Halo didn’t move right away. His breath was still heavy against my cheek, his body covering mine like a shelter, like a weight I never wanted lifted. I could feel his heartbeat where our chests pressed together: wild at first, then slowing, syncing with mine. He was still inside me, but there was no urgency left, just warmth and the settling gravity of what was to come.
His nose brushed the side of my face, but he didn’t speak. Honestly, I don’t think he could. I ran my fingers through his hair, pushing it back from his forehead. It was damp with sweat and so was my skin, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything other than him right now.
He lifted his head enough to look at me. There was something raw and devastated in his eyes. No smirk, no armor. Just Halo, stripped down to something so fragile. It was beautiful and terrible all at once.
“You’re still bleeding,” I murmured.
His mouth twisted like he wanted to smile but forgot how. “You’ll fix it, won’t you?”
“Over and over.”
That earned me a low exhale, almost a laugh. He brushed his knuckles across my cheek.
Then he pulled out of me slowly, and I winced at the loss of him. I suddenly felt empty and cold, like I would never be whole again without him being part of me. He didn’t go far, thankfully. He stayed close, tucking the blanket over us like it was instinct. We were enveloped in darkness and warmth, and I could barely make out the silhouette of his face. Maybe this was what he really feared more than bullets. Being soft, being seen.
His hand found mine beneath the blanket. Fingers twining, gripping like he needed me. I turned toward him, resting my head against his chest. He made a low, satisfied noise deep in his throat, and his arms came around me.
He spoke after a long stretch of silence, his voice barely audible, “I’m sorry I wasn’t good at this.”
I closed my eyes, burying my face into his skin.
“I never needed you to be good. I just need you to be here.”
His chest rose and fell. One arm stayed around me, and the other pressed against the bed like he was still bracing for something to collapse, but the disaster never came.
And in the stillness, I felt him start to believe that maybe, just maybe, he could have had something that didn’t have to end in blood. That maybe he could be something other than a weapon.
And maybe I started to believe that I could be the one who reminded him how to stay human.
Chapter forty-three
Halo
“Dead Men Dream, Too”
Shefeltlikefireand forgiveness. Tight and wet and trembling around me, pulling me in, melting the armor I’d spent years forging. I moved inside her slow, deep. Not to tease her… God, no. I was trying to remember, memorize the way her breath hitched, the way her nails curled into my back, the way her eyes didn’t look away even when mine did… That fucking killed me.
I was afraid of getting too caught up in the pleasure, that I might forget some little sound she made or miss some expression she gave me. She was one of the only good things I’d ever known, and I didn’t know if I remembered so few because they were rare, or because I’d made myself forget. Because remembering made surviving harder; it made you drift.
Every thrust felt like a question I’d never asked before: Can I be more than this? Can I have this? And as though to answer me every time she pulled me closer, the answer came back silent but thunderous:yes.
I felt her tightening around me: tighter, fluttering. She was close. Her hand moved between us, fingers working that perfect rhythm, chasing the edge. My own breath caught. Fuck, shewas beautiful. Flushed and desperate and alive beneath me. Not afraid, not flinching. I would never get used to the sight of her.
When she came, it fractured something in me. The way she cried out my name like it meant something, likeImeant something, and the way her body clenched around mine triggered something raw. I’d buried it under blood and bullets and silence. I knew better than this. I knew that if I really cared about her I wouldn’t put her through this. I tried to hold on. I did. But I didn’t regret it this time.
My release hit me like a wave to the chest, unstoppable. I groaned, low and hoarse, biting back the noise because it felt like too much, too loud, too human. My hips jerked forward one last time and I spilled into her, clinging to her like I was drowning.
I didn’t know how to move after, didn’t know how to breathe without hurting because I knew I would never have this again. I hadn’t planned on this. It just tore out of me like it had been building behind my teeth for weeks. Maybe longer. Like it was the one honest thing I had left in me.
Her skin was soft beneath me, and her breath was steadier than mine. I kept waiting for the shame to come crashing down, for the guilt to wrap around my throat like it always did. It didn’t. Not right away. She didn’t let go, she didn’t run, she just held me like I was something worth staying for.
I had covered us in the blanket, hoping that somehow it might shield us from having to move on from this time and this place. Eden was already asleep, or close to it.
Her breath moved against my chest in slow, even pulls, like waves lapping at a shore. Her arm was curled over my ribs, one bare thigh slung across mine. I could feel the press of her everywhere: skin, warmth, the weight of her trust like a fucking anchor I wasn’t strong enough to pull free from.
My shoulder still throbbed from the fresh opening, the scent of her skin tangled with blood. She’d stitched me up with trembling hands and more courage than I deserved.
I wasn’t made for softness, though. I wasn’t made for anafterlike this.
