He opened his eyes to the meadow.

  For a breath, he didn’t move. He just let the place take him apart and put him back together the way it always did. Willow branches swayed overhead like slow, patient hands. The air smelled of crushed grass and river-stone. Somewhere beyond the hill, water spoke to itself in a language that never needed translating.

  And she was close.

  He could feel it the way he felt sunlight through his eyelids. Not with touch, not with sound. With presence.

  His chest eased. Then tightened again, because of course it did. Because he was still him, even here. Still carrying the echo of Damon’s smile in the carriage window, the way Kairi had laughed politely, the way she’d let Damon hold her hand as if it cost her nothing. Still carrying the stupid, sharp spike of jealousy he hadn’t known lived in him until today.

  A soft rush of footsteps.

  He turned his head and there she was, running across the grass like the meadow had been waiting to hand her back to him. Her hair was down, a curtain of midnight-brown catching the light and turning it warmer. Her cheeks were pink from the run, her eyes bright, and her whole face looked like a decision: I am here. I chose to come. She didn’t slow as she reached him. She didn’t hesitate like she used to in the early years, hovering at the edge of closeness as if it might break. All the years had sanded some of that fear down, not by force, but by repetition. By him showing up and staying. By her learning he wasn’t a dream that vanished when she reached.

  She dropped to her knees over him, one on either side of his hips, hands braced on his stomach like she owned the space between them. It wasn't new, she had done this before. But this time was different for him.

  He went perfectly still.

  Not because he didn’t want to move. Saints, not because of that. Because every part of him that had spent his life learning to be controlled, to be quiet, to be the kind of man who survived court and battlefield by not showing his throat, suddenly found itself pinned under her grin. And that grin was going to break every careful wall he had built for himself.

  “Hi,” he managed, and his voice came out rougher than he intended.

  She laughed, soft and delighted, like the sound belonged here. “Hi.”

  Her hands slid up his chest, fingertips dragging lightly over fabric as if she was checking that he was real. Then higher, to his shoulders, to the sides of his face, and she leaned down as if she was simply going to kiss his forehead.

  Kylar’s breath caught. His eyes lowered without permission, tracking the curve of her mouth. The warmth of her. The fact that she was straddling him like it was the most natural thing in the world, like there hadn’t been a time when she’d flinched from her own longing.

  She hovered a heartbeat, close enough that her breath brushed his lips. She never hesitated before when she leaned down to kiss his forehead.

  He decided, he wouldn't let her doubt.

  He lifted his hands, cradled her face, and pulled her down into him.

  The kiss wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t the careful, reverent kind he’d practiced like a vow. It was hungry in a way that startled him. Like something in him had been held behind a gate all day and the gate had finally cracked.

  Her breath stuttered against his mouth. Then she kissed him back just as hard, just as eager, her fingers curling into the collar of his shirt and tugging him up toward her like she wanted to climb inside his skin.

  He tasted festival on her, honeyed and warm, and he thought, irrationally, that if he died here he would die satisfied.

  Her hands slid into his hair, threading through it, pulling lightly in a way that made his stomach tighten. His fingers traced the line of her jaw, the soft skin under her ear, and she made a small sound like she’d forgotten how to hide reaction.

  Kylar kissed her again, slower this time, deeper, as if he was trying to memorize the exact shape of her mouth. As if he could store it somewhere safe for the day when eyes and titles and brothers and roads tried to wedge themselves between them.

  She shifted, hips settling more firmly over him, and his mind did something unhelpful and intensely physical. He swallowed it down, barely.

  She broke the kiss only long enough to breathe, forehead resting against his. Her lashes fluttered as she looked at him.

  “Dream boy,” she whispered, smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

  “Wildflower,” he whispered back, and the name felt like a prayer and a possession all at once.

  She kissed him again, smaller, quick, like a peck that turned into another because neither of them could stop. Between kisses she murmured, “My—”

  He caught the word with his mouth. “Don’t,” he breathed against her lips, and he didn’t mean stop. He meant don’t make me hear you call me yours when I’m already hanging by threads.

  Her mouth curved. “My brave boy.”

  The words hit him low and hot. He kissed her like an answer.

