Dorian stared into the fire. "Thank you. I'd forgotten that I used to be someone who could laugh at hornets and muddy children." He paused, and I held my breath. "Forgot that person was still in here somewhere."
The fire crackled between us, filling the silence with small explosions of sound.
"Sometimes I catch myself in mirrors and don't recognize..." His breath hitched. "I became so good at being no one that I forgot I used to be someone. more real."
I watched his hand tremble against his chest.
"That person—the one who worried about sunscreen and made terrible sandwiches and cared if kids had fun—" His voice cracked completely. "I thought Hoyle had killed him along with so many others."
I reached across the space between our chairs and stroked his hand on the armrest. Only fingers against knuckles, warm skin against warm skin. No demands.
"He's still there. I can see him."
I traced one finger along his knuckles, following the ridge of bone. His breathing changed—slightly faster and more shallow.
Turning to face Dorian, I asked, "What do you want? Not tomorrow. Not next week when this is over. Right now, in this moment, what do you want?"
He glanced at me and then stared back at the flames. "Warmth. The kind that doesn't come from running or hiding or staying three steps ahead of people who want me dead."
It was a professional answer. Safe answer. The kind of response designed to deflect deeper inquiry while appearing cooperative.
I waited.
Finally, Dorian turned to look away from the flames and focus on me. When he spoke again, his voice had shed its professional distance.
"You." The word came out rough. "I want to be seen by someone who doesn't want to use me for information or leverage or as a weapon against someone else." His hand turned under mine, palm pressing against palm. "I want to matter to someone who isn't calculating my value in exchange rates."
For a second, I couldn't breathe. I knew that want and had built my life around it. And yet somehow, it still stunned me to hear it out loud.
I stood slowly, careful not to break the contact between our hands. His mug sat cooling on the chair's wide armrest, tea gone cold while we'd talked. I lifted it carefully and set it on the mantelpiece beside a collection of river stones.
When I turned back, Dorian watched me with an expression I couldn't quite read. "Stand up," I said.
He rose from his chair in one fluid motion, blanket sliding from his shoulders to pool on the floor. The firelight caught the lean lines of his body through the thin fabric of his borrowed shirt, highlighting muscle and bone.
We faced each other across three feet of cabin floor. There was no sudden grab for contact.
Dorian took the first step.
The space between us disappeared without ceremony. No collision or desperate rush—just the inevitable conclusion of a conversation that had been building since the moment he'd appeared bleeding on my doorstep.
He reached out for the front of my shirt, fingers spreading across the fabric.
I gripped the hem of his borrowed sweater. He lifted his arms without hesitation, letting me pull it over his head and drop it beside the forgotten blanket.
"Your ribs." My fingers hovered near the bandage.
"Better. Much better."
I traced the edge of white gauze with one fingertip, feeling the warmth of healing skin beneath. No swelling or raging infection heat. Only the steady rise and fall of breathing that had finally reached a normal rhythm.
His fingers moved to my shirt buttons. When he pushed the fabric off my shoulders, his hands moved across my chest with raw hunger, fingers spreading wide like he wanted to touch all of me at once..
We shed the rest of our clothes without speaking, and each piece of fabric was another barrier between us removed. I pulled cushions from Marcus's chairs, arranging them on the floor beside the hearth.
Dorian knelt beside me on the makeshift bedding. The rigid control that usually defined him had cracked wide open, revealing raw want underneath. When he reached for me, his caress was greedy—palms that burned against my skin, and fingers that claimed my flesh like he'd been starving for this contact.
I traced the hollow of his throat where his pulse hammered, gripping his hips to pull him closer. Every mark on his body told of violence endured, but I cared only about the way heresponded to my touch. He gasped when I found sensitive skin, and his body demanded more.
