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“You absolutely did.”

“I meant the mechanism.”

“Mm. Luneth.” I glance down at the instrument. “And what does she think of me?”

Rowan glares at me. “She thinks you’re taking a very long time to learn.”

I grin. “Funny. I think I’m learning her owner pretty fast.”

Rowan makes a strangled sound before looking away sharply and reaching for the tuning keys like they’ve become the most important thing in the room.

I let him avoid the subject—for now that is—and focus back on the instrument.

The Noctis hums beneath my hands, the sound deep and resonant, vibrating through my chest and settling somewhere beneath my ribs. Rowan’s chest rises against my back while the music curls through the dark, and I understand why he loves this thing so much.

It doesn’t feel like we’re playing it anymore. It feels like the Noctis is listening back.

Something about the sound tears open a memory. Small hands. Mom bent over dark strings beneath low lamplight. The glow of the mansion before everything changed. Then flashes of shouting, breaking glass, Dad dragging me toward a door while the music cuts off too fast.

Light, I haven’t thought about that night in years.

“Mouse,” I groan under my breath, letting my head tip back against Rowan’s shoulder, exposing my throat as a rough sound escapes me.

Rowan stills. Then his hand slides slowly over mine, grounding me back into the present while the resonance keeps vibrating through both of us at once.

And maybe that’s the part wrecking me most right now. The fact that every time something inside me starts splintering apart, Rowan somehow pulls me back together without even realizing he’s doing it.

“Where did you go?”

The question catches me off guard.

Where did I go? To a moment I don’t want to relive.

The memory is still sitting half-open inside my chest, raw enough that I can barely tell where the sound of the Noctis ends and Rowan begins anymore.

I turn my head and catch his mouth before he can say anything else. The second Rowan kisses me back, the bow slips from our fingers, forgotten against the strings, as I haul him closer, refusing to leave so much as an inch between us.

Rowan lets me pull him closer between my legs, kissing me like he’s still learning me, and somehow that destroys my self-control more than if he knew exactly what he was doing. I’ve stopped pretending my body doesn’t react to him anymore. The second he gets close, something in me gives in automatically.

Rowan is sitting in my lap and somehow it still isn’t close enough.

How the hell does he taste this good?

He always acts so shy about it afterward too, like he doesn’t realize what he does to me every time he breathes against my mouth. Meanwhile, I’m sitting here trying not to lose my fucking mind because Rowan has somehow become a habit I can’t seem to break.

A strange tightness twists through me at the thought that someone else could ever know this side of him. I will never let that happen.

Rowan kisses the way he plays the Noctis, careful at first, almost shy in his concentration, and then fierce once he loses himself inside it. He doesn’t overpower. He lingers. Learns. Stays there until I’m the one unraveling beneath his mouth.

And Light, maybe that’s the problem. Nobody’s ever made me feel this wanted while still handling me like something worth being careful with.

Where I usually go for control, Rowan forces me to slow down without even trying. He kisses me into distraction, licking slowly into my mouth like he’s memorizing every rough breath and every slip in my composure.

He’s ruining me without even realizing it.

Before I can think better of it, I grab his waist and pull him into my lap. Rowan gasps against my mouth as the Noctis bow slips from our fingers and clatters forgotten to the floor.

“No... please...”