My brows pull together. “Take me?”
His hand glides down the side of my face, rough and warm and trembling just enough to betray how hard this is for him. “Out,” he breathes. “Somewhere normal. Somewhere you’re not on a stage and I’m not pretending I don’t want you.”
I blink up at him.
Once.
Twice.
“Are you…” A tiny smile tugs at my mouth, uninvited, impossible to stop. “Are you asking me out on a date, soldier?”
His jaw tightens on instinct, like the word date has teeth. “Fuck off,” he mutters — but the words aren’t sharp. They’re softened at the edges, reluctant, shy in a way he’d die before admitting.
I can’t help the laugh that slips out. “To be fair, you did skip a few steps. You went straight from war criminal to wrecking my soul to asking me out to dinner.”
“Jesus Christ,” he groans, dragging his face into the crook of my neck like he’s trying to hide how flustered he is. And God — the way he presses his nose there, breathing me in like he’s starving for something clean — it almost hurts.
“You’re ridiculous,” I tease softly, letting my fingers slide through his sweat-damp hair. “A very big, very dangerous, emotionally constipated man who apparently wants to take me for a burger after rearranging my insides.”
He lifts his head then.
Slowly. Carefully.
Like he’s afraid any sudden movement might reveal too much.
And despite everything — despite the war inside him, despite the fear, the violence, the instinct to run — he smiles. Not the sharp, weaponised smile he gives other people.
A real one.
But even that carries an ache.
He brushes his nose along mine. “You make me forget what the fuck I’ve done.”
His voice lowers to something intimate. Something raw. Something only meant for me.
“I look at you… and everything else goes quiet. I haven’t felt that in years.”
The teasing drains out of me instantly.
Because the pain behind those words? The truth in them? It’s too heavy to joke over. Too human.
“You don’t have to be anything for me, Dax,” I whisper. “Just be here.”
His eyes flick down to my lips, then back up, like he’s weighing the cost of kissing me again — and deciding he’ll pay it even if it kills him.
He leans in, his breath hot against my lips. The first touch is barely there—a ghost of pressure that makes me chase his mouth. Then his hand slides into my hair, gripping tight at the roots, and he consumes me. His tongue sweeps in, tasting of whiskey and want, claiming every corner of my mouth like he owns it. I whimper, and he swallows the sound, pressing meback until I'm trapped between his hard chest. His teeth catch my bottom lip, tugging until I gasp, the sweet sting making my knees buckle. When he pulls back just enough for me to breathe, his eyes are midnight dark, pupils blown wide. "Mine," he whispers against my mouth, and I can feel the word vibrating through every cell in my body. When he kisses me again, deeper, hungrier, I know I'll never be the same.
His hand drifts to my hip, his callused palm now impossibly gentle against my skin. His thumb traces the curve where my waist dips, memorising me by touch alone. Our breathing synchronises in the quiet.
I press my forehead to his chest, inhaling the salt of his skin, feeling his heartbeat against my lips.
"You're shaking," he whispers, voice stripped of its earlier growl, replaced with something raw and unguarded.
I nod against him, unable to look up, afraid of what I might see in his eyes—this tenderness that makes my chest ache more than any bruise his passion left behind.
His fingers thread through mine, squeezing once. A promise neither of us names.
His mouth trails to my jaw. “Dax…” I breathe his name before I can stop myself.
