I expect him to flinch. To step back. To give me the distance I’m begging for without actually asking.
Instead, he says, “And yet here I am.”
I stop breathing entirely.
The air between us shifts, thickening with possibilities I’ve been shoving down for weeks. Months, maybe. The way his eyes linger on my mouthwhen he thinks I’m not looking. The careful distance he maintains, like he’s afraid of what might happen if he gets too close.
“I don’t know what to do with all of this,” I admit, the words scraping my throat raw. “With her. With you. With any of it.”
“You don’t have to know,” he says, stepping closer. “You just have to stop running.”
Something breaks inside me. It’s not clean, not pretty, but like ice cracking under too much pressure.
I surge forward, closing the distance between us, and kiss him.
It’s not gentle. It’s angry and desperate and too honest, tasting like all the words I’ve been swallowing for months. For a heartbeat, he goes perfectly still, and I think I’ve made a catastrophic mistake.
The bond between Kaia and I pulses once in my chest. A reminder of what I can’t have, that she chose someone else—
Then his hand cups my jaw, holding me in place as he deepens the kiss with a precision that steals my breath. The bond’s ache fades, smothered by something else entirely. Something that’s just mine. It’s not rushed or frantic like mine was. It’s deliberate. Devastating. Like he’s been thinking about this for a very long time.
I fumble, overwhelmed by the sheerintentbehind his touch. The way he’s not just kissing me butclaimingsomething, staking a quiet flag in territory I didn’t know was disputed.
He walks me back until my shoulders hit the stone wall, but it’s not about dominance. It’s about grounding me. Anchoring me to something solid when everything else feels like it’s spinning apart.
“If you’re going to walk away again,” I breathe against his mouth, “do it now.”
His silver eyes meet mine, and something shifts there—decision, maybe, or surrender.
“No,” he says quietly. “Not this time.”
The kiss that follows is different. Slower. Deeper. I can taste the promise on his tongue, feel it in the way his fingers thread through my hair. My chaos magic responds, sparking between us in little bursts of light that make the shadows dance.
His shadows reach for mine, twining together like they’ve been waiting for permission. The sensation is intoxicating, not just physical contact but something deeper, more fundamental. Like recognizing a piece of yourself you didn’t know was missing.
I arch into him, desperate for more contact, more connection, moreanything. His mouth finds my throat, and I make a sound that’s embarrassingly close to a whimper.
“Finn,” he murmurs against my skin, and the way he says my name, like it’s important, like it matters, nearly undoes me completely.
My hands fist in his shirt, pulling him closer even though there’s no space left between us. Heat builds where our bodies press together, the kind of tension that makes breathing optional and thinking impossible.
He lifts his head to look at me, and what I see in his expression makes my heart stutter. Want, yes, but something else too. Something that looks dangerously like care.
“We should—” I start, but he silences me with another kiss, softer this time but no less devastating.
When we finally break apart, we’re both breathing hard. He rests his forehead against mine, his hands still tangled in my hair.
“We should go,” he says quietly, but he doesn’t move away.
“Should we?” My voice comes out rougher than intended.
Instead of answering, he straightens my shirt with careful hands, his touch lingering longer than necessary. The simple gesture feels more intimate than everything that came before it.
“We’re still going to pretend nothing happened, aren’t we?” I ask, though I’m not sure I want the answer.
“Only if you ask me to.”
I don’t answer. Can’t answer. Because the truth is, I don’t want to pretend. I want this, whatever this is, to be real.
