Tears burned at the edges of my eyes. I pushed them away quickly. “Oh.”
“Oh, no, no, I didn’t mean to make you cry,” he said, cupping my face in his hands and using his thumbs to brush away the tears that kept spilling. “I just wanted to thank you.”
My bottom lip wobbled. “My dad never talks about her—like he wants to forget she ever existed, and I’malways so afraid that whenever he looks at me, all he sees is her. I’m afraid I’ll never be enough like her. I’m afraid I’m too much like her. I don’t know which is worse.”
“You are Ardent Quay. You said I was made up of all the people and all the places and all the stories I’ve met and been to and heard. Why won’t you believe that about yourself? You’re incredible, Ardent—”
I leaned forward and pressed my lips against his.
He went rigid with surprise, and I thought I’d made a mistake, but then, like a desert plant finding a drop of water, he came alive under my kiss. He angled his head down for a better approach, his eyelids falling shut, drinking me in like sunlight. His fingers found their way into my hair as he gently pushed me against the pillar, and I tried to place the way he smelled—there were a billion stars, but I was sure that given enough time, enough taste, I could find where.
Everything was quiet, save for the song that hummed through the tower. I’d been kissed before—only a handful of times, but enough to know that this was different.
This felt rare.
He tasted like dust and licorice—the taste of the flower, perhaps?—and I melted into it gladly. I curled my hands against his shirt, wanting to be close to him, closer still. So close I ached. Dad had once said that when he met Mom, he knew the moment he kissed her, he was found—
Found in a way that was indescribable. Found in a way that you only were when someone saw you, truly saw you, and didn’t want to look away.
And even so far away from theStarfarer, I felt found.
My fingers traced the collar of his shirt to the hooks. I undid the top one, and then another, slipping my warm fingers beneath to his cool chest. He gave a quick gasp against my lips. It tasted sweet.
I opened my eyes and met his heated gaze. “Is this…” I murmured, embarrassed. “Is this okay?”
“Okay?” he asked gruffly, searching my face. “This is perfect. You are perfect.”
I bit my bottom lip, not quite sure I believedthat.
He made a noise in his throat and kissed my mouth again. “Whenever you do that, it drives me mad.”
“When I what?” I asked between kisses.
“Bite your lip.” He planted another kiss on my jawline and then the side of my neck. “When you get that little crease between your brows, too. When you stick your tongue into the corner of your mouth when you’re thinking.”
That surprised me. “I do that?”
“All the time.” His mouth navigated its way back up the other side of my neck. “I can’t look away. You’re made up of all the things I’m not—a constellation I’ve never seen before.” He kissed the sharp edge of my jaw. “I wantto chart it all. Every smile, every grimace, every freckle across your nose…” Then he kissed my mouth again, hungrier this time, deeper. His tongue played against my lips, asking for entrance, and I gave it so willingly it wasn’t even a question. My belly burned for him. “I want to know them all,” he whispered, his gaze heated and sharp. “Intimately.”
Dizzy from his kisses, my heart thrumming so loud in my ears it overtook the song on the wind, becoming one in my body instead—loud and bright and wanting—I pressed my forehead against his. And in the loudness of ourselves, we studied each other’s gazes.
“I want to know yours, too,” I admitted.
The lantern algae emptied into the nighttime sky as we slid down the pillar, hidden in the warm blanket of night. I leaned against him and felt the lightsaber jab at me. He laughed and took it out of his jacket, when something small and disk-shaped slipped out of his pocket and rolled onto the ground.
A hexagonal pin with an inverse of a black sun in the middle.
I picked it up. I knew that symbol.
The First Order.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The Truth
The danger theStarfarerfaced wasn’t on the ship. It was here—with me.
My stomach turned.
