“I don’t want to be a burden to you,” I say softly.
His arms tense around me. “You’renot.”
“Zan, I’m literally holding you down.”
“I could move if I wanted to, Yora. Look at it the other way.”
He doesn’t elaborate.
What other way?
If I’m not holding him down, am I holding him still? That’s not better—
Oh.
Or he’s lifting me up.
Literally and figuratively my foundation.
I shouldn’t become dependent on one person. I should learn how to live on my own.
But I’vebeenon my own, effectively, and now here Zan is...
And he’s not pushing me away.
He’s waited for me to come back for five hundred years. I wonder if as I find my way, he’ll still think it’s worth it.
But right now, I don’t want to pull away.
I want to stay right here, with him.
I want him to be as comfortable with me as I am with him.
But I also haveotherfeelings about him, which are growing the longer we touch and reminding me there are many other parts of my body that need some attention.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“You know,” I say.
“Mmm?”
“I haven’t had a bath in five hundred years.”
Zan’s chest shakes beneath me with his silent laughter.
My lips curve as warmth spreads through me.
Idid that—made him happy.
He says, “We can do something about that, if you want.”
I lift my head up to meet his gaze, intrigued. “We?”
Zan’s lips twitch, and his eyes are bright with humor and—maybe something else.
Maybe something I’m scared to name, in case I’m reading him wrong, projecting my own wants.
