There’s only this:
His breath, ragged in my ear.
My fingers pressing into his shoulders.
The way he saystell me if anything feels wrongeven when everything feels impossibly, terrifyingly right.
We cross that last threshold together, not with dramatics or high drama, but with a shared, shaky exhale and a whisperedyesthat echoes between us like an oath.
He’s careful.
So careful it makes my chest ache.
Every movement is a question, every shift calibrated around my responses. When my body tenses, he slows. When I pull him closer, he answers with a low sound that makes the edges of my vision spark.
I’ve never felt so…seen.
Not as an idea. Not as a crush. Not as someone’s little sister.
As me.
As Lark, messy and stubborn and scared and wanting too much.
He gives me more anyway.
At some point I realize I’m shaking—not from fear, but from the sheer force of everything hitting me at once. The danger outside. The man inside. The way my heart is beating so loud I’m sure he can hear it.
He buries his face in my neck, breath hot against my skin. “Lark,” he groans, like my name is the only thing holding him together.
I cling to him, nails digging into his shoulder blades, not to hurt but to anchor. “I’m here,” I whisper. “I’m right here.”
We find a rhythm that’s all ours.
Messy and tangled and a little desperate.
Beautiful in its imperfection.
When it finally crests—when everything snaps white and bright and too much—I feel like I’m being rewired from the inside out. Like the entire world narrows to the point where we’re joined, to the sound of his voice in my ear, to the way he holds me like breaking apart around me is not an option.
I come back to myself slowly, heartbeat roaring in my ears, chest heaving.
Knight is still above me, weight braced, forehead pressed to mine, eyes squeezed shut like he’s praying to something that might be listening.
His breath is a stuttered mess.
“Hey,” I whisper, lifting a shaky hand to brush damp hair off his forehead. “You okay?”
His eyes open.
They’re blown wide and weirdly soft.
“I am now,” he says, voice rough. “You?”
“Currently experiencing a full system reboot,” I say. “Ten out of ten. No notes.”
He huffs out a breath that might be a laugh or a sob. It sounds like both.
He kisses me again, softer this time, almost reverent. He rushes to clean up and dispose of the condom, and then he’s back in bed before I can even miss him.