  Her necklace shifted as she moved, the chain sliding, and the ring on it bumped softly against his chest. That tiny weight, that warm, hidden proof of what they were becoming, sent another rush through him. His hands tightened at her waist as if the world might steal her if he didn’t hold on.

  She kissed along the corner of his mouth, then his cheek, then back to his lips, teasing like she was trying to see how far she could push his restraint before it snapped.

  He let out a breath that was too close to a laugh. “Kairi…”

  She hummed, mouth brushing his. “Kylar…”

  Hearing it, even as a test, even as a tease, did something to him. His heart thumped too hard. His hands slid down her back, pulling her closer until there was no polite space left.

  She sighed into his mouth like she liked that.

  He held her there a moment, tucked against him, his chin resting against her hair. Her body felt warm and alive and real, and he could have stayed there for hours, breathing her in, letting his jealousy burn out into something quieter.

  But the memory of the day was still lodged under his ribs like a splinter. He hated he couldn't just let it go. He tightened his arms around her and muttered into her hair, voice a low, intimate thread.

  “If you keep kissing me like this,” he murmured, “I’m going to forget I’m an honorable man.”

  She laughed against his throat, pleased in a way that made him ache. “Maybe you should forget a little.”

  He closed his eyes. “As much as the idea of touching you more sounds like heaven…” He swallowed, and his fingers flexed once at her waist. “…I also don’t want to go to heaven because my mind betrays me when your brother starts interrogating me while I’m half-dressed.”

  Her head snapped up so fast he felt the change in the air.

  “What.”

  He opened his eyes and found her staring down at him with outright horror, like he’d just announced Rush had taken up juggling knives for sport.

  He tried to soften it, to make it sound less like a confession of impending doom. “I was drying off,” he said quickly. “He wasn’t actually in the room.”

  Her hands flew to his face, thumbs pressing into his cheeks like she was checking for bruises. “He questioned you while you were bathing?”

  Kylar let out a small, nervous laugh, because he couldn’t stop it. “Not… exactly. It was more…” He gestured vaguely at his own head, then realized that didn’t help. “…in here.”

  Her eyes widened. “He talked to you in your head.”

  Kylar hesitated. There was no safe way to say yes. So he said it anyway. “Yes.”

  Kairi’s face changed in a series of quick flashes: shock, anger, betrayal, and underneath it, something older and sadder that had nothing to do with rules and everything to do with a brother who couldn’t stop trying to carry the whole world on his back.

  “He broke his rules,” she said, voice sharp enough to cut.

  Kylar reached up, trying to tug her back down into warmth and softness and away from rage. “Wildflower…”

  “No,” she said, not unkindly but firmly, hands still on his face. “No, Ky. He promised. He promised he wouldn’t do that.”

  Kylar’s throat worked. “I think rules… changed once he realized what he’d realized.”

  Her stare sharpened. “What he realized.”

  Kylar closed his eyes for a heartbeat and wished he could go back five seconds. Then he opened them and met her gaze.

  “He knows,” he said quietly. “About me.”

  Kairi went utterly still, like the meadow itself was holding its breath with her. “He knows you’re… him.”

  Kylar nodded once.

  Her mouth parted. “How.”

  He exhaled. “Because he asked me questions.” He swallowed again, thinking of Rush’s voice in his skull, calm as a blade. Thinking of how it felt to have someone’s attention inside your thoughts, turning over things you didn’t offer.

  Kairi’s fingers tightened slightly on his cheeks. “What questions.”

  Kylar’s eyes dropped to the ring against her chest, then back to her face. “Kairi…”

  “Tell me,” she said, and the command landed like a princess learning how to be one again.

  Kylar dragged in a breath. “He started with… the simplest ones. The ones you ask when you’re trying not to sound like you’re afraid.”

  Kairi didn’t blink.

  “He asked if I’d kissed you,” Kylar said.

  Her cheeks flushed faintly, not with embarrassment, but with the sharp awareness of what they’d been doing thirty seconds ago.

  Kylar kept going anyway, because the truth didn’t get kinder if you avoided it.

  “He asked what word came to mind when I looked at you.”

  Kairi’s brows knit. “And you… answered?”

