I drew back, gasping like I’d surfaced from deep water.
“Kit, no,” I whispered.
He blinked, dazed. “Did I, did I do something wrong?”
“No,” I said quickly. “No, you didn’t.”
My hands trembled as I ran them through my hair. The hunger still burned, low and insistent, but I forced it down.
“You don’t understand what it’s like to want someone and need them at the same time. I could hurt you without meaning to,” I admitted.
Kit’s expression softened, and he curled closer to me. “You won’t.”
“You can’t know that,” I said.
“I do.” He said with such conviction I almost believed him. Kit pressed our faces together, cupping the back of my neck. “If you were going to hurt me, you would’ve done it that first night.”
The memory of the first night we met flashed through me. I let out a shaky laugh.
“You really shouldn’t have that much faith in monsters,” I told him.
“Maybe I’m bad at following rules,” Kit said with a grin.
Something inside me cracked open then. I reached out, caught his wrist, and pressed his palm against my chest. Right over the place where my heart should’ve been beating.
“See?” I whispered. “Nothing.”
Kit stared at our hands, then looked right it.
“You don’t need a heartbeat for this,” he said softly.
For a long moment, neither of us moved. The night pressed in around us, the air heavy with unspoken things. Then he leaned in once more, and I met him halfway.
This time, the kiss wasn’t about hunger. It wasn’t about need or guilt. It was slow and deliberate. Like we both understood how fragile the moment was. His lips were warm, steady, grounding.
When he finally drew back, he rested his forehead against mine, and I realized my hands were still trembling.
We stayed like that, lying next to each other, letting the silence stretch between us until it wasn’t heavy anymore.
“I should go,” Kit said.
“Yeah,” I murmured with reluctance. I wanted to keep him here with me a little longer. “You probably should.”
Neither of us moved. Outside, the wind picked up, rattling the windowpanes. Somewhere, far off, a dog barked. But all I could hear was the faint hum of his heartbeat, steady and alive.
Soft, gray-blue dawn filtered through the cracks in the boarded windows, tracing thin lines across the dusty floorboards.
It painted Kit’s skin in muted gold where the light touched him. Along his jaw, the curve of his throat, the faint rise and fall of his chest.
I should be sleeping by now, but I couldn’t. The thought of closing my eyes, of waking up to find him gone without a word, had been enough to keep me sitting there, watching the fire fade into ash.
Every time I blinked, I saw flashes of the night before. The feel of his hands, the perfect way our bodies had felt, the way I’d almost…
My stomach twisted. The hunger had passed, but the shame hadn’t. Kit stirred with a low groan, stretching beneath the thin blanket, his hair a mess of dark gold in the morning light.
When his eyes finally blinked open, he squinted up at me, confused at first. Then his mouth curved into a sleepy grin.
“You’re still up?” he asked, voice rough from sleep.
