Everything sharpens.
Her eyes. Her breath. The heat of her palm through the shirt. The way her fingers curl slightly into the fabric like she’s testing whether I’m real. The way mine have to resist the urge to drag her all the way in.
“Jon,” she whispers.
I cup her face without thinking, both hands lifting to hold her like I’ve wanted to since the moment she came through that door. My thumbs brush her cheeks, slow, careful, giving myself one last chance to be better than this.
“Tell me to stop,” I say.
She doesn’t.
Instead, she rises on her toes and presses her mouth to mine.
Slow.
Tentative.
Nothing like the desperation of before. Nothing like panic or survival or the sharp edge of too much adrenaline and too little control.
This is careful–intentional.
Real.
I kiss her back just as gently, pouring every unsaid word into it. My hands slide into her hair, cradling her head like something precious, something breakable, something I’d never survive dropping. Her mouth softens against mine. She sighs, and the sound goes through me like a match catching dry paper.
She melts into me.
Not because she’s weak. Because she’s tired. Because she trusts me. Because for once she’s letting herself lean instead of holding up the entire world with locked knees and sheer spite.
We break apart only when breathing becomes necessary.
Her forehead rests against mine.
Our breaths mingle in the warm, dim air between us. The whole room feels suspended—quiet, golden, held.
“I’m scared,” she admits softly.
The honesty in it tears straight through me.
“So am I,” I answer.
She smiles faintly, sad and warm all at once. “Good. At least we’re honest.”
I brush my thumb beneath her eye. “You don’t have to be strong all the time, you know.”
She leans into my touch, and that tiny movement feels more intimate than the kiss. “I know. I just… don’t know how not to be.”
My mouth goes dry.
“Fall into me,” I whisper. “I’ll show you.”
The words leave me before I can stop them. Too intimate. Too honest. Too much like a promise.
Her eyes search mine like she’s trying to decide whether I meant it.
I did.Every goddamn word.
And she does.