  Kylar’s mouth twitched in something close to misery. “He didn’t ask like a polite man asking. He asked like a man who can hear the answer before you decide you’re ready to give it.”

  Kairi’s anger flared hotter. “Kylar.”

  “He asked if I’d ever hurt you,” Kylar said, voice turning rough. “If you’d ever told me to stop. If I’d ever pressured you. If I’d ever taken something from you you didn’t offer.”

  Kairi’s gaze softened a fraction at that, even as fury still simmered. She knew what it meant for Rush to ask those questions. What it meant for him to fear the answers.

  Kylar’s hands slid up to her wrists, holding her gently, grounding himself in the simple fact of her skin.

  “He asked if I loved you,” Kylar said.

  Kairi’s breath hitched.

  “He asked if I’d marry you,” Kylar continued, and his voice went quieter, almost reluctant, like the words were too bright to say out loud.

  Her eyes shone, stunned and warmed at once.

  “He asked what I would do if you chose someone else,” Kylar said. “If I would walk away if you asked. If the dreams stopped, if you vanished from this meadow, would I still find a way to come back. Would I still… choose you.”

  Kairi stared down at him like she couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry or set something on fire.

  “And,” Kylar added, because this was the part that still made his skin prickle, “he asked why I hold you the way I do when you’re quiet. Whether it was selfish or not"

  Kairi swallowed hard.

  Kylar’s thumb brushed lightly over the inside of her wrist. “That’s what he asked.”

  Her voice came out small. “And what did you answer.”

  Kylar stared at her, and for once he didn’t try to hide behind humor or poise. There was no point. Not here. Not with her looking at him like she was both the storm and the calm after.

  “I answered the truth,” he said softly. “Even when I tried not to.”

  Kairi’s eyebrows lifted, pleading and furious and tender all at once. “Kylar.”

  He swallowed. “Yes, I kissed you. No, I haven’t hurt you. Not once. Not ever. If you told me to stop, I would. Immediately.” His voice tightened. “And the word…”

  Kairi held her breath. Kylar’s eyes flicked down, then back up, and he gave her the answer like it might kill him.

  “Safe,” he whispered.

  Kairi’s lips trembled. Kylar kept going, because he’d started and he didn’t know how to stop without shattering.

  “And yes,” he said, quieter still, “I love you. And yes, if you asked me to, I would marry you tomorrow and let your brother stand there with a blade to my throat if it made him sleep at night.”

  Kairi made a sound that was half a laugh and half a sob. “He threatened you.”

  Kylar’s mouth quirked. “He implied. Very artistically.” He hesitated, then added with reluctant honesty, “He also told me he was glad I wasn’t a psychopath. That I was… romantic.”

  Kairi blinked, startled.

  Kylar’s expression turned a shade more haunted. “Then he added that I’m loud.”

  Her eyes widened. “Loud?”

  Kylar closed his eyes, mortified. “Apparently my thoughts yell or something”

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  Kairi’s face did something dangerous. Amusement tried to bloom through anger like a flower through cracked stone.

  “He told you that.”

  Kylar opened one eye. “He wrote it down probably, I’m sure, to torture me with it someday.”

  Kairi stared for a long beat. Then she leaned down and pressed her forehead to his, breath trembling.

  “I’m going to kill him,” she whispered.

  Kylar let out a soft, helpless laugh. “You can’t. He’s your brother.”

  “That has never stopped me from wanting to,” she muttered.

  Kylar’s hands slid up her back, pulling her down again, not as a distraction, but as an anchor. “Wildflower,” he murmured, “I’m still alive.”

  She let him pull her into him. The words landed. Not dramatic. Not poetic. Just fact.

  Kylar breathed her in. “He could have done worse than ask questions. He could have tried to rip the whole thing open. He didn’t. He asked. He listened. And he stopped.”

  Kairi’s eyes shut tight. “He shouldn’t have started.”

  Kylar didn’t argue. He just held her and let her anger burn itself into something steadier.

  After a moment she whispered, “Did he see… everything.”

  Kylar’s stomach tightened. He remembered that first instant. Rush’s presence. The way the question had been a hook: First thought. The way his mind, traitorous and honest, had flung Kairi at Rush like a banner.

