“I want you to know you can touch me.”
His hand flexes at my waist.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.” His thumb brushes once over my side, careful around my ribs. “But knowing I may touch you is not the same as forgetting you are bruised.”
“Oh.”
A ridiculous answer. All I have. His gaze drops to my mouth. I feel that look everywhere.
“I want to touch you,” he says.
The words are low. Plain. Devastating.
“I want my hands on you. I want your scent on my skin. I want to know every place pain has touched you and every place I may give pleasure instead.” His jaw tightens. “I want too much.”
My pulse stumbles. The bond warms. Not pushing. Blooming.
“I want too much too,” I whisper.
“No.”
I blink. “No?”
“You are allowed to want much.”
There it is. The thing beneath the thing. My chest tightens.
“I don’t know how.”
His expression softens by a fraction. “Then begin with one thing.”
One thing. Food without guilt. Water without counting. Rest without earning it.
Him.
I touch the edge of his harness. “This.”
His stillness goes very deep.
“Tell me.”
I draw in a breath. “Off.”
The harness comes undone under his hands, slow because one hand is burned and because I am watching as if it matters.
It does.
Every piece he removes feels like the room losing a wall. Straps. Buckles. Dust-streaked leather. Weapons set aside. Proof that he can put down danger and still be himself.
When his chest is bare, I forget whatever clever thing I meant to say. Kavor notices. Of course he does. His mouth almost moves.
“Do not look proud,” I say.
“I am trying not to.”
