At the blood.
At me.
“You’re too fucking real.”
The air shifts.
My breath stutters.
Something fragile fractures between us.
I tape the last of the bandage, toss the kit onto the chair behind me.
“You could’ve killed him.”
“He touched you.”
“So fucking what?”
Dax leans forward so fast I gasp—but he catches me with both hands, one on my knee, the other curled in the hem of my dress like he’s anchoring himself.
“You don’t get it,” he growls. “You don’t see what I see.”
“Then tell me.”
And he does.
With his mouth.
He crushes his lips to mine, the kiss a collision of fury and longing and regret, and the world outside that locked door falls away.
He slams his mouth to mine like he’s punishing himself for ever walking away, like every ounce of guilt and anger and regret is pouring straight through the kiss with enough force to erase that blonde from his lips, to scorch the memory of the bar, the blood, the rage, all of it, until the only thing left in the world is this — just this — just us — just a kiss that tastes like ruin and hunger and something neither of us has the strength to name.
And I kiss him back.
Because I’m tired.
Tired of pretending I don’t want him.
Tired of pretending he didn’t dismantle me with one touch and a nickname.
Tired of pretending my entire body doesn’t melt the second he says it.
“Butterfly…”
He breathes it against my mouth like a confession, like a prayer, and I swear I could break open right here on the spot.
“Say it again,” I whisper, voice trembling against his lips.
His eyes flash — a dark, fierce lightning I feel all the way to my bones.
And he does.
“Mine.”
The word isn’t spoken — it’sclaimed, dragged from somewhere deep in him and pressed into me with the weight of a brand. His mouth crashes onto mine with the desperation of a man who’s lived off rations and is suddenly handed water, like he’s been starving since the day we met and I’m the thing he knows will finally kill him — and he’s begging for it anyway.
A sound escapes me, a broken, breathless moan against his lips, and my fingers tangle in his hair, tugging because I need to feel something solid, something real, something that tells me this isn’t another cruel hallucination.
