CW: smut

  In the hush of the fading day, the harsh edges of our world blurred, leaving only warmth and the quiet relief of being together again.

  My hands slid up his chest first, slow and deliberate, fingertips tracing the firm pnes as if reacquainting myself with something precious. He inhaled softly as I leaned in, pressing my mouth to the warm skin at the base of his throat.

  I kissed there, then lower. Along the line of his colrbone. The hollow just beneath it.

  Rocher stilled beneath me, breath deepening as my lips followed the subtle contours of muscle and bone. I took my time, letting the simple act of touching him feel almost ceremonial. Like I was reminding both of us what this was. Who we were, right here.

  My hands fttened against his chest, thumbs brushing along the ridges of muscle as I leaned in again, resting my forehead there for a brief moment, breathing him in.

  "Can we do something tonight?" I murmured, voice low.

  He tipped his head down slightly, enough that I felt the movement beneath my cheek. "Anything."

  I hesitated. Just long enough to feel the weight of what I was about to ask.

  "I want us to be honest," I said. "Just tonight. No holding back."

  I drew back enough to look at him, searching his face.

  Today had shaken us. I could still feel it under my skin, the way distraction had crept in where certainty should have been. Tomorrow would demand focus. Crity. I needed to know where we stood before the world closed in on us again.

  Rocher's gaze softened, something thoughtful and steady settling there.

  He reached for me then, hands firm and sure as he drew me fully into his p, settling me against the solid warmth of his body. His thighs bracketed mine, his chest at my back as if the question had already been answered.

  "All right," he said quietly, arms coming around me. "One night."

  I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding and leaned back into him, feeling the strength in his hold, the promise in it.

  "Then talk to me," I whispered. "Tell me what you see, what you feel."

  For a moment, he simply held me, feeling my weight, as if reassuring himself of my presence. Then, his lips found the curve of my shoulder, pressing a soft, lingering kiss that sent a shiver down my spine.

  "I like the way the firelight dances on your freckles," he murmured into my skin. "They're like a little consteltion, and I want to trace every single one."

  His lips moved to my neck, teeth grazing gently as his hand slid higher, thumb stroking the soft fre of my hip.

  "Here too," he said. "I love how your body fits against mine, like it was made for me to hold."

  I shivered and leaned into him, unable to help the way my body reached.

  "Your turn," he said, voice thick with desire. "Tell me what you're feeling."

  My head tipped back against his shoulder, eyes fluttering closed as I focused on the sensation.

  "I feel the weight of your arm on my stomach," I said, breathily. "How it anchors me. How you're strong enough to hold me still, but you never make me feel trapped."

  A low sound rumbled in his chest. His hands traced my ribs to cup my breasts, thumbs sweeping across my nipples until they tightened under his touch.

  "I love how soft you are," he whispered. "How perfectly you fill my hands. How you shiver when I touch you like this—"

  His fingers circled and pinched as he nibbled my ear, sending jolts of pleasure straight to my core. I broke on a breath.

  I felt his heat against me, and I rolled my hips in a slow, deliberate grind.

  "I like that I can do that to you," I said. "Just by sitting here. Just by moving like this."

  A growl tore from him, one hand leaving my breast to slip between my legs. He cupped me through my smallclothes, his palm pressing hard against my core, making my hips jerk.

  "Rocher," I gasped.

  He hooked the damp fabric aside, fingers gliding across the slick heat of me. He circled me once, twice, then settled into a rhythm that dragged helpless sounds from my throat.

  My hands filed, reaching for purchase as the sensation crested too fast, too sharp. I grabbed at whatever I could reach.

  There was nothing but him.

  His arms. His shoulders. The steady strength of his body holding me together as I unraveled.

  The words I meant to say dissolved into a haze of sensation. My thoughts slipped away, and with them, the aches, the fear, the knot of worry in my chest—until all I had left was the heat, the pressure, the sharp, aching awareness of where his hand was and how completely my body was answering it.

  I'd completely forgotten tonight's premise, but whatever sounds I was making seemed to be enough for him anyway.

  "Seeing you like this," he breathed against my ear, voice thick. "Feeling you squirm on my p... it drives me wild. All I want is to have you. Completely. To hear every sound you make when you come apart."

  His words, his touch, the sheer, intoxicating promise of it all sent me over the edge, my body clenching as the world dissolved into a blinding, blissful light.

  The fire had burned low, its glow soft and amber. The bnkets were warm. My breathing had finally slowed. Rocher y behind me, one arm tucked beneath my head, the other draped loosely over my waist.

  His fingers traced a line up my side, ending on slow circles along my bare shoulder, aimless and gentle. He always touched me like this afterward, as if making sure I was still there, still warm, still real.

  A low, pleasant warmth settled in my chest, steady and quiet.

  I let myself sink into it. Into him. Loose and rexed in a way I almost never allowed, my guard down to the point of transparency. His chest rose and fell against my back in an unhurried rhythm.

  A long moment passed.

  Then Rocher spoke, voice low—quiet enough that it almost blended with the crackle of the fading fire.

