Page 148 of These Tears

His nostrils flare. First with that shared darkness that lives in both of us, but then with alarm. ‘It’s minus twenty.’

I keep my tone soft and sweet and even. ‘It felt like minus twenty when you kicked me out in the blizzard, too.’

His jaw clenches, the muscles working hard on the sides, but his irises gleam with memory.

Click. Click.

‘It was minus twelve. You have to start paying attention to the weather.’

Completely bypassing that, I say: ‘Start with the hem.’ His words resound in my own voice. ‘Do it slow,’ I add.

He narrows his eyes, the lashes aglow with the phantasmagoria of the surroundings. His hand moves towards the edge of his jumper on instinct, stops, then closes over it anyway. His fingers hover there for a second. Knuckles whiten against the fabric, jaw slackening as the breath that leaves him steams between us, torn in two by the cold.

‘Leah…’ he warns low.

Click. The camera answers for me.

His mouth thins.

‘Your choice: slow or quick,’ I offer as I lower the camera.

His jaw realigns at that. His eyes drop to my hands holding my weapon, then back to me. Recognition settles over his face.

He gathers the hem. The navy peels away from his waist, revealing a strip of pale skin. The muscles of his abdomen tense against the touch of night air.

That familiar heat crawls up my throat.

Click. Click.

The lens drinks in the line of him. The way the light from the cabin and the aurora kiss his skin differently – the warm orange along his left ribs, the spectral green tracing the ridges of the stomach.

He pauses with the jumper bunched at his waist. A shiver cuts visibly through his body.

‘It’s freezing,’ he grits out.

‘You still have five minutes before the hypothermia sets in.’ My voice remains steady as I keep my weapon aimed at him.

His mouth hardens, but colour climbs his throat despite the cold. He looks away for half a second, then back at the lens.

Every contradiction I have ever tried to catch in a photograph is standing in front of me: violence and restraint, beauty and ruin. And beneath it all, a man I still want regardless of everything that happened.

His hands move again. The jumper rides higher, revealing more of his torso. There are old scars; faded silver lines that catch the light like thin, raised wires. Some I recognise from medical reports in his file.

Air slows through my lungs. Click.

‘And the rest,’ I murmur.

He huffs out a bitter laugh that fogs between us.

‘The rest, Elias.’ My voice is low but sharp.

He studies me – eyes shadowed, jaw rigid.

He could pull the jumper down. He could turn away. Instead, he holds it at his sternum and stays where I put him, the camera between us holding the line neither of us wants to cross.

‘I guess your demons need to get even with mine.’ He exhales in acquiescence.

And strips off the top.