Trying.
He is trying not to take. Trying not to frighten. Trying not to turn want into a cage. Trying not to become another hunger with teeth.
No one has ever tried so hard to be safe for me. That thought hurts more than it should. I tie the bandage tighter than necessary for one second, just to punish both of us, then loosen it to where it needs to be.
“There,” I say.
He exhales. Slow. Controlled. Devastating.
I should move away. But I don’t.
My hands rest on his shoulders. His scales are cool beneath my palms. Solid. Alive. Strong enough to survive breaking stone, careful enough to open his hand at my waist and wait.
I kissed him because I chose to. Now there’s choice after choice after choice, each one smaller and somehow worse.
Move away. Stay. Touch him. Don’t. Tell him this is a bad idea. Tell him I’m tired of only having good ideas that keep me empty.
The pool hums louder.
The glow rises around us, blue light licking up the old structures, purple threading through the hanging strands. It isn’t the system this time. Not completely. Some of the light feels alive. Curious. Warm.
His hands curl against his knees. He isn’t reaching for me. Just waiting. I hate waiting. Waiting gives me time to know exactly what I want.
“Kavor,” I say.
He turns then, slowly, carefully, like any sudden movement might shatter the fragile, impossible thing between us.
I’m still on my knees behind him. He shifts until he faces me, one leg bent, one hand braced on the ridge. The wrapped wound pulls, but he ignores it. His gaze locks on mine.
Dark. Hungry. Restrained.
Mine. No. Choice.
I hear his words in my head. His sacred little blade.
But I am choosing.
I rise onto my knees and kiss him again. This one isn’t a question. It’s an answer I’m still terrified to give.
Kavor’s hands come to my waist, then stop there, open and controlled, as if even touching me requires a treaty signed in blood and breath. I lean into him. That’s the permission.
He makes a sound low in his chest, not a growl exactly, not a word. Something cavern-deep and broken at the edges. His mouth takes mine harder, and every sensible thought I’ve ever had falls into blue water and drowns.
Good. Let it. I’m so tired of being sensible.
His kiss is nothing like his restraint.
His restraint is stone, silence, and control. His kiss is pressure, hunger, a body that has waited too long and still remembers how to be careful. He doesn’t take my mouth. He meets it again and again, letting me set the pace until I get furious with his patience and bite his lower lip.
He goes still.
I pull back half a breath. “Was that too much?”
His eyes are nearly black. “No.”
“Was that a Zmaj no or a real no?”
His claws flex at my waist. “Real.”
