear. A sound escaped him, low and involuntary, a mix between a groan and a sigh that sent shivers through me, settling in a place I didn’t want to acknowledge.
Then his lips slightly grazed my neck.
A soft and embarrassing sound slipped from my lips before I could stop it. I pressed my lips together so tightly afterward that they ached. My hands flattened against the wall behind me because if I didn’t hold onto something, I genuinely didn’t know what they would do.
And then he pulled back slowly, as if it took effort. His jaw was tight, and his eyes found mine, revealing a moment of raw honesty before he masked it all again.
He stepped back, running a hand through his hair. "Goodnight, Davina," he said quietly.
And then he walked out, closing the door behind him.
I leaned against the wall for what felt like an eternity.
The cabin was silent except for the distant sound of the last wolves returning from the tree line. I stood there, the back of my head resting against the wall, staring at the ceiling, having a very real conversation with myself about where I stood.
I was in trouble, that was the simplest way to put it, and I was too exhausted to sugarcoat it. The careful balance I’d been trying to maintain acknowledging the bond was real while keeping my feelings at arm’s length was getting harder every day, and tonight hadn’t helped at all.
The worst part wasn’t the way he’d looked at me, it was that I wanted him to stay.
That was the nagging feeling sitting heavy in my chest, and I didn’t know what to do with it. After he left, after the door clicked shut, the first thing I felt beneath the shock and the heat and the embarrassing whimper I’d never admit to was disappointment.
I walked away from the wall and sat on the edge of the bed.
Three years with Steven had rewired something in me, fundamentally changing my understanding of what it meant to want someone. By the time I left him, I had completely lost trust in my instincts about men. Wanting someone had been turned into a leash, a reason to stay when everything else screamed for me to go.
So what was I supposed to do with this?
With a man who stepped back when he could have stayed? Who asked for permission with his eyes before his hands moved? Who genuinely said, "I want you to choose," and meant it?
I lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, but I didn’t have an answer.
I drifted off to sleep still searching for one.
He was in my dream right away. We were in the archive, but it didn’t look like the archive. The shelves stretched higher than they should have, the light was warmer, and he sat across the reading table from me, saying something I couldn’t quite catch. I leaned forward, trying to hear him, and he almost smiled, that little smile that danced at the corner of his mouth. Then his hand crossed the table and covered mine, and everything felt warm before I woke up.
Six forty-three in the morning.
I lay there for a moment, the dream fading, and pressed the back of my hand against my face.
Absolutely not, I told myself.
A note had been slipped under my door sometime before I woke up. Just a small piece of paper with four words written in surprisingly neat handwriting for someone with hands the size of dinner plates.
Breakfast, same place. By eight.
I read it twice, put it down, then picked it up again.
"This man," I said to the empty room, "has absolutely no shame."
I got up, washed my face, and went anyway.
He was already there when I pushed open the door, standing at the small sideboard pouring coffee. He turned when I walked in, and for one brief moment, we just looked at each other, the weight of the previous night hanging between us.
"Morning," he said.
"Morning," I replied.
We both moved toward the table at the same time, then paused. He gestured for me to sit first, and I did. He brought the coffee over, sat across from me, picked up his fork, and I picked up mine. We both started talking at the same moment.
Then I stopped and he stopped too.
"You go," he said.
"No, you started."
"I wasn't... go ahead."
"Zane, just say what you were going to say."
He set his fork down. "How did you sleep?"
The dream came rushing back, his hand over mine, the warmth of it, and I reached for my coffee, taking a long sip.
"Fine," I said. "How was your night?"
"Good." Then he paused. "Fine."
I focused on my plate and he looked at his.
Outside the window, a bird landed on the fence post for a moment before flying away. The silence stretched for a few seconds before he exhaled and leaned back.
"Your research," he said. "How close are you?"
I wrapped both hands around my mug. "I’m still hitting walls with Aldric’s daughter. Ravenshade territorial maps only go back twenty years, and whatever Grayson is using as a holding location is either off the record or coded differently in the older documents."
He nodded slowly, watching me. "Alright, let that wait for now. I want to show you something today."
I looked up.
"Your shop," he said. "I thought you might want to see it. Check on it, collect whatever you need." He held my gaze. "I’ll have four wolves with us, and we’ll sweep the street before you go anywhere near it. We’ll leave the moment anything feels off." His expression changed. "You’ve been here almost two weeks. I thought you might need to see it."
I looked at him across the small table, this man who had turned my life upside down, and felt something stir in my chest that I was running out of ways to explain away.
"Okay," I said softly.
He nodded and returned his attention to his plate.