I turn my head enough to look at him. His hair is a mess, flattened at one side, sticking up at the other. His mouth has that soft expression it gets when he’s relaxed.
“Do it,” I say, “I will deny it with confidence.”
He smiles as his hand moves again, his thumb pressing at a knot beside my shoulder blade as if he’s trying to undo it. “You’ve got tension here.”
I glare at him. “From what could that possibly be?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he keeps working his thumb into the muscle with quiet persistence. I close my eyes for a few seconds and focus on his touch, the distant city and the fact of him being here with me. That fact still hits me in strange waves — not excitement exactly, though there is that, but something else. Something that I’m not used to having, I think.
“Mm, morning,” he says softly as his hand sliding up my spine. I grunt something that might qualify as a reply as he shifts closer, his chest brushing my back. “How’s your mood?”
“Feral,” I tell him, because it’s easier than saying: happy.
“Thought so,” he murmurs as his lips touch the back of my shoulder. Then again, closer to my neck. I roll onto my back slowly, not taking my eyes off him. He follows without thinking, shifting with me like it’s an automaticresponse, almost as if not staying close isn’t even an option anymore.
I reach up and grip his jaw with my fingers, tugging him down into a kiss. It’s the kind that says, ‘I’m still here. You’re here. Don’t ruin this by talking.’
Caiden kisses back like he understands exactly what I’m doing. His hand reaches out to cup the side of my face, his thumb stroking along my cheekbone. It’s careful and almost reverent. “We should get up,” he says, breaking the kiss.
The way he says it makes it sound like a suggestion I want to ignore. I lift an eyebrow. “You want to waste this by leaving the bed?”
“We can come back to it,” he says. “We’ve got four days.”
I stare at him. “That is optimism bordering on delusion.”
“Let me have it.” I make a quiet sound that is neither agreement nor refusal. Then I shift, sitting up, running my hand through my hair, trying hard to pretend I’m above domestic mornings when I’m already living one.
Caiden watches me with a look like he’s still surprised I’m here, and he’s enjoying that surprise way too much. “You’re staring,” I tell him.
“Yeah, sometimes I can’t believe you’re real,” he answers. I hold his gaze for a second, then I look away first, because if I don’t then we definitely wont be moving from this bed.
“Get up,” I say, sharply. “Before I decide you’re annoying.”
He laughs, but he moves, disappearing into the bathroom. The shower turns on, and I sit on the edge of the bed, listening to the water for a moment, letting my thoughts organise themselves.
This is the part I don’t know how to do.
I can do distance and the secrecy. I can even do stolen nights, coded calls and the tight, hard line of desire that never has to be explained because it never has to last.
I’ve never done this before — waking up with someone I love, in a different country, watching them move through a room and feeling the quiet tug in my chest that wants to treat this like it’s a normal life.
I stand, pull on trousers, find my shirt, and shake it out, moving around on autopilot. Caiden comes out of the bathroom with damp hair and a towel around his neck. It causes my brain to do something stupid and simple: mine.
I swallow it, but he catches my look, and his mouth curves into a smile. “You alright there?”
“No,” I say automatically.
“That’s the spirit,” he snorts.
We manage a morning that looks like anyone else’s on holiday. Coffee from the little machine in the corner that tastes like burnt compromise. Bread that is better than it has any right to be. Butter. Jam. Caiden eats slowly, like he has all the time in the world, and I pretend not to watch his mouth because that’s a weakness I refuse to advertise.
After, he sits on the edge of the bed with his mug, shoulders relaxed, and legs stretched out, watching me pace. “You’re thinking,” he says.
I glare at him over my coffee. “You’re observant.”
“It’s my job,” he says mildly. Then he tilts his head. “Talk to me.”
I don’t want to. Talking turns things into plans, and plans become promises, and promises become a noose if you pull the rope the wrong way. But things need to be said, because I need him to understand the problem before it eats us later. I sit down opposite him and set my mug down carefully. “I spoke to Niko.”
