He tilted his head, just slightly, and his voice wrapped around me like the flicker of firelight.
“That kiss.”
My stomach flipped.
He smiled. “You are, aren’t you?”
I narrowed my eyes, trying to salvage a shred of dignity. “What kiss?”
Keegan’s laughter wrapped around me. “It’s been top of mind, huh?”
“You don’tknowthat.”
“I don’t need to.” His grin turned wolfish. “I can see it.”
I scoffed and turned away, pretending to fuss with the teacups that someone, probably Stella, had left in a perfectly staged arrangement on the sideboard.
“That’s a bold assumption.”
“It’s not an assumption,” he said, now so close behind me I could feel the warmth of him at my back. “It’s a memory. And one I’ve been replaying a little too often since it happened. Call it shifter instinct.”
My fingers stilled on the cup.
“And I’d kiss you again,” he added, his voice dipping low enough to send a shiver down my spine, “if I didn’t think you'd immediately follow it with a lecture about timing, responsibility, and very complicated goblin diplomacy.”
I turned then, too quickly, and found myself inches from him.
His grin widened, but his eyes, those beautiful, stormy eyes, were soft.
Steady.
I hated how much I wanted to close the space between us. How much Ididn’twant to be the reasonable one right now.
Instead, I smiled up at him, holding his gaze. “You’re not wrong.”
“I usually am when it comes to you,” he said.
And that—that was unfair. My heart did a foolish little flutter, and I almost forgot every reason I had for keeping things from slipping too fast.
Almost.
But before either of us could move, before I could be brave or ridiculous or both…
A sharp knock sounded at the door.
I jumped.
Keegan sighed.
We both stared at the door for a beat.
“Let me guess,” he murmured. “Skonk again?”
“If he tied up Twobble, I swear—”
But when I opened the door, it wasn’t a goblin standing there.
It was Lady Limora.