Neither do I.
I set the towel I’d been using down, chest bare, skin still warm from the thermal pool. Scars catch the lanternlight—pale ridges and shadowed bruises carved like a map no one wants to read.
She looks at them like she’s memorizing the roads back home.
“Don’t you dare say anything,” she murmurs.
“About what?”
“About why I’m here. About what this means.”
I nod once.
She walks to me.
Slow.
Confident.
Like gravity bends around her when she wants it to.
When she’s within arm’s reach, I expect hesitation. A question. A blink of doubt.
She gives me neither.
Her hand rises, fingers tracing a line from my shoulder down my ribs. Soft. Deliberate. Reverent.
I suck in a breath.
“Still warm,” she says.
“Too warm?”
“Just enough.”
I don’t move. Not until she does.
She leans in. Kisses the scar beneath my collarbone.
Then higher.
Then my mouth.
And when I kiss her back, I do it like it’s the first time—because in all the ways that matter, it is.
She’s bolder now.
Not searching. Not cautious.
Shetakes.
And I let her.
Because this is her firestorm, and I’m tired of running from the burn.
She shrugs off her robe and I catch it before it hits the floor. Lay it neatly on the chair like it’s sacred. Becausesheis. And I don’t want the world touching what’s mine.
Not now.
