"Nadine," I said quietly.
She looked up. The softness in her eyes nearly undid me.
"I need to—" My voice faltered. I swallowed and forced myself to continue. "I need to apologize. Properly. Not for what happened—words feel too small for that—but for what Idid. For what I almost—" I stopped. Because she was shaking her head.
"You don't have to." I saw the sincerity in her eyes.
"I do," I insisted. "I almost?—"
"I know," she interrupted, rising to her feet and closing the distance between us before I could retreat any further into my guilt. She placed her hands on my chest, right over my heart. "I know. And I'm still here."
Her touch grounded me instantly.
Still, I frowned. "You're holding something back."
She stilled. Just for a fraction of a second, but I felt it. A hesitation. A guardedness she hadn't had before. Her gaze dropped to my collarbone.
"I don't want to talk about it right now. Not tonight."
My instincts bristled; every part of me wanted to push, to protect, tofix…she looked back up at me, her eyes were shining with unshed tears and fierce determination.
"Kiss me," she asked. "Please. Just… kiss me. And let's forget all of this for a little while."
The plea shattered whatever restraint I had left. I cupped her face carefully, reverently, as if she were something sacred and fragile all at once. For a heartbeat, I simply rested my forehead against hers, breathing her in, anchoring myself to the reality of her warmth and her presence. Then I kissed her. Slowly at first. Gently. A question more than an answer.
She responded instantly, her fingers curled into the fabric at my sides, pulling me closer as if she were afraid I might disappear again. The kiss deepened, heat and urgency bled through the tenderness. Weeks—no, lifetimes—of fear and longing and almost-loss poured into it. I kissed her like someone who had stood at the edge of oblivion and been dragged back by sheer will.
Byher.
She tasted like salt and warmth and home. I tightened my arms around her, holding her as close as I dared, as if proximity alone could protect her from everything I'd nearly become.
"I'm here," I murmured against her lips. "I'm not going anywhere."
She pressed her forehead to mine; her breath was unsteady but sure.
"Good," she whispered. "Because neither am I."
She moved first, but I caught her at the wrist, palm careful as a glove. It was not a restraint; it was a grounding. I watched herwith a focus I reserved for warfare, for parsing a general's lie or for spotting the tremble just before an enemy splits the air. She let me, eyes full of not just trust but a steady, knowing challenge. There were no more veils between us. No hiding, no shame. She was willing to stand naked before me in more ways than one, and for that, I worshiped her.
I had been rough before—out of hunger, out of madness, out of the black tide that drained me by the day—but this, now, was a thing apart. Reverently, I kept my gaze on her as I peeled the clothes from her skin, eyes tracking every inch as though it might vanish if I looked away. The Starmap shimmered, responding to each stroke of my hand; it pulsed in long lines over her shoulders, collarbones, breasts, ribs, thighs. She was alive with it. She was beautiful with it in a way I could not have put into words. I bared her, inch by inch, until there was nothing between us but air and the impossible architecture of her body, every angle and curve mapped in gold.
She could have flinched. Could have hidden. Instead, she lay back onto the bed, hair fanned wild, gaze fixed unbroken on mine. She was every bit as hungry as I was, but tonight there was nothing savage in it, only need, only the ache to have and to be had.
I bent over her, tracing with my tongue the path my hands had opened. Along her jaw, down the line of her throat. She gasped at that, a low and involuntary sound that hit me between the ribs and somewhere even deeper. I was deliberate, moving down her chest, letting my mouth linger over each mark as it burned brighter for me. She arched, wanting, but I didn't rush her, didn't let the older instincts take the wheel. I buried my face in the bright of her breast, kissing and sucking until her nipples pebbled with desire. Her hands dug into my scalp, not to guide, but just to hold, anchoring herself in the moment like a sailor clings to the last plank after a shipwreck.
I kept moving. Lower, then lower still, until I reached the heat of her. The scent there was more than intoxicating now; it was charged, alive with pheromones I never even knew existed. I dragged my tongue along her inner thigh, then bit gently at the curve, savoring the taste of pulse and salt. I slipped my tongue between the folds, slow at first, testing, mapping what made her whimper, what made her twist and try to run from the pleasure. When she did, I gripped her hips and held her down to center her, to make sure she could not escape a thing she plainly wanted more than breath.
She came the first time with my tongue inside her, clutching my head so tight I thought she might pull the hair from my skull. She didn't scream; she convulsed, a silent quake, and the map lit up so fiercely that for a moment the room looked sunlit. I kept going, relentless, ruthless in the ferocity of my worship. I fingered her as my lips and tongue worked her favorite spot—she called it her clit—coaxing another, then another, wringing her out like a melody with no endpoint. By the third, she was sobbing, not from pain, not from loss, but from being too full, too overwhelmed to contain another second of it.
Only when she was spent, limp and trembling, did I stop. I crawled up the length of her, my mouth wet with her and my voice unsteady as I proclaimed, "MINE."
I said it with a force that might have sounded possessive, but she just groaned and let her head fall to the side.
"Yours," she croaked, breathless, "Only yours."
I undressed for her then, not with the speed of lust, but with the ceremony of a soldier putting on his best uniform for the last battle. I wanted her to see me, all of me, from the darkness-threaded scars to the starlight that shimmered across my ribcage. She traced a scar on my arm, then my side, lips following after her fingers. There was no fear in her. Only wonder. I could have shattered from the sweetness of it.
I entered her slowly, as if I might unmake her with the wrong movement. She stretched to take me, her legs wound around my waist, her face was open and clear as dawn. We fit together perfectly, our glyphs brightening and throbbing in time, the gold moving from me to her and back like a current with no resistance. For long moments, I didn't move at all, just held her, both of us suspended in something larger than ourselves. I kissed her, slow and drugging, pouring everything I couldn't say into the space between us, and whisperedI love youstraight into the open well of her mouth.
