His breath stopped. Actually stopped, lungs forgetting their function, because she was right there and she wasn't dying and he could feel her pulse thrumming against his palm?—
Her free hand rose toward his face.
He flinched.
The reaction was involuntary, a lifetime of conditioning snapping through him.Don't let them close. Don't let them touch?—
She paused. Waited.
Patient. So impossibly patient with the Reaper who'd forgotten how to be touched.
He forced himself still. Forced his eyes to meet hers. Managed a nod that felt like surrender.
Her fingertips brushed his cheek.
The sound that escaped him?—
He didn't have a name for it. Something between a gasp and a groan, wrenched from somewhere beneath his ribs. His eyes slammed shut. His whole body shuddered.
Her thumb stroked along his cheekbone.
His knees almost buckled.
Just that. Just her thumb, tracing a slow arc across his face, and he was shaking so hard his teeth should have been chattering. The apex predator of the death realms, undone by a thumb on his cheekbone.
Pathetic. Weak.
He didn't care.
Her fingers slid along his jaw. Exploring. Learning the shape of him through touch, and the intimacy of it was so piercing that it felt like she was reaching directly into his chest.
He'd forgotten what this felt like, to be known through someone's hands. To have another person map your edges and choose to stay anyway. He'd told himself for so long that he didn't need it, that he'd evolved beyond it. That touch was a weakness he'd outgrown.
Lies. All of it.
He was starving. Had been for centuries without realizing it. Now her hand was on him, and he didn't know what to do with it.
"Dante." Her voice, soft. "Open your eyes."
He couldn't. If he opened his eyes, he'd have to see her looking at him. Have to witness whatever was on her face: pity, perhaps, or worse, the dawning realization of how broken he truly was.
"Please."
He opened his eyes.
She was looking at him like he was something rare.
The breath that left him came out ragged. He couldn't think. Couldn't do anything but feel.
His free hand rose toward her face. Hovering. Not quite brave enough to close the distance.
What if this is the touch that kills her? What if the first one was a fluke?—
She leaned into his palm.
Her cheek was soft. He could feel the tiny muscles shifting as she pressed into his touch. Could feel the heat of her blood beneath her skin. Could feel a person choosing to be close to him.
His thumb traced her cheekbone. Reverent. Terrified.
