When we kiss again, it’s different.
Not rushed.
Not frantic.
Not driven by fear or adrenaline or the knowledge that we might die before morning.
This one is slow.
Intentional.
His mouth is warm and unhurried against mine, lips parting just enough to invite me in, like he’s giving me permission instead of taking anything. I slide my tongue along his lower lip, testing, teasing, and the sound he makes—low, involuntary—goes straight through me.
I smile into the kiss.
“Relax,” I murmur. “I’m not going anywhere.”
His hands tighten at my waist like the idea terrifies him.
“I know,” he says.
But his voice says he doesn’t.
I tug gently at the hem of his undershirt. “Then let me see you.”
He hesitates—just a breath, just a flicker of old instinct—and then he nods.
I peel the fabric up and over his head, slow enough that my knuckles drag across his ribs, feeling muscle shift under skin. He shivers. Actually shivers. And something about that—about this warrior who faces patrols and grav-fields and soul-bonds without blinking reacting like that to my hands—makes heat pool low and heavy between my thighs.
“Stars,” I whisper.
He lets out a quiet huff. “You’re going to be the death of me.”
“Unlikely,” I say, pushing him gently backward toward the soft projection moss. “I’m far too fond of you for that.”
He laughs under his breath, but he goes, letting himself be guided down, propping himself up on one elbow while I look at him properly for the first time.
Gods.
The scars.
They cross his chest and shoulders in pale silver lines, some thin and neat, others jagged and ugly, each one a history I don’t know but somehow already respect. I trace one that runs diagonally across his collarbone.
He inhales sharply.
“That one’s from a blade,” he says quietly.
“Did you win?”
His mouth curves. “Eventually.”
I lean down and kiss the scar.
Then another.
Then the edge of his jaw.
His breath starts to come uneven, chest rising faster under my palms, and I love that I’m doing this to him—not with strength, not with danger, but with nothing but my mouth and my hands.
