Page 69 of The Naga Lord's Pretty Little Mouse

Xirath lies next to me, half-propped against the pillows, his golden eyes heavy-lidded, watching.

Watching me.

A slow exhale slips from my lips, but it does nothing to steady the chaos unraveling in my chest.

His expression remains unreadable, but the tension in his shoulders tells me what he will not.

This has changed something.

Everything.

The truth presses down on me, suffocating.

I should speak.

Say something, anything to break the thick silence coiling around us.

Yet, my throat tightens when I attempt it, as if the words refuse to take shape.

Xirath shifts beside me, the sheets pulling lower, exposing the carved planes of his chest, the streaks of crimson along his obsidian scales.

Memories of his touch flash like wildfire across my skin.

Heat rushes to my cheeks, and I force my gaze away.

A mistake.

My body betrays me, aching, remembering.

This was not supposed to happen.

His fingers brush against my arm. A slow, deliberate touch.

A tether. A reminder.

A warning.

"You’re thinking too much," he murmurs.

My jaw tightens, muscles coiling with resistance. "I’m thinking exactly as much as I should be."

The ghost of a smirk tugs at the corner of his lips, as if he expected my reaction.

He is too calm.

Too collected, too steady, as if last night has not ruined him the same way it has ruined me.

"You regret it." The statement is flat, unbothered, yet there is something beneath it.

Something he is not saying.

I pull the sheet higher over my chest, fingers curling into the fabric. "I don’t know what I feel."

A lie.

He catches it immediately.

Golden eyes narrow, sharp and assessing. "You hate being trapped. But you keep coming back to me."

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