  “He saw… pieces,” Kylar admitted. “Images. Not everything. Not like… not like watching. More like the way a scent pulls a memory up. I tried to keep it down. But you…” He swallowed. “You’re always the first thing.”

  Kairi opened her eyes and searched his face. “He threatened you because of that?”

  Kylar exhaled through his nose. “He threatened me because he loves you. And because he’s terrified.” His voice softened. “And because he heard my thoughts and realized I’m just as terrified.”

  Kairi’s hand reached for the ring at her throat. “Did you… tell him about this?” She glanced around the meadow, as if the willow itself might be listening. “About us here.”

  Kylar hesitated. “He asked,” he admitted. “He asked if you’d… slept. If you’d rested with me. He needed to know if you were safe. If I was… careful.”

  Kairi’s cheeks went hot. “And you answered.”

  Kylar’s mouth twitched. “I didn’t have to. My mind did it for me.” He looked away for a heartbeat, then back. “Kairi, I made it very clear.” He struggled for words that wouldn’t paint the wrong picture. “It was sleep. Real sleep. Arms around you. Your head on my chest. Like this.”

  As if to prove it, he slid his arms around her and tucked her down until she was curled against him, cheek pressed to his collarbone, her hair spilling over his shoulder.

  She sighed, anger and tension draining a fraction just from being held. Kylar pressed a kiss to the top of her head, slow and careful.

  “Tomorrow,” she murmured into him, voice muffled, “I’m going to make him explain.”

  Kylar’s fingers threaded through her hair. “Will he?” he asked softly.

  Kairi shifted slightly, peeking up at him. “You think he’ll try to keep it from me.”

  “I think he’ll try to carry it for you,” Kylar replied. “Which is different. And still wrong.”

  She huffed a small, humorless laugh. “He always does that.”

  Kylar’s eyes stayed on her. “So do you.”

  Kairi blinked. Kylar brushed his thumb over her cheek. “You carry everyone. You carried a town. You carried a kingdom in your bones even when you pretended you were just the friendly healer neighbor. And now you’re carrying me, too.”

  Her eyes softened, suddenly wet at the edges. “I want to.”

  He swallowed. “I know. But you don’t have to carry me alone.”

  Kairi’s gaze held his for a long moment. Then her mouth curved, small and brave. “Then kiss me again.”

  "Yes Princess" He whispered as he leaned up and kissed her, slower this time, but no less desperate. Like the kiss was a promise: I’m here. I’m not running. I’m not scared of your brother enough to let him take you away from me.

  Her hands slid up his chest to hold his face. Her fingers threaded into his hair again, pulling him closer, and the ring at her throat bumped his chest once more, a soft little knock like fate tapping on a door.

  Between kisses she murmured, “My shield”

  He swallowed the words like wine. “My wildflower.”

  “Brave boy.”

  “Storm girl.”

  She laughed against his mouth, and he kissed the laughter, too, because it was her. Finally he broke away just enough to breathe, forehead resting against hers, their noses brushing. Kairi’s smile turned wickedly tender. “Tell me what you want.” she whispered.

  He didn’t answer her with words at first.

  Kylar shifted his weight and, with careful patience, rolled them so she ended up on her back in the grass and he hovered over her, braced on his elbows like he was afraid the wrong movement would crack the moment in half. The willow above them stirred, and the meadow felt suddenly too quiet, like it was listening.

  His hands slid down her arms, slow enough that she could pull away at any point, and then he guided her wrists up over her head and held them there with a gentleness that still made his voice turn rough.

  “I want just a little then,” he murmured.

  Kairi’s eyes stayed on his, wide and steady. “How much is a little?” she whispered.

  He leaned down, not to take her mouth, but to trace kisses along the line of her jaw, the soft spot beneath her ear, the place where her pulse jumped like it had secrets. His breath warmed her skin as he spoke against her.

  “Enough,” he said, and tightened his hold only by the smallest degree, more promise than pressure. “That if you say stop, I’ll listen.”

  She swallowed, still beneath him, still letting him keep her there. “If I say stop,” she breathed, “you’ll stop?”

  Kylar lifted his head just enough to look at her properly. No teasing now. No games.

