He looks at my hands, then my face, then back to the map.
His own hands drift toward the edge of the desk, then stop, then start again.
There's a tremor in his fingers, but he clamps it down.
He says, "Help me, then."
His voice is lower, almost hoarse.
"If you won't leave, help me take it."
I breathe in, let the air fill the space between us, and for the first time since the docks, I feel the shape of the old world realign.
I nod again, slower this time, and he sees it.
He closes the map with a snap and shoves it aside, as if disgusted by its irrelevance.
Then he steps around the desk, stops an arm's length from me, and just stands there, watching.
We're so close now, I can smell the ghost of whiskey on his breath, the sharp afterbite of mouthwash and adrenaline.
I realize my hands are shaking, and I curl them into fists inside the hoodie.
He reaches for my left wrist—the bandaged one—and pauses just before touching it, asking permission with his eyes.
I give it, barely, with the smallest nod.
His fingers are rough and warm and careful.
He turns my wrist over, inspects the bandage, then traces a line with his thumb across the back of my hand.
The touch is nothing, but it's also everything.
"You're sure?" he asks, voice so low it vibrates in my chest.
"I'm sure."
He lets go, but his hand doesn't move far.
Instead, he shifts it to my elbow, then up to my shoulder, stopping just shy of my neck.
His thumb brushes the line of my jaw, and I don't move away.
I'm not even sure I could if I wanted to.
He kisses me then, sudden and all at once, the kind of kiss that knows exactly what it's doing.
It's not gentle, but it's not rough, either.
It's inevitable, like gravity, like a crash you see coming from miles out and do nothing to avoid.
I lean into it, matching pressure for pressure, until I'm the one driving it forward.
My hands leave the hoodie and find the buttons on his shirt, and I work them one by one, slow and methodical, as if proving a point.
He breathes out a laugh, half-disbelieving, and then pulls me harder against him.
The desk is behind me, and he lifts me onto it with a single motion.
