She's...
I don't have words.
My training gave me vocabulary for violence, for strategy, for the hundreds of ways to kill a person efficiently. But it didn't prepare me for this. For the way moonlight traces the curves of her body. For the lean muscle beneath soft skin, the dancer's form that's been honed into a weapon. For the scars that mark her—the badges of survival she wears without shame.
The corset bruises along her ribs.
The blade marks across her stomach.
The constellation of old wounds that tell the story of a girl who's survived things that should have destroyed her.
Beautiful.
Devastating.
Everything I never knew I wanted.
My eyes trace down—I can't help it, can't stop myself—taking in the flat plane of her stomach, the curve of her hips, the junction of her thighs where...
I curse.
The sound is rough, strangled, completely undone.
"You—" I'm already pulling at my own shirt, yanking it over my head. "Stop being naked."
Her giggle is immediate.
Bright.
Delighted.
"Butyousaid?—"
"Don't listen to me." I shove the shirt toward her, face burning, trying desperately not to look at the parts of her body that are currently making me question every choice I've ever made. "Just—put this on—please?—"
She takes the shirt.
But she doesn't put it on immediately.
Instead, she holds it in her hands—my shirt, still warm from my body, carrying my scent—and looks at me with an expression I can't quite read.
Tender.
Amused.
Something that might be affection, buried beneath the madness.
Then she slips the shirt over her head.
The fabric is too big on her—just like Sage's was—but somehow that makes it worse. Somehow seeing her swim inmyclothes, wearingmyscent, does things to my chest that I don't have names for.
She steps closer.
My body goes rigid—not with fear, not with violence, but withanticipation. The particular tension of someone who doesn't know what's coming but desperately wants to find out.
Her hands find my chest.
Palms flat against bare skin, because I gave her my shirt and now I'm the one who's partially undressed.
