"I'm still here," I agree.
"Why?"
"Because I'm not afraid of your darkness." I reach out and touch his face. The stubble. The scar beneath his ear. The hard linesthat soften, barely, when he looks at me. "I've got my own. That's why we fit. Two broken people with sharp edges, cutting anyone else who gets too close."
"You're not broken."
"Neither are you." I lean forward, press my forehead to his. "We’re built different. Built for this. For each other."
His breath shudders out of him. His hands tighten on my hips.
"I'm not leaving," I tell him. "I know that's what you're waiting for. I know some part of you is still bracing for the morning you wake up and find a note on the pillow. But I'm not her, Leone. I'm not Dahlia."
"I know."
"I don't want you softer. I don't want you safer. I want you exactly as you are. The soldier and the killer and the man who held me in the dark and cried because he thought he'd lost me." I pull back enough to look at him. "I want all of it. Every piece. Even the ones you think are too ugly to show."
He stares at me. His face changes. Softens. Not the wildness I've seen before. Not the controlled blankness. True vulnerability.
"Alexandra."
"Say it," I tell him. "I know you've said it before, but I want to hear it again. I want to know you mean it when you're not half-asleep or coming down from an adrenaline crash. I want to know it's real."
He rises, pulling me with him. His hands frame my face, thumbs stroking my cheekbones, his eyes searching mine.
"I love you," he says. "Not the way I loved her. Not soft and hidden and half-pretend. I love you like breathing. Like violence. Like the only thing in my life that's ever made sense."
"Show me."
He kisses me.
Slow and deep and deliberate, his tongue sliding against mine in long, languid strokes. He's tasting me. Savoring. Like we have all the time in the world.
His hands slide from my face to my shoulders, down my arms, find the hem of my shirt and lift. I raise my arms and let him pull it over my head. His mouth finds my throat, my collarbone, the swell of my breasts above my bra. He unclasps it with one hand, expert and easy, and lets it fall.
"Beautiful," he murmurs against my skin.
"You've seen me naked before."
"And every time I think I'll get used to it." He pulls back, looks at me. "I don't. You're beautiful, Alexandra. Every part of you."
He lifts me. Carries me to the bed. Lays me down like I'm a beautiful work of art. Then he stands over me, looking down, and the hunger in his eyes makes my stomach clench.
"I'm going to take my time," he says. "I'm going to learn every inch of you. Every sound you make. Every way your body responds when I touch you."
"Ohhhh, fuuuck." His words make me drip.
"I'm going to spend the rest of my life figuring out how to make you fall apart." He climbs onto the bed, kneeling between my thighs. "Starting now."
His mouth finds my breast. Tongue circling my nipple, then teeth, gentle and sharp, and I gasp. He does it again. And again. Working one breast with his mouth while his hand tends the other, switching, alternating, building sensation until I'm arching off the mattress.
"Please," I breathe.
"Please what?"
"Touch me. More. I need more."
He smiles against my skin. Pulls back. His hands find the waistband of my pants and slide them down my legs along with my underwear. I'm naked beneath him, exposed, and he looks at me like he's memorizing the view.