  “Yes,” he said, immediate and absolute. “Always.”

  Kairi’s lashes fluttered closed for a heartbeat, like she was deciding whether she trusted the world to hold them.

  Then she opened her eyes again, and the corner of her mouth curved into something reckless and sure.

  “Then…” she whispered, voice turning soft with intent, “don’t stop.”

  He gave a low, breathy chuckle against her throat like he couldn’t help himself, like her answer had loosened something in him.

  “Dangerous,” he murmured, and then he showed her what he meant by a little.

  He started at her shoulder, kisses pressed slow into skin warmed by meadowlight, then climbed the line of her neck with the kind of patience that felt like a vow. When he reached the spot just beneath her ear, he paused, breathed her in, and let his teeth catch her lightly in a teasing bite.

  Not hard. Not cruel. Just enough that her breath hitched and her head tipped back to give him more.

  Kylar’s eyes flicked up at her face, taking in the way she offered him space without even thinking about it. His mouth softened into something that looked like gratitude and trouble combined, then he kissed the bite as if apologizing for the pleasure of it.

  Kairi made a small sound, more laugh than gasp, and her fingers flexed above her head as if she’d forgotten they were still trapped in the story of his hands.

  He didn’t keep them trapped. Not really. He released her wrists, but he didn’t let her go. Instead he slid his hands down to her palms, threaded his fingers between hers, and laced them together like he was anchoring himself. Then he lowered more of his weight onto her carefully, the way he always did when he was trying to be both a shield and a man at once.

  Kairi noticed immediately, of course she did, and her smile turned wicked with that quiet confidence she wore only with him. She laughed again, helpless under his attentions, and arched her back further, pressing into him more fully as if to say, If you’re going to hold me down, actually hold me down.

  Kylar’s mouth found the hollow of her throat again. He kissed there, then along the edge of her jaw, then back down, as if he couldn’t decide where he wanted to worship first.

  His voice, when it came, was husky and low at her ear.

  “I might have to tell you to stop.”

  Kairi squeezed his hands, fingers tightening between his like she could feel the tension in him trying to turn into something reckless. “Is that a request to stop?” she teased softly, eyes bright even as her breathing went uneven.

  He huffed a short laugh, the sound vibrating against her skin.

  “Not yet,” he admitted, and then his mouth curved against her throat. “It’s… a warning.”

  Her brows lifted, delighted and challenging. “A warning for who?”

  He lifted his head enough to look down at her, hair falling forward, eyes darker than they’d been a moment ago. The meadow’s gentle wind tugged at his shirt and her loose hair like it was trying to play peacemaker.

  Kylar didn’t look like he wanted peace. He looked like he wanted her.

  “For me,” he said, honestly, and let his forehead dip toward hers for a heartbeat. "What I want and what I’m trying to be are arguing."

  Kairi’s smile softened into something tender and dangerous all at once. “Are the conflicted parties finding a compromise?” she whispered.

  Kylar’s throat worked. His grip on her hands tightened, not to hurt, never that, but as if he needed something solid to hold while his restraint tried to slip its leash.

  “I’m negotiating terms,” he insisted, and his mouth brushed the corner of hers without fully taking it. A near-kiss, a promise. “I’m still thinking.”

  She laughed quietly, breath warm against his lips. “Are you?” she challenged, eyes half-lidded now, gaze dropping to his mouth and back up like she couldn’t decide which part of him she wanted most.

  Kylar exhaled through his nose, a sound that was almost a growl and almost a prayer. “Barely,” he confessed.

  Then he kissed her properly. Not the gentle, careful kisses he’d given her before when he was terrified of crossing a line he didn’t know how to come back from. This was needy. Starved. The kind of kiss that carried four days of distance and the day’s jealousy and the ache of watching Damon make her laugh and having to pretend it didn’t claw at him.

  He didn’t take. He asked with his mouth and waited for her to answer. Kairi answered by kissing him back like she’d been waiting to do it since the moment the door closed. Her hands, still threaded with his, pulled him down. Her shoulders lifted off the grass just slightly, chasing more contact, and Kylar let himself sink closer, careful not to crush her, careful not to rush.

