Not because Amrin was difficult.
Not because she was unintelligent.
Quite the opposite.
The torment was entirely mine.
Every evening she arrived at my quarters carrying notebooks against her chest and looking faintly nervous, like she still expected me to change my mind and throw her out.
Every evening, I told myself I would keep things professional.
And every evening, I failed a little more.
Because the curvy little Witch was slowly unraveling me.
Her scent alone should have been classified as a weapon.
Warm vanilla.
Jasmine.
Rain.
Something soft and feminine beneath it all that lingered in my rooms long after she left, clinging to the furniture and blankets and my fucking sanity.
And the more comfortable she became around me, the worse it got.
At first, she’d sat rigidly beside me at my desk, shoulders tight, trying not to take up space.
Now?
Now she tucked one leg beneath herself in the chair.
Now she sprawled across my couch while studying, mumbling insults at celestial equations under her breath.
Now she absentmindedly stole my hoodies when cold and walked around my quarters smelling like me while simultaneously making the place smell like her.
It was driving me insane.
Because every tiny thing she did felt intimate.
Domestic.
Dangerously easy to grow attached to.
And I already was.
Far more than I should have been.
The worst part?
Watching her learn.
Gods.
Watching Amrin understand something for the first time was nearly enough to bring a male to his knees.
Her moonbeam-colored eyes would light up, brightening with genuine excitement whenever she successfully mapped a constellation or solved one of Franco’s impossible realm calculations.
