Page 52 of A Wolf of War
Soon, he thought.
***
The fire crackled softly,throwing amber light across the room that flickered and flitted. Shadows stretched long over the antique furniture. The velvet drapes had been pulled back just enough to reveal the snow-covered mountains beyond the tall, arched windows. It was the kind ofroom that belonged to a place older than memory.
And there, in front of the fireplace, lay the only person who had ever really mattered.
Willow was curled atop the thick fur rug, her bare skin gilded by firelight. Milo watched her from the doorway, barely breathing. Her chest rose and fell in a slow, steady rhythm, and one arm was tucked beneath her head while the other lay loosely over her belly. She was completely at ease, and so fully, beautifully bare.
She hadn’t dressed for bed.
Milo stepped forward silently, the weight of his gaze trailing over every inch of her. Her hip curved in the firelight like the edge of a blade. Her back was exposed, spine soft against the fur. He memorized every detail. And though he ached to reach for her, to wake her with his mouth and hands, he didn’t. He simply watched, spellbound and still, letting the heat in his chest match the fire that roared behind her.
Milo stood in the glow of the fireplace, arms crossed loosely over his chest as he watched her stir. The fur rug shifted with her breathing. The flames played over her skin like they worshipped her as much as he did.
She was waking.
He didn’t move.
Didn’tbreathe.
Then she blinked, lashes fluttering open, and her sleepy eyes found him across the room.
“Milo,” she rasped, voice soft and thick with sleep. The sound of his name on her lips was enough to anchor him, even when everything else in his world felt untethered.
He stepped closer, slow and careful, like she was prey and yet a forbidden hunt all at once.
“Couldn’t sleep,” he murmured, keeping his voice low. “Didn’t want to wake you.”
“You’re staring,” she said, barely above a whisper. Her tone wasn’t accusing. Just tired. Curious.
“You make it hard not to.”
Lying there like some kind of dream, flushed with warmth and alive with things he didn’t deserve—softness, stillness, light.
When she looked at him again, it was different. Like she was trying to read him, decode something written between the lines of who he was and who he wanted to be.
Perhaps somebody worthy of her.
“You always look at me like you’ve already decided how the story ends,” she said, her voice steadythis time.
He dropped into a crouch, careful to keep space between them. His hands curled into loose fists on his thighs.
“That’s because it’s already been told,” he said. “Ours is a story as old as time, sweetheart.”
She looked at him for a long time, and in that silence, he could hear every heartbeat. Hers. His. The bond humming like a live wire between them.
“You scare me,” she whispered.
“I scare myself,” he admitted.
But he didn’t back away.
And she didn’t ask him to.
Her face was so unguarded that it almost made him ache. The fire behind her cast shadows that dipped into the delicate hollows of her collarbones and the curve of her spine.
And she was still nude.
