“Kailorien,” she whispered. “At least your gloves.”
He paused, brows arching.
“I want to feel your hands.”
Without a word, he lifted his hand to the edge of his glove, eyes never leaving hers. He tugged it loose, the leather creaking as it slipped free. He dropped it beside them, then repeated the same slow ritual with the other.
Then, he reached for her.
Thistime, it wasn’t with a soldier’s touch. It wasn’t the gloved grip of command or restraint.
This washim. Bare. Honest. Flesh to flesh.
His hand cradled the side of her face—thumb sweeping across her cheek—and she gasped, like she’d been waiting, desperate.
“Tell me,” he rasped, voice hoarse, barely above a plea. “What do you want from me, starlight?”
Her eyes widened, raw desire churning within.
She leaned in, her whisper a sigh against his ear. Then came the words.
Familiar. Like remnants of a dream.
Her request echoed a memory from months past. He had written these exact words in a moment of madness. One stolen night by fluxlight after she’d gifted him the ribbon, ink bleeding onto the page as he tried to exorcise the ache she’d carved into him. He’d imagined pressing her down onto the war table, her hands grasping the edge, her body trembling as he stretched her, filled her, moved within her until she shattered. Untilheshattered.
And now she whispered it back to him.
Auryn. His little star. His miracle.
She hadkept those words.Felt them. Wanted him enough to say them aloud. Her lashes trembled like the wings of a moth, waiting. Bare. Open. Vulnerable.
He exhaled a long breath, hands gentle as he cupped her jaw.
“You…” he said, voice rough, “have no idea what you’ve just done to me.”
He kissed her again.
Deeper this time.
Not just reverent.Ruined.
He rose, scooping her easily into his arms, one hand at the curve of her thighs, the other at her back. He laid her on the cot. Her skin dewed with heat, breath quickening. Her arms wrapped around his neck, fingers buried in his hair, and Resh—Void, he was trying to stay in control. To not press her down. To remember that she wasstillhealing. That she wasAuryn.
But then she leaned in. Lips at his ear again.
“Not like that, Kailorien…like…”
The next words she whispered scorched him. From the same journal. Written in solitude, in shame, in darkness.
He froze.
Not because he was afraid.
But because something inside himbroke open. Quietly. Cleanly. Like a gate that had been waiting since creation for someone to unlock it.
Her words hadn’t just burned him.
Theyfreedhim.
