The lamp wobbles, nearly topples, but I catch it and shove it aside.
He steps between my knees, pushes the hoodie from my shoulders, and kisses the bruise at my jaw as if he could erase it.
I let my head fall back, eyes closed and feel the cold of the desktop through the thin cotton gown.
We don't talk after that.
There's nothing left to say.
The next five minutes are all hands and mouths and the intake of breath when skin meets skin.
I lose track of the order in which clothes come off.
I only know the sound of the buttons skipping across the wood, the hiss of a zipper, the warm press of his body against mine.
He pauses, once, to look at me—really look, as if cataloguing every inch for evidence.
Then he tilts my chin up and kisses me again, slower this time, and everything else in the world recedes—the war outside, the traitors in the walls,even the children whose existence has already rewritten every rule in my book.
He enters me like it's a claim, a signature, and I meet him halfway.
The pain is sharp at first, but it softens, replaced by a heat that starts in my chest and spreads everywhere.
I dig my nails into his back; pull him closer until there's no air left between us.
When I come, it's silent.
My whole body locks, then shudders, and for a second, I am pure sensation, pure light.
He follows seconds later, face buried in my neck, breath hot and frantic.
We stay like that, tangled, until the world filters back in.
The desk is a mess—papers scattered, the lamp tilted at a dangerous angle, a pen rolling slowly to the edge and then dropping to the carpet with a soft thud.
He doesn't move at first, just holds me, forehead pressed to my collarbone.
Eventually, I slide off the desk, pull the hoodie back on, and lean against the edge.
He buttons his shirt, one-handed, and smirks at me through his hair.
The look in his eyes is different now—not softer, exactly, but less armored.
"You're a menace," he says with something almost like affection.
"And you're an idiot," I reply, but it comes out gentle.
"But it turns out that you're my idiot and if we're in this war, we may as well go in together."
He dips his head in acknowledgment.
"Fair enough."
19
RUAIRÍ
My war against those who tried to silence my wife and unborn children begins with silence.
