Page 80 of Suite 7

“Is that good or bad?”

“I haven’t decided.”

She grins. Leans up on her toes. “Let me know when you figure it out.”

I pull her against me and kiss her, and she stops smiling long enough to kiss me back properly. A kiss that starts as punctuation and becomes its own argument, the way it always does. Her hands slide up my bare chest. Mine find the hem of my henley where it falls across her thighs. She presses closer and I let her, for longer than I should, until I’m hard against her hip and she feels it and goes very still.

She pulls back.

Looks up at me with an expression I can’t immediately name — not desire, or not only that. Something steadier.

“Kane.” Her voice has lost the teasing. “You didn’t come last night. Again.” A pause. “You never do. Not with me.”

I hold her gaze. “No.”

“Why?”

“Because the scene isn’t about me,” I say finally. “What you needed last night — the consequence, the aftercare, all of it — required my full attention. Taking something for myself would have meant splitting it.”

I search her face. And then, before I can decide not to:

“It’s harder to stay present. When I’m not indifferent to the outcome.”

I’m aware that I said more than I meant to. Not the first part. The second part. When I’m not indifferent to the outcome.

That wasn’t strategy. That was just true.

I don’t look at her.

The problem with Vera is that she notices. She will notice this. She’s noticing it now, in the quarter-second before she speaks. And I have nothing to do with that except let it stand.

“That’s—“ She stops. Tries again. “That’s the most you thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“I’ll take that.”

“No, I mean—” She presses her palm flat against my chest, over my heart, the way she did in the room the first night she saw it. “You always put me first. Even when I’m infuriating. Even when I break the rules. Even—“ Her voice quiets. “Even when I make it difficult not to.”

“You make everything difficult.”

“Thank you.” A breath. “Kane. Can I kiss you?”

I look at her. “You did.”

“No.” She shakes her head slightly. “I mean, can I kiss you. Not because we’re in a scene. Not because I’m trying to get something. Just because I want to and I’m asking.”

The distinction lands below the level where I have a response ready.

I nod. Once.

She takes her time with it. Rises onto her toes, one hand curved around my jaw, and kisses me slowly — no urgency, no agenda, just the warm press of her mouth against mine, like she has all the time in the world and has decided to spend it here.

My hand finds the back of her head before I’ve decided to move.

She deepens it by degrees, her fingers curling gently against my jaw, and just like that the constant low-level work of containing everything — the effort I’ve carried so long I stopped noticing it — dissolves into the warmth of her. The soft sound she makes when I pull her closer. The way she tastes like coffee and warm skin. The weight of her body against mine when she leans in like she’s decided I’m somewhere worth being.

I’m not holding anything back. For once, there’s nothing to hold.

I don’t know how long it lasts.