  And between kisses, when he found the breath to speak, he murmured against her mouth, soft and ruined with want:

  “You’re going to get me killed.”

  Kairi smiled into the kiss, utterly unrepentant.

  “Mm,” she whispered, lips brushing his, “then you should probably stop.”

  Kylar stilled for a fraction, eyes searching hers. A heartbeat of choice. Then she tilted her chin up and kissed him again, slow this time, like she was teaching him the answer she wanted. Kylar’s laugh came out broken and quiet.

  “Not yet,” he breathed, and kissed her again as the willow swayed overhead, the meadow holding their secrets like it had always been made to do.

  His want and his need were beginning to blur into the same bright, dangerous thread, and he hated how easily she could tug it. Kairi’s hands slipped free at some point, and she caught him by the hips like she was claiming the space between them. She drew him closer, closer, until there was no room for anything but breath and heartbeat and the soft, insistent press of her.

  Every time she arched into him, he felt it everywhere, the way her blouse shifted, the way her hair spilled, the way the ring at her throat kissed lightly against him when she moved. Meadowlight turned her skin into something warm and impossible, and his mind, traitor that it was, kept collecting little details as if he could hold them later like evidence that this was real.

  His hands had wandered without permission from his better sense, finding her hip, her side, the curve of her waist. Heat under his palms. Softness that made him want to be gentler and rougher at the same time. He caught himself with a sharp inhale, like a man stepping too close to a cliff edge.

  Enough.

  Kylar forced himself to sit back, slow and careful, not breaking the spell with suddenness. He took her hands in his and brought them down with deliberate tenderness, placing them flat against her own stomach as if he could anchor her there, anchor himself there.

  He closed his eyes. For a long beat, all he did was breathe. In. Out. In. Out. Like the act of not falling apart was something he could accomplish with discipline alone.

  When he opened his eyes again, her gaze was on him, steady and curious, a little smug with affection.

  “I need a moment,” he admitted, voice rougher than he wanted it to be. “Because if I don’t… I’m going to forget how to be anything except hungry.”

  Kairi blinked, then her expression softened, warmth replacing the wicked edge. She didn’t move to chase him, didn’t tease him with a new provocation. She simply watched him like she understood exactly what it cost him to stop.

  “Kylar,” she said quietly, like his name was both permission and comfort. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  He swallowed, throat working around too many feelings that had nowhere to go.

  “That,” he managed, “is the problem.”

  She let out a small laugh, but it wasn’t sharp. It was fond. She shifted just slightly, enough to ease the tension without breaking the closeness completely, and her hands stayed where he’d placed them as if she was agreeing to the boundary he’d drawn.

  Kylar stared at her for a second, struck by the trust in that simple obedience. Not submission, not surrender. Trust. The kind that said: I believe you when you say you’ll stop. I believe you when you say you want me. I believe you when you say you’re trying. His shoulders loosened a fraction, like armor unclasping.

  “Thank you,” he said, and it came out like a confession.

  Her mouth curved. “For what?”

  “For letting me be a good man,” he said, and he hated how vulnerable it sounded and loved that she didn’t laugh at it.

  Kairi lifted her chin, eyes bright. “You’re being a stubborn man.”

  “That too.”

  A breeze shifted the willow branches overhead, and a leaf brushed her hair like the meadow itself was trying to soothe them.

  “I want you,” he said finally, simple and honest, like laying a blade on the table. “And I want to deserve you. Those two things are… currently at war.”

  Kairi’s expression went soft in a way that made him feel seen straight through. She reached up slowly, not pushing, just offering, and brushed her knuckles against his cheek.

  “Then keep doing what you’re doing,” she whispered. “Stay. Breathe. Be stubborn.”

  Kylar leaned into her touch, eyes closing for half a second. Then he opened them again and nodded once, like a vow.

  “Okay,” he said, voice steadier. “Okay. Just… give me one more minute.”

  Kairi’s smile turned gentle and victorious all at once. “One minute,” she promised. And for that one minute, he did the hardest thing in the world. He stayed right there with her. Wanting. Breathing. Holding the line.

  “Dato?”

