JAV
Ilift her like she’s a prayer I’ve never dared speak out loud.
Kairo’s arms wrap around my neck, her breath warm against my jaw, her eyes wide and stormy. Her weight in my arms is the kind of weight I’ve missed without realizing it—real, grounding, honest. She’s always been that for me. The one true thing in a life made of half-lies and fully loaded promises.
The tiny couch in the corner of the classroom creaks beneath us. It’s barely built to hold two kindergartners, let alone two grown adults wrapped around a history too heavy for either of us to carry alone. But I cradle her in my lap like she belongs there—and stars above, she does.
Her legs curve around my waist and her hands bury themselves in the collar of my jacket. I shrug it off. Slowly. Let her see I’m not hiding behind armor tonight.
“You really think I was just a thrill?” I whisper against her temple.
Her fingers still.
I tip her chin up until our eyes lock.
“I thought about you every day in that cell. Every godsdamn day. You think it was just the memory of your body that kept me breathing?”
She swallows, the movement soft and silent against my hand.
“It was your laugh,” I say, voice thick. “The one you used to let out when you were pretending not to be impressed by me. The way you held your pen like it was a weapon and smiled like you knew you were about to start a war with it. The smell of your skin when you were working late—stim-caf and citrus.”
Her lips part. No words come out.
I press my mouth to hers again, slower this time, reverent. A kiss that saysI know you. I remember. I still want everything.Her hands tug at my shirt, not desperate—intentional. She wants me as I am. Not cleaned up. Not explained. Just me.
I trail kisses along her jawline, down the column of her neck, pausing at the scar I remember from her first scrape with a data-jacker who didn’t like her questions. I press my lips there gently. She shudders.
Her blouse slides off one shoulder. The fabric pools at her waist, and for a heartbeat, I just look at her. Her skin is all golden light and sharp edges softened by time. A poem carved into flesh. A memory I’ve somehow been given permission to touch again.
“I used to dream of this,” I admit, my voice rasping like it hurts to say. “But I never let myself get past this part. Because even in my dreams, I didn’t think I deserved to see you like this again.”
Kairo bites her lip. Her hands tremble as she guides mine to her waist.
“You’re not dreaming,” she whispers. “You’re here.”
We move together like we’re trying to rewrite history one kiss at a time. Her touch isn't frantic—it’s deliberate. She maps my body with a journalist’s precision, like she’s collecting evidence to prove something to herself. Maybe that I’m real. Maybe that we still fit.
The heat between us builds slowly, like a storm rolling in—not violent, but inevitable. Her breath stutters every time I speak. My name on her lips is a vow, a question, a need.
When we finally come together, it’s not just physical—it’s everything we never said, everything we were too scared to want.
It’s her fingers digging into my shoulders.
It’s my forehead pressed to hers while our bodies move like one.
It’s the sound of our names said not in lust but in recognition.
I whisper her name like a prayer. “Kairo.”
She moans mine like it’s a memory returning home. “Jav.”
The couch groans again, but we don’t stop. We’re wrapped in a world made only of breath and sweat and unshed tears. She clings to me like I’m salvation. I hold her like she’s redemption.
And when it’s over—when our hearts are still trying to remember how to beat on their own—I rest my forehead against hers. I feel the rise and fall of her chest, the heat of her skin pressed to mine, the tremble still working its way through both our limbs.
Her eyes flutter open. I’m so close, I can see the flecks of gold in the green.
“I know Ben’s mine,” I whisper.
