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Not to be left out was The Trail. That tempting thatch of tawny hair that stretched in invitation from his navel to the base of a cock her innermost muscles still hadn’t fully recovered from.
And that was what worried her the most.
Ever since their carnal clash on the couch, her body had decided to mutiny the brain barking orders to it. Muscles hummed with an energy comparable to what she’d experienced that one time after Drea had dragged her to that indoor cycling class. Problem was, Molly had just been sleeping and hadn’t exerted more than a heavy breath or two.
So, why did she feel like she’d run a marathon that wasn’t sex related?
Heat quickly crept up her cheeks. She pinched her T-shirt and held it away from her in the manner of all hot flash commiserators. It was another unfortunate symptom that had sprouted up out of nowhere. Throughout the night, her body temperature had vacillated wildly.
One more worry to add to the pile, chief among them having to do with the warming tattoo on her wrist and the slumbering sex god who had somehow put it there.
That had to have been it. She didn’t care how supernatural her acquaintances had become. One did not burst into flame upon gifting her the most toe-curling orgasm of her life without marking her as the proverbial summit of where it all took place in hopes of one day returning.
Returning. That thought alone had been enough to pull her out of bed and examine the permanent symbol on her skin that marked her connection to Brass. The soul bond. Had there ever been anything so permanent as what that represented? Marriages failed just as often as they succeeded. Parents could die. Homes could be shattered. Bosses could lie, and men could steal women’s trust faster than a french fry off a passing party tray.
But to be soul bound to an immortal angel carried its own air of immortality that went beyond the petty gripes of the human world she’d thus far lived in. And where did love come into play in that everlasting dichotomy, if at all? They hadn’t spoken of it, and she wasn’t sure how to take that. Was love a distinctly human emotion or only so much in the way that humans had learned how to exploit it?
“I can hear you thinking over there.” Sleep rasped Brass’s voice into a register that burned her skin even hotter and pulled her nipples into stiff points. How the hell did he always do that?
Through the mirror, she watched him rise from the bed, unfurling his body from the covers with a jaguar’s grace. “That’s not fair, you know,” she whined. “You can’t come out of a dead sleep and have perfectly tousled hair. It’s against the rules.”
His warmth blanketed her back as he lifted her tangled tumbleweeds of hair away from her neck to plant a kiss there. “I like to make my own rules.”
“Do you also like to make your own bad boy biker clichés?” She arched a brow at him through the mirror.
“What I’d like is to know why you’re not in bed keeping me warm.”
She sighed, totally unprepared to lead with the heavy stuff. “Why do you always like to cut to the chase? Sometimes—hear me out—sometimes build up is good. Necessary, even. Words are not always bad, you know. They can do a girl wonders for ramping up to an argument just long enough so she can figure out the right words.”
Her worried tone clearly conveyed all Brass needed to know about her state of mind. He gently spun her around but left his hands on her shoulders. “What’s all this about?”
And then she said the wrong words. “Is there a choice?”
Brass’s hold stiffened against her. “A choice in what?”
“A choice in the soul bond?”
The stoic calm that had carved itself into Brass’s features cracked and quickly crumbled around the edges. “Not for me there isn’t.”
“But how do you know that? How do you know that your prime mages or whoever didn’t make a mistake?” She lifted her wrist, presenting it to him like evidence to be entered into the court record. “How do you know that I’m the right one for you?”
His jaw ticked back and forth. “Does it feel like a mistake?”
A painful sob lodged in Molly’s throat once. Twice. By the third time it tried pushing through to the surface, all her defenses had flown the nest.
“No!” she cried, her exclamation stunning them both. “And that’s the problem!” Molly stormed over to the bed and plopped down. “Ever since you charged into my restaurant with far too much sass in your ass for me to deal with during a midweek breakfast service, I’ve felt . . . right. Relieved. Content. You don’t hover, but you’re always there. You don’t say anything most of the time, yet your silence gives me more reassurance than a barrage of bullshit compliments. You’re supportive without smothering and . . . and . . .” She was blabbering, having a full-on bleeding-of-the-soul moment all over Brass’s Egyptian cotton sheets, but she couldn’t patch that dam with all the granite New Hampshire had to offer. “And I like the idea of being your mate.”
There. She’d said it. The confession that had taken root so deep within her, it could hardly reach the light long enough for her to examine it.
But it was there, in their face for both of them to see and scrutinize. To accept or reject.
Molly summoned the courage to look at him and wished she could read the stern expression carved into his glacial features. Still, he said nothing, so compelled as she always was, she filled the silence with the panic of her heart.
“What does that mean? What does it mean that I want you?”
One moment, Brass was frozen in front of the mirror; the next, he was on his knees in front of her, a blur of red and gold, with his warrior’s hands cradling her face. Golden flames danced in eyes so wide and wild, they illuminated every dark corner of her soul’s desire.
“It means,” he growled, “that you’re mine. And this,” he breathed against her mouth while holding her wrist to his bare chest, “is yours. All of it. My mark. My soul. My fire. All of it is yours.”
