“Niko.” My name in her mouth, barely above a breath.
I lower my head to her neck and feel her shiver before my lips even make contact. Her skin is warm, faintly perfumed, heartbeat quick against my mouth. She exhales—that particular sound I’d filed away and carried with me, the one I’d convinced myself I’d half-imagined.
I hadn’t imagined it.
Her hands move to the hem of her sweatshirt and I help her out of it, unhurried, taking in what four years have made of her. She starts to reach for me and I catch her wrists gently, holding them above her head.
“Let me,” I say quietly.
She stills.
I take my time. Relearning. The curve of her throat, the soft weight of her, the way her breath catches when I find theright place. She’s more sensitive than I remember—or maybe I’d forgotten how attuned to each other we were, how little it took when we knew each other this well.
She arches into me.
“Nikolai—”
“I have you.” I bring my mouth back up to hers. “I have you,lapochka moya.”
The kiss slows. Deepens. And for the first time since I came back from the dead, the urgency drops away—not because the wanting is less, but because I’m finally, actually here.
I slide my hand down the plane of her stomach and feel her muscles tighten in anticipation. She exhales my name again, and this time it sounds like relief.
Like something she’s been holding in for four years, finally let go.
“Oh God.” Her breath breaks. “I missed you. I missed you so much.”
Something cracks open in my chest.
I pull her up and into my lap, her legs wrapping around me, and I hold her there for a moment—just hold her, forehead against her shoulder, breathing her in. Four years of distance compressed into this. The realness of her. The warmth.
“Lapochka moya.”
She pulls back enough to look at me, and her eyes are bright—not quite tears, but close. I brush her hair back from her face.
“Niko.” She nods toward the window. “The curtains.”
I glance over. She’s right—the room is exposed, city lights cutting through the gap.
I cross to the window and close them, checking the street below out of habit before I let the fabric fall. Old instincts. When I turn back, she’s watching me from the bed, and the sight of herstops me for a half-second the way it has every time since I came back. Like my eyes need a moment to confirm it’s real.
I come back to her.
She reaches for my belt, fingers working at the buckle, and I cover her hands with mine—not stopping her, just slowing her down. She looks up at me.
“Four years,” I say quietly. It’s not an explanation. It’s everything I don’t have words for.
She understands.
She always understood me better than I deserved.
She finishes with the belt, and I help her with the rest, and then there’s nothing between us. Her eyes move over me—unhurried, unguarded—and I let her look. I have nothing to perform here. No distance to maintain. This is just her, and me, and what was always true between us even when everything else fell apart.
I lower myself over her slowly.
Her hands come up to my face, thumbs tracing my jaw like she’s still making sure I’m real.
“You’re here,” she whispers.
