He meets me with equal ferocity, a low growl vibrating in his chest that I feel under my palms. For once, I don’t pick him apart or search for the angle. I just devour the taste of his heat, dragonand man blurred into one, the way it burns clean through the fog of death still clinging to me.
His hands slide from my neck down the curve of my spine, pressing me flush to the hard planes of his chest. Hot skin, hot water, hot breath—I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.
The kiss turns hungry—ravenous—like every argument we’ve ever had is trying to crawl down my throat and choke me with wanting. I fist my hands in his damp hair, pulling hard enough that the low rumble in his chest becomes a snarl. He answers by lifting me clean off my feet; the water lifts with us, lapping at my waist as I wrap my legs around his hips. My torn undershirt clings wetly between us.
He groans when I bite his lip. “No restraint,” he warns against my mouth. “Not here.” The words vibrate through bone. Good. Restraint is the last thing on my mind.
His mouth trails scalding lines down my neck, lingering over the frantic pulse there, then lower—across the jagged ridge of my collarbone, the hollow above my heart. Every spot he touches lights up like flint struck on steel. I arch into it, unraveling. The water keeps us unmoored, floating but never drifting apart, like the pool itself transpires to keep us together.
I drag my nails down his back, feeling the shiver of draconic heat spike beneath the human veneer. He retaliates by sliding one hand beneath the soaked hem of my shirt, palm skating up my ribs, stopping just under the curve of my breast. He waits. A question. One I answer by biting his shoulder in lieu of a yes.
A sound escapes him—rough, almost savage—that vibrates straight through his chest and into mine. His left arm around me tightens, careful but certain, as if I might vanish if he lets go even for a second. The fingers of his right hand trace the damp hem of my undershirt. The soaked fabric clings to my skin like a second, suffocating layer, and I feel the moment hedecides it’s in his way. One tug—swift, deliberate—and the shirt peels away from my body with a wet whisper. He slides off my bra with equal skill.
I’m bared to him in an instant, steam kissing every inch of skin the cloth abandons. My breath seizes. No armor, no shadows, no pretense—just me, trembling under the weight of his gaze.
Amber eyes darken to bronze, pupils blown wide. The look is reverent, barely leashed. My skin prickles under it. Water beads on my collarbones, slips down my chest; he tracks its path with rapt hunger, the muscle in his jaw ticking.
“Esme.” His voice is gravel wrapped in velvet. “Let me… see you.”
He doesn’t ask twice. Both hands glide up my ribs, lifting me higher out of the pool until I’m sat on the edge. He doesn’t speak at first, just looks. And I feel the weight of that gaze drag across my skin—over the curve of my collarbone, the raised line of the purifier lash, the frantic rise and fall of my ribs. The steam curls between us but does nothing to blur him. If anything, it sharpens every detail: the stuttered pulse at the base of his throat, the darker ring of bronze around his pupils, the way his fingers twitch slightly against the stone.
“You’re beautiful, Esme,” he says, low. “I’ve never told you that.”
The air leaves my lungs in a single, shaken rush. Something inside me folds—small and traitorous—because no one has. Not like this, stripped of flattery or threat. Just raw fact.
In fact, he’s the first man who’s ever seen me like this.
He closes the distance again, lowering his head, and suddenly his mouth is finding the soft place beneath the swell of my breasts. The barest pressure, then warmer, open, tasting skin like I’m something sacred instead of scar-latticed. His exhale fans across me and I arch without meaning to, spine bowingtoward him. Every kiss is deliberate—slow sweeps of tongue followed by the graze of teeth.
His palms brace either side of me on the stone, thumbs brushing the undersides of each breast, thumbs skating upward until I’m breathing in tiny swallowed gasps. When he closes his lips over a nipple, the sound that tears out of my throat is foreign—neither surrender nor command, just pure astonishment. He answers with a low hum that reverberates through bone and water alike.
I knot my fingers in his wet hair, half to anchor him, half to keep from floating away.