  "Since we're being honest tonight," he murmured, his thumb brushing over a freckle on my shoulder, "can I ask you something?"

  A small, fragile hope stirred in me. For a heartbeat, I wondered what he would finally let himself say.

  "You can ask," I whispered.

  He hesitated. Just long enough for dread to start collecting in the hollow of my chest.

  "Ferric said something the other day," he said slowly. "Something about me not knowing enough. About you knowing more than you let on. That I... that I trusted you without asking questions."

  My breath snagged.

  Rocher didn't notice. Or maybe he did, and kept going anyway.

  "He said there are things about the witches I should have known before agreeing to help. Things you already knew."

  My pulse hammered.

  "Cire," he said, and the gentle circles on my shoulder slowed. "What did he mean by that?"

  I should have lied.

  I should have asked what Ferric had told him, what exactly he knew.

  But the honesty of the night still lingered like a spell, loosening my tongue, making me stupidly, fatally open.

  So I answered.

  "They don't age," I whispered. "Not the way normal people do."

  His thumb paused.

  "When their bodies wear out... they repce them."

  His hand went still.

  "With new hosts." The words scraped out of me. "It's not voluntary."

  Silence spread, thick and sharp.

  Rocher inhaled slowly. Deeply. Like someone bracing for a blow.

  "And you knew this," he said. Not a question. A verdict.

  I didn't answer. I curled in on myself, bracing.

  His arm slipped away.

  Not violently.

  Just... withdrew.

  And the absence was worse than anger.

  "Cire," he said, and his voice trembled with hurt, "how could you not tell me that?"

  I sat up too quickly, clutching the bnket to my chest. "Because I knew what you'd do. I knew you'd refuse to help them, even though we need Ferric's training, even though the crusade will sughter them all whether they deserve it or not—"

  "So you decided for me?" The hurt in his voice cut deeper than if he had shouted. "You didn't trust me to make my own choice?"

  "I was trying to protect you," I protested.

  "Protect me," he repeated, quiet and disbelieving.

  He ran a hand over his face, jaw tight with frustration. "I should never have started training with him. I'll stop tomorrow. I can figure the rest out on my own."

  "No." The word ripped from my throat. "Rocher, please, you can't. You need Ferric. Without his help, you won't master it in time."

  He shook his head, looking away from me. "I'll manage somehow. I won't spend a single second more than I have to with them. I can't work with people who take lives to cling to their own."

  The tears rose too fast. He moved to get up.

  "Rocher," I said. "Please. Don't walk away from this. I'll make it up to you. I swear I will, I'll give you anything, I can even—"

  Panic took hold of me, frantic and sharp. The sick, familiar certainty that I was only worth keeping if I paid for it first.

  Before I could think, I had climbed over him, straddling him, pcing my hands on his shoulders.

  "I can let you have me," I whispered. "If only you'll stay."

  The shame hit me instantly.

  I felt his entire body go rigid beneath me.

  "Cire," he said, low and sharp. "Stop."

  But the words tumbled out anyway, desperate and panicked. "If you want me that way, if that's what I'm withholding, if that's what will make you stay with me—"

  "Cire." This time his voice cracked like a snapped branch. He gripped my waist firmly, stopping my frantic movement. "Don't ever say that again."

  I froze.

  His eyes, when he finally met mine, were wounded and furious and unbearably soft all at once.

  "I don't want you to buy my forgiveness with your body," he said, voice rough. "I don't want you offering yourself out of fear. And I sure as hell don't want you thinking that I would abandon you over a disagreement."

  My breath shook.

  "But you sounded like you would," I whispered.

  He reached up and cupped my cheek, thumb wiping a tear I hadn't felt fall.

  "I'm angry," he admitted. "I am. You hurt me. You should have trusted me."

  My throat closed.

  "But I am not leaving you. Not now. Not ever. And nothing you offer me in this bed is going to decide that."

  I closed my eyes, a sob breaking quietly in my chest.

  His hand tightened at my waist, grounding.

  "Cire," he murmured, more softly now. "You already have me. Don't feel like you have to give yourself away."

  My heart twisted so painfully I thought it might split open.

  He lifted me from his p—steady, careful, as if I were something fragile he was terrified of mishandling. He id me back down on the bnkets, tucking the edges around my hips with the same instinctive tenderness he always had.

  With unsteady hands, he found his shirt and put it on, the fabric clinging where his skin was still warm from me.

  "I need some air," he said, voice low and ragged. "If I stay like this, I'm afraid I'll say something I don't mean."

  The tch clicked and he paused—not long enough for me to think he'd turn around, only long enough to prove that leaving cost him something too.

  Then he stepped outside, gently closing the door.

  And the room colpsed around the shape he'd left behind.

  The bnkets still held his warmth. His scent. The imprint of his body beside mine. But without his weight behind me, the bed felt enormous. Empty.

  My humiliation came all at once—hot, choking, relentless. I folded forward, pressing both hands over my mouth to muffle the sob that cwed its way out.

  He didn't yell. He didn't sh out.

  He just walked away.