The room seemed suddenly too warm. I remembered every moment I had stood close enough to breathe him in: his hand at my waist on the motorcycle, his bare forearms in the kitchen, his body filling my doorway while I lay in bed pretending I wanted only safety.

He had known.

Worse, he had wanted me too and carried that knowledge without using it.

Heat rose beneath my skin.

"You can smell that?"

"Yes."

"On the motorcycle?"

"Yes."

"In the kitchen?"

His jaw tightened. "Yes."

Humiliation and desire collided.

"And you said nothing."

"What should I have said? Your body wants me while your mind is still deciding?"

"You could have told me I wasn't imagining it."

"I was afraid you would think wanting was permission."

"Did you?"

"No."

The answer came with enough force to shake the air.

"Then what happens if I say yes someday?"

His pupils widened.

"Yes to what?"

"The bond. You. Whatever wolves do."

Silas gripped the back of a chair. The wood creaked.

"I would court you."

I stared. "Court me?"

"Badly, apparently."

Despite everything, a laugh escaped me.

"And the claiming?"

The gold in his eyes brightened. "A bite at the place where your neck meets your shoulder. It seals the bond. Lets us feel each other more clearly. It is permanent unless one of us dies."

My fingers rose to that exact spot before I could stop them.

Silas watched the movement. Hunger crossed his face—naked, unmistakable, and immediately restrained.

"You would ask first," I said.

"I would ask when you were free to answer."

"I'm answering questions now."

"You're still legally bound to a man who controls your money, has allies in the police, and tried to kill you. If I make this about choosing me before you have rebuilt yourself, then I become another man standing over your escape route."

The words should have soothed me. Instead they exposed a bruise I had not known was there.

"So even if I wanted you, you would say no?"

His voice dropped. "I would say not yet. Then I would go somewhere private and destroy something expensive."

I smiled before I could help it.

"Your motorcycle?"

"Never that desperate."

Silas moved around the table, then stopped several feet away.

"I have wanted to put my hands on you since the mountain. I have wanted to tear Grant's name off every document because he calls you wife. I have imagined your body in my bed, your scent in my house, your daughter calling this place home. None of that gives me permission to take one step you did not choose."

My pulse thundered.

"You're in love with someone else's wife."

The words hurt both of us.

"Yes."

No denial. No careful qualification.

The room tilted around the answer.

"You barely know me."

"I know how you count exits. I know you drink coffee with milk and no sugar. I know you make plans when everyone expects you to panic. I know you laugh before you remember it hurts."

His voice roughened.

"I know it isn't enough yet. But it isn't nothing."

I wanted to cross the distance.

That frightened me more than his wolf.

"I'm still married."

"I know."

"I don't know what I feel."

"I know that too."

"Stop saying you know."

"All right."

I took the wedding ring from my pocket and set it on the table between us.

"This is not yours to replace."

His expression tightened. "I don't want his place."

"What do you want?"

"A place you choose to make for me."

The answer found every weak point in my anger.

I closed my fingers around the ring again.

"I need space."

Silas stepped backward immediately.

Not the wounded retreat of a man trying to make me chase him. A clean surrender of distance.

"How much?"

"I don't know."

"Then I'll wait until you do."

I left the dining room.

In the hallway, Sophie sat on the stairs eating chocolate cake with Ronan.

"Did you find mate?" she asked.

Ronan covered his face.

"No," I said. "But I found dessert."

She handed me her fork.

Behind me, Silas did not follow.

The distance should have been a relief.

Instead, every step away from him pulled against something newly awake inside me.