"A little," I said. "Don't stop."
He laughed softly and I felt it more than heard it, warm against my neck, and something about that laugh in this small steamy space made my chest feel full in a way I didn't quite have words for yet.
We stepped in together and the hot water came down over both of us and for a moment we just stood there, his arms loose around my waist, my back against his chest, letting the warmth settle into us.
Then his hands started moving.
Slow and unhurried, the way he did everything that mattered. Tracing the curves I had spent years hiding under oversized cardigans, like he was reminding himself of the map of me in the morning light. His palms spread flat against my stomach and I felt the faint warmth of the scales beneath his skin, that steady gold that had apparently decided I was home and intended to keep saying so.
"You're doing it again," I said.
"Doing what?"
"Glowing."
"I glow when you're close," he said simply, like this was just a fact about the world now, like weather or gravity. "It’s a permanent thing.”
I turned around in his arms to face him and the water ran down over both of us and his hazel eyes were soft and gold-flecked and completely certain in the way they always were when he looked at me and I thought I would probably never get used to being looked at like that.
I hoped I never did, in any case.
I reached up and pushed the wet hair back from his forehead and he caught my wrist and pressed his lips to the inside of it, just briefly, and the gentleness of it moved through me like warm honey.
"Hi," I said softly.
"Hi," he said back.
I kissed him then, not the careful tender kiss of last night or the reverent press of lips that had accompanied everything weighted and significant and life altering. This was something easier and warmer. The kiss of someone who knew now where they stood and liked it there and wanted to say so with their mouth because words were taking too long.
He responded immediately, his hands sliding up my back, pulling me closer until the water ran between us and there was no space left to speak into anyway.
This was different from the night before. Last night had been the culmination of six months of wanting, careful and deliberate and weighted with everything we were finally saying out loud. This was just us.
Just Kael and his warm hands and the steady gold glow of his scales brightening against the steam and the very clear knowledge that he was choosing this again in the full light of morning without a single hesitation.
That knowledge did something to me.
Made me bolder than I'd been last night and less careful. I pressed him back against the cool tile and felt him exhale sharply and his hands gripped my hips and the scales flared warm and bright against the white of the shower wall.
"Amara," he said, my name rough in his throat.
"I know," I said against his jaw. "I know."
He lifted me like I weighed nothing and I wrapped my legs around him and the steam rose around us and outside the bathroom window February was doing whatever February did and none of it had anything to do with us.
He moved slowly in and out of my opening that was dripping wet. Even with the hot water running cold and both of us breathless and the scales throwing gold light across the tile, I was wet for him.
Kael seemed to only have one speed when it came to things that mattered to him and that speed was thorough and it was going to be the end of me in the best possible way.
I pressed my face into his neck and held on.
When I came apart this time it was quieter than the night before, softer like a cashmere sweater. It was less like something breaking open and more like something settling into place. It was like finding the last piece of a piece of a 1000 piece puzzle that had gone missing.
He followed me over the edge a moment, his knot swelling inside of me once again later and my name on his lips. His arms locked around me and the scales at full warm brilliant gold. We stayed like that for a long moment, locked together with the water running cool. Neither of us was particularly interested in moving, instead nipping gently at each other’s lips until his knot slowly unshelled from inside of me.
"The water's cold," I said eventually.
"Yes," he agreed, not moving.
