His eyes sharpen.
“Come here.”
He moves. Slowly at first, then faster when he sees my hand lift toward him. He kneels in front of me, enormous body folding down until his face is level with mine.
Not towering. Not looming. Offering.
I touch his cheek. Cool scales. Warmth underneath. A faint tremor in him that no one else would notice. I notice. The bond carries it too.
The restraint. The want. The love. It’s not a word between us yet. It doesn’t need permission from language to exist.
“You’re still waiting,” I say.
“Yes.”
“I already chose you.”
“Yes.”
“And the bond.”
“Yes.”
“And yet.”
His eyes darken. “Choice is not a thing asked once and spent forever.”
My breath catches. That is so unfairly good I should be allowed to object on principle. Instead, I lean forward and kiss him.
No system responds. No floor lights. No white-gray signal tries to thread itself through us. Only Kavor.
His mouth is careful for half a breath. Then I make a sound against him, needy and impatient and probably not dignified, and his control changes shape.
Not breaking. Opening.
His hand slides to my waist, pauses, and waits there. I cover it with mine and press it closer.
“Yes.”
The word is small. The bond hears it. So does he.
His breath leaves him in a rough exhale. He kisses me deeper, one hand at my waist, the other braced beside my hip on the sleeping platform. Even that, even now, leaves me room to move.
A wall with a door. My favorite terrible architecture.
I smile against his mouth.
He draws back just enough. “What?”
“You’re still doing it.”
“What?”
“Making room.”
His gaze searches mine. “Do you want me not to?”
The heat that moves through me is immediate, inconvenient, and honest.
