The wind rustles her hair across my arm.
I pull her closer.
“Gods,” I murmur. “I don’t deserve you.”
“Correct.”
“Hey.”
“But you’re getting me anyway.”
I laugh and rest my forehead against hers.
For a moment we just stand there, breathing the same cool air under the dim compound lights.
Then she whispers, “Come inside.”
The room behind us is dim and quiet, the soft glow of a bedside lamp casting warm shadows across the walls.
When the door slides shut behind us the world outside seems to vanish.
No arena.
No crime boss.
No cameras.
Just her.
Tilda studies me for a moment, then steps forward and kisses me.
The kiss starts slow, tentative, like a question.
Then it deepens.
My arms wrap around her waist, pulling her against me as heat floods through my chest and down my spine. Her fingers slide into my hair, tugging gently as the kiss grows hungrier, charged with all the tension we’ve both been carrying.
She pulls back just long enough to breathe.
“You scared me today,” she murmurs.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
She kisses me again, softer this time.
The room smells faintly of clean linens and the citrus soap the compound provides, mixed with the warmer scent of her skin and the faint mineral tang of my scales.
I lift her easily, earning a quiet laugh as she wraps her legs around my waist.
“Show-off,” she murmurs.
“Perks of being Vakutan.”
