The sun is on her shoulder.
The warm undertones in her skin that I missed in regular lighting. The tones in her hair against the white pillow that I’ve never caught in lamplight or the Lithenmere’s gold. The shadows beneath her collarbones, softer than I thought they were.
She’s awake. Watching me watch her.
“What?” she says.
“Nothing.”
“You’re staring.”
“I’m looking.”
“You look at me all the time.”
“Not like this.”
Her face shifts. Some of the edge she carries goes quiet.
The compound is silent around us. Every vampire dormant behind sealed shutters. The building belongs to the sun and to the two of us.
I touch her shoulder.
Her skin is warm beneath my fingers. The same heat I noticed in the springs, layered now with sun. More than vampire skin should hold.
My hand moves along her arm, following the light where it falls.
“We have all day,” she says.
I lean down and press my mouth to her shoulder where the sun hits warmest. Her skin tastes like morning. Like sleep and cotton and the faint mineral trace of Thessivane still in her pores.
She exhales. Her hand comes up to the back of my neck.
I take my time. There’s nowhere to be.
I discover what sustained attention gives me.
The hollow behind her ear where she shivers when I breathe against it. The ridge of muscle along her spine that I know by touch but have never studied in clear light. The flush that darkens her skin when I kiss below her navel, the blood rising in patterns I can see now instead of merely sensing through the bond.
She reaches for me. Pulls me over her. I settle my weight and she opens beneath me, and I enter her slowly, watching her face.
Her eyes go half-closed. Her lower lip catches between her teeth and then releases. Her hand slides up my forearm and grips where the tendons flex.
I move. Slow. Unhurried.
She rolls her hips to meet me and I let her set the pace because this is the first time we’ve had the luxury of letting things build without racing toward anything.
“Stay right there,” she says. Low. Her hand tightening on my arm. “Right there.”
I do.
The sun crosses the bed in degrees, the angle shifting as the morning advances, and we shift with it. The build is gradual and wide, her pleasure and mine winding together until separating them would take more effort than holding them.
The sun crosses her face. She squints. I shift my weight, blocking the light with my body, and she laughs. Quiet. Warm. The sound moves through me.
“You’re blocking my sun,” she says.
“I’m shading your eyes.”
