My cheeks ignite. Not with embarrassment, exactly. With the vivid, mortifying,thrillingawareness that every word I said was true and he knows it and I know it and we're both lying here in full daylight knowledge of exactly what the other wants.
"You're awake," he says. Carefully neutral. The voice of a male who has spent the last several hours maintaining composure while a woman slept against his neck and promised him permanent neurological bonding.
"I'm awake." My voice comes out rough. "And before you ask, I remember everything. All of it. The shoulders complaint. The marking color catalogue. The horn conversation." A breath. "The part where I told you I was going to touch your horns and mean every nerve ending of it."
His arm tightens around me. Fractional. Involuntary.
"And?" The single syllable costs him something visible.
I push up on one elbow, my hair falling around us like a curtain. His face is right there, those gold eyes with their vertical pupils, the circuit tracery cutting across his cheekbone, the jaw that hasn't unclenched since I started talking. My hand is still on his chest, over the scars where the harness sat, where I freed him.
"And I meant every word." Steady. Clear. Looking directly into those eyes so he can see there's no chemical courage left, no filter removed, just me. "I'm choosing you. Sober. Present. Remembering everything I said and everything you said and wanting all of it."
Something cracks behind his expression. Not a wall coming down; a door opening. His hand comes up, cups the side of my face, thumb tracing my cheekbone with the devastating gentleness that makes me want to scream.
"Say it again," he says roughly. "The part about the horns."
"I'm going to touch your horns. I'm going to bond with you. Permanently. And I'm going to make your markings do the special color that nobody's ever seen." My thumb traces the circuit tracery on his cheek. "Tonight. After we send the beacon. When there's nothing left between us and what we both want."
Color floods his markings so bright the cave takes on a jade-gold glow. The expression on his face is the most beautiful thing I've seen on this planet, which is saying something because the bioluminescent canyons are genuinely stunning.
"Tonight," he says. A vow, not a question.
"Tonight."
He leans forward and kisses me. Not the desperate collision of yesterday's first kiss. Slow, deliberate, thorough. His mouth moves against mine with the careful precision of someone who has decided tosavourrather than devour, and the restraint inthe gentleness is hotter than any urgency because I can feel what it's costing him. His hand in my hair, his thumb against my jaw, the controlled pressure of his lips, and underneath all of it the vibration of that bass frequency that goes straight through my chest and settles between my thighs.
When he pulls back, my brain has temporarily relocated.
"That," he says, "is a preview."
"Ofwhat?"
"Of how thoroughly I intend to take my time with you." His thumb traces my lower lip, and the look in his eyes is pure, undiluted intent. "When I claim you tonight, little flare, I'm not rushing. I've been imagining this for days, and I plan to explore every single thing I've imagined."
My lungs forget how to work. "That's—you can't justsaythat and then expect me to function for the next fourteen hours."
"Twelve," Bebo corrects from the core unit. "Beacon integration is complete. Optimal transmission window in twelve hours."
"Twelve hours," I repeat. Twelve hours of knowing exactly what's coming. Twelve hours ofpreviews. "I'm not going to survive this."
"You've survived everything else." He sits up, and the movement shifts me off his chest with a loss of contact that makes every nerve ending protest. "You'll survive anticipation."
"Anticipation is different. Anticipation is torture when the person torturing you just kissed you likethatand then told you he plans to take his time."
"Would you prefer I rush?"
"I'd prefer you stop being reasonable and—"
"Twelve hours." He's standing now, already moving toward the cave entrance, all controlled grace and tactical focus. But the color in his forearms has gone warm in a way I've never seen during daylight, and his voice still carries the rough edgethat tells me his composure is performance, not reality. "Twelve hours for us to secure the perimeter, confirm the transmission protocols, and make sure that when I have you tonight, I don't have to stop for anything. No drones. No predators. No interruptions."
The way he sayswhen I have youmakes my entire body flush.
"No interruptions," I echo faintly.
"Not one." He glances back from the entrance, and the heat in his expression nearly stops my heart. "I've been interrupted enough. Tonight, little flare, you have my undivided attention. For as long as it takes."
He disappears into the passage, and I sit on the moss bed staring at the space where he was and trying to remember how breathing works.
