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Then we rush each other.

TWENTY-THREE

FLARE

LEON

One second there are bodies on the floor, blood on her hands, and the silence after violence ringing in my ears.

The next, Clair is in front of me.

I tuck the gun into the waistband at the small of my back before stepping into her. My hands catch her waist, her fingers fist in my jacket, and then my mouth is on hers.

She tastes like salt, dust, and adrenaline. There’s a faint copper edge between us, blood in the air or on my mouth or maybe both. I don’t care. She is warm and alive and pulling me closer with both hands like she needs proof too.

There is nothing careful about this kiss.

It crashes through me, hot and hungry and shaking with everything I almost lost. Her mouth opens under mine, and whatever leash I’ve kept around myself for years snaps so hard I feel it in my bones.

She drags me closer like close still isn’t enough. Good. Because it isn’t. Not after that knife at her throat. Not after my weapons hit the floor. Not after those men looked at her and saw something they could take.

A sound tears low through my chest.

Rough. Broken. Barely there.

She answers by kissing me harder.

Fuck.

I’ve imagined kissing Clair more times than I’ll ever admit to anyone. But nothing I imagined came close to this.

Nothing prepared me for the sound she makes when my hand tightens at her waist. Nothing prepared me for the way she presses closer instead of away, like she’s done letting fear choose the edges of her world. Nothing prepared me for Clair Rains fisting both hands in my jacket and kissing me like maybe she’s been starving too.

I pull back half an inch.

It nearly kills me.

Her eyes open, hazel and wide, her breath catching against my mouth.

“Leon,” she whispers.

My name in her mouth almost finishes me right there.

I tip my forehead against hers and breathe through it. Once. Twice. Trying to find the man who can be gentle with this. Trying to remember that wanting her does not give me the right to take one inch more than she offers.

Then Clair rises onto her toes and kisses me again.

So much for breathing.

Her words from minutes ago tear through me.

I don’t want to be a burden.

No.

Never.

I pour the answer into her mouth because I don’t have a voice to give it to her any other way.