My hand moved to his hard length, moved up and down the velvety shaft, but he stopped me.
"Not tonight, my love. Not until you're sure it's me you want."
His voice was rough silk, threaded with desire, but there was also devotion and restraint. His hand trembled slightly as it brushed a stray curl from my cheek, even though his body was still hard beneath mine, all coiled tension and heat.
“But I am sure,” I whispered, breathless, dazed from the pleasure he’d just wrung from my body. “Mallack, I want?—”
He shook his head gently, a smile ghosting his lips. “You want to give something back. I know. I see it in your eyes.” He drew me closer and wrapped his arms around me protectively. “But I’ve waited twenty rotations to touch you again. I can wait a little longer.”
I pressed my forehead to his, feeling the thrum of his breath against my mouth. “This isn’t about memory. I don’t remember being yours, but I feel it. Like gravity.”
His eyes closed, a low sound caught in his throat. “I feel it too,” he admitted. “But I won’t take you when you’re still unraveling. I don’t want to be the moment you regret. I want to be the one you reach for when everything else makes sense again.”
Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes, unexpected and overwhelming. Who was this male who worshipped my body and protected my heart like it was his own? Who held back, even now, when all he had to do was lean in?
He kissed my temple, then my cheek.
“When you’re sure,” he murmured against my skin, “I’ll be here. And when that night comes, I will thank the gods and gladly take what you offer.”
Tears stung my eyes as I wrapped myself around him, every inch of me melting into his warmth, and let the safety of that promise carry me into sleep.
Once again, we had shunned the bed in favor of the furs by the fire. Daphne didn’t seem to be complaining about it, and neither would I. I would have gladly slept on a rock if it meant holding her. Feeling her heartbeat, low and even, beneath the palm of my hand.
Last night, she had given me the greatest gift: trust. She had let me worship her body like it was sacred, allowed me to learn her all over again, with every brush of skin, every whispered breath. It hadn’t mattered that my cock throbbed in protest, aching for the release I denied us both. Watching her come undone beneath me had been all that mattered.
I hadn’t slept at all. Not really. I’d spent the hours watching the firelight flicker across her features, memorizing the curve of her mouth when she dreamed, the way her fingers curled against my chest. I’d buried my nose in her hair, breathed her in like she was the last clean air left on this planet. I didn’t want to close my eyes. Not when I had her here. Alive. Soft. Warm in my arms.
A dozen times, I’d nearly woken her just to tell her I loved her. A hundred more, I’d whispered it into the space between her shoulder and my throat, letting the words disappear into her skin.
Now, morning was bleeding pale light into the edges of the tent, softening the world. But still I didn’t move. I didn’t want to disturb her, didn’t want to risk losing this moment to whatever waited outside. Duty. War. Questions we still hadn’t answered.
Instead, I just watched her.
The way she sighed and burrowed closer in her sleep. The way her leg slid over mine, as though some part of her remembered this too—remembered us. Maybe not the past. But the shape of it. The shape of what we were.
Of what we still might be.
And I knew, with a fierce clarity that settled in my bones, that I would wait a thousand more nights, hold my hunger behind my teeth as long as it took, if it only meant I could keep her like this. If it meant she’d choose me, all over again.
A faint shift broke the quiet, followed by the slow flutter of her lashes against her cheek. I stilled, breath held tight in my throat, as if any sound might steal the moment away.
She blinked once, twice, adjusting to the dim morning light that filtered through the tent flaps. Her gaze drifted—unfocused at first—before settling on me.
And then she smiled.
It was small. Sleep-soft and unguarded. But it was genuine.
“Morning,” I said, my voice rasping lower than I intended.
She didn’t answer right away. Just reached out and traced a fingertip along my jaw, as though making sure I was real too. Her eyes met mine fully then. They were wide open and awake, and in them I saw it.
The thing I’d been aching to find.
Recognition. Not of memory, but ofme. The way she used to look at me. Like I was the sun and the sea and every horizon she wanted to chase. Like I was hers.
She wasn’t ready to say it yet. I didn’t need her to. That look—gods, that look—was enough to lift me from the weight of every buried grief. It felt like breath after drowning. Like the universe cracked open just to make room for hope again.
My hand moved to the side of her face, cradling her cheek, and my thumb brushed the delicate skin beneath her eye. “You’re looking at me,” I whispered, “the way you used to.”