His mouth moves to my other breast, worshiping it with the same slow reverence, and I realize I’m arching into him, offering myself up like a sacrifice. The steam wraps around us, the water lapping at my hips, and I feel the edge of the stone beneath me, cold against my bare back where his hands aren’t touching. I’m floating and grounded at once, caught between the heat of him and the chill of the cave, and I can’t tell which one is more real.
He lifts his head, pressing a slow kiss to the sensitive hollow beneath my ear. Then his eyes lock on mine, and I see the question in them before he asks it. Not with words—he doesn’t need them. His hands slide down my ribs, slow and deliberate, thumbs tracing the hollows beneath my hips, and I feel the first tug at the soaked waistband of my pants. The fabric clings to my skin like it’s afraid to let go, but he peels it away with patient fingers, inch by inch, as if unwrapping something sacred.
I don’t stop him. I should. I should shove him back, reclaim my armor, remind him this is just a pause in a warzone. But my hands are in his hair, my thighs already parting, and I want this—want him—more than I want to breathe. The pants slide down my legs, the wet fabric catching at my knees before he frees them entirely. I hear the soft slap of them hitting stone somewhere behind me, but I’m too busy watching his face, theway his eyes darken when he sees the last barrier still clinging to me.
My underwear is a scrap of black cotton, soaked through and transparent, and he looks at it like it’s an insult. Like it’s hiding something that belongs to him. His fingers hook beneath the elastic, and I lift my hips without being asked, letting him slide them down. The air hits me first—cool against the heat he’s stoked under my skin—then his mouth, hot and parted, pressing to the inside of my thigh.
I gasp, fingers tightening in his hair as he trails kisses up the sensitive skin, slow and reverent, like he’s mapping territory he intends to claim. His breath fans across me, and I feel myself tremble, not from cold but from the sheer intimacy of it—no one has ever touched me like this, like I’m something to be savored instead of survived. His mouth finds the hollow where thigh meets hip, teeth grazing just hard enough to make my back bow, and I feel the low growl that vibrates through his chest like a warning.
“Dayn—” I start, but his name comes out broken, a plea I didn’t mean to voice.
He lifts his head, eyes blazing, and I see the dragon looking back at me—ancient, hungry, utterly focused. His hands settle on my knees, thumbs tracing circles on the soft skin behind them, and he lowers his head again. This time his kisses drift higher, tongue tasting the salt on my skin, and I feel the last of my control unraveling thread by thread.
I’m naked under his mouth, stripped down to nothing but sensation, and he treats me like I’m a shrine he’s been waiting centuries to pray at. I can’t breathe when his teeth graze my skin. I feel the bond between us flare, gold and shadow twining together until I can’t tell where his hunger ends and mine begins.
When he reaches the apex of my thighs, he pauses—not asking permission, just giving me a moment to brace for the fall.I don’t stop him. I want this obliteration, want to feel something that isn’t pain or duty or the weight of a war I never asked to fight. I want him to remind me I’m alive, even if it’s only for this stolen hour.
His tongue finds me, and the world narrows to heat and pressure and the sound of my own breathing, ragged and loud in the cave. My hands clutch at his shoulders, nails digging crescents into his skin as he works me with devastating patience, learning what makes me shudder, what makes me gasp his name like a prayer. The water laps at my hips, the stone cold beneath me, but I’m burning up from the inside out, every nerve alight with dragon fire.
I come apart with a cry that echoes off the vaulted ceiling, back arching, legs trembling around him. He doesn’t stop, just gentles, drawing every last pulse of pleasure from me until I’m boneless and shaking, until I’m nothing but steam and skin and the taste of his name on my tongue.
When I finally drift back to myself, he’s already moving, rising over me like a tide. His mouth finds mine, and I taste salt and want and something darker, something that tastes like belonging. I kiss him like I’m drowning, fingers sliding down the hard planes of his chest, feeling the way his heart hammers against my palm.
My hands go desperately to the waistband of his fatigues, fingers fumbling with the buckle, but he catches my wrist, stilling me for a moment. I see the question in his eyes again—are you sure?
