There was no use pretending anymore. Hewantedher. Not just in some vague, distant way—but fully. Viscerally. The heat of her skin, her breath against his neck, the curve of her waist, the sound she made when she concentrated—hewantedit. All of it. And he was losing his Voids-damned mind because of it.
“In town,” she said, oblivious to his turmoil, “girls gave ribbons to warriors. Some had no hair, so they tied them to their armor. They said it was to give them strength.”
Her hands moved with slow certainty, like she wasn’t just braiding hair, but weaving some kind of vow into the strands. He barelyregistered the words. He only felt her—the soft drag of her fingertips, the brush of her knuckles as she worked through his locks like he washersto tend.
Then she moved.
Stepped around him.
Between his knees.
And Resh forgot how to breathe.
“You are plenty strong,” she murmured, holding up a familiar silver ribbon. One of the two he’d left by her pillow. The pair to the one she still wore every day in her hair.
She didn’t speak again at first. Just looked at him. Her shift brushed against his thighs, whisper-soft. Maddening. Her bare legs were visible now in the firelight, skin pale and delicate. Her body was so small compared to his, but her presence was enormous. Consuming. How did she charge the air between them just bybeing?
“A ribbon won’t cut a beast,” she continued, voice warm and unguarded. “But perhaps this will remind you what you fight for.”
Her fingers ghosted across his chest, dragging the silver silk in a slow loop over his collarbone.
Her words pierced him, but it was the way she stood that destroyed him—the way her hips hovered near his thighs, the way her chest rose and fell just inches from his mouth. Heat radiated from her skin. He envisioned pressing his forehead to her stomach, burying his face in her softness, worshiping her with his lips and hands and—Void help him—hisentire soul.
I would fight gods for you. Would reshape the ground beneath you just to lighten your step.
She tied the ribbon with slow deliberation, not understanding the havoc she was wreaking. Her hands settled on his shoulders, weight shifting between her feet. He tensed at the gentle press of her palms. The heat ofher fingers over the stretch of muscle that strained not to grab her hips and pull her onto his lap. He wanted her there. Wanted to drag her against him and show her what she did to him. Needed her to understand it with her body, her breath, her shivers against his skin.
But he didn’t move. Couldn’t. Because if he gave in now—
“Kailorien,” she called.
His voice was low, rough. “What is it, starlight?”
She leaned in, not shy. “You’re pulling me toward you.”
Hewas. Every breath, every look, every tightened knuckle was a gravity well, aching for her to fall. He reached for her hand without thinking. Their fingers laced—andgods, that tiny touch sent a bolt of longing through him.
He brought her closer, until her body pressed more firmly between his thighs, and his mind lit up with images he had no business letting linger. Her in his arms. Under him. Writhing against him, gasping his name, breaking apart with the pleasure he alone gave her.
She stood there, flushed and luminous, his thirst reflected in her eyes. As if her skin felt every imagined stroke of his hands.
“Your eyes are like steel,” she sighed. “But your lips…they look soft.”
His heartstopped.
She touched her mouth, then his. Not rushed. Not tentative. Justcurious. Like tasting a word she didn’t know.
“Yes,” she whispered, “soft.”
All he could think was that if she kept looking at him like that, touching him, whispering his name... He wouldn’t survive the night. The heat between them pulsed and something inside him—something caged and coiled and starved—snapped.
His hands lifted of their own accord. One found her hip. The other braced just beneath her ribs.
She stilled.
So did he.
But his fingers didn’t retreat. They pressed. Possessive. Reverent. As if he needed to remind himself that she was real. That this wasn’t some dream he’d spun from fevered nights and battle-weary imaginings.