  His name settled between them like a soft stone dropped into still water. He opened his eyes, and the first thing he did was look at her. Not at her mouth. Not at the curve of her throat. Not at the warm line of skin where her blouse had shifted. Her eyes. As if he could read the truth of her question there and decide whether to trust his hands again.

  “What if there are no consequences in the waking world,” she whispered, “if we were to… keep going here?”

  For a heartbeat, he didn’t answer. Not because he didn’t understand, but because he did. Completely. Kylar’s fingers tightened around hers. The meadow was quiet enough that he could hear the willow leaves combing the air. Quiet enough that her breath sounded like something precious.

  “Kairi,” he said, and her name came out low, careful, like he was laying it down instead of speaking it.

  She lifted her chin a fraction, giving him room to say no. Or yes. Or something in between.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted.

  Her brows pulled together, not in disappointment, just in focus. She’d always been like that. If the world didn’t give her certainty, she would build a lantern and go looking.

  He went on, because he owed her honesty more than he owed himself comfort.

  “I know injuries don’t follow us,” he said slowly. “And I know healing doesn’t… finish here the way it does when you’re awake. But that doesn’t mean nothing carries over.” His mouth twisted, a faint grim line. “I’ve woken up with my hands remembering you. With my chest feeling like it’s full of summer and ash. With… with missing you so badly I could barely think straight in daylight.”

  Her expression softened. She didn’t look afraid of that. She looked… tender. Kylar’s eyes dropped briefly, then lifted again, like the weight of his own desire was something he had to pick up with both hands.

  “And you,” he added, quieter, “you’ve told me before you wake up with my voice in your head. Like it’s… stuck to you. So maybe the body doesn’t bruise here. But the heart does. The mind does.” His thumb stroked once over her knuckles. “We would remember.”

  Kairi’s lips parted, and she looked like she was about to argue, but he kept going, because he had one more fear he didn’t want to hide behind.

  “I can’t promise you it won’t matter,” he said. “I can’t promise it won’t change something. Between us. Or outside us.”

  Kairi stared at him a long moment, and then her voice softened into something braver than flirtation.

  “I’m not asking you to promise it won't matter or that things won't change...,” she said. “I’m asking you if you want to. Because it will matter and it will change things.”

  The question landed clean. No tricks. No teasing rope to pull him closer. Just the truth, held out in her open palm. Kylar’s breath stuttered once.

  He looked at her hands, still resting where he’d placed them on her stomach, and something in his chest clenched so tight it almost hurt.

  “I do,” he said. It was immediate. A confession without armor. “Gods, I do.”

  Her eyes brightened, and for a second she looked impossibly young and impossibly ancient all at once. A girl with storms in her ribs and a crown waiting somewhere down the road. He didn’t move yet. He forced himself to stay still, as if stillness was the last test of his restraint.

  “But,” he added, voice low, “I want it for the right reasons.”

  Kairi blinked. “What would be the wrong ones?”

  Kylar let out a quiet, shaky laugh, the kind that wasn’t funny at all.

  “If you’re asking because you think it’s safe,” he said. “If you’re asking because you think there’s no cost.” He held her gaze. “If you’re asking because you’re trying to convince yourself that wanting me doesn’t mean anything because it’s only a dream.”

  Her lips parted. He softened, because he saw the way that last line struck near a scar.

  “I don’t want you to hide behind the meadow,” he murmured. “Not with me.”

  Kairi’s throat worked. Then she answered, simple as a vow.

  “I’m not hiding.”

  Kylar studied her, searching for any tremor of doubt.

  And when he didn’t find it, something in him loosened. Not his desire. His fear.

  “All right,” he said, voice rough. “Then we do it the way we do everything. Carefully. Honestly.”

  Her mouth curved, small and pleased. “Carefully,” she echoed, like it was a challenge.

  He raised a brow, just barely. “Don’t start.”

  Kairi’s smile turned softer.

  Kylar took a breath, then shifted his hands, not letting go of her entirely, just changing the hold from restraint to connection. He laced his fingers with hers again, grounding himself in the simple fact of her being there.

  “Tell me what you want,” he said.

  Kairi’s eyes searched his face. “You,” she whispered.

  He huffed a quiet laugh, but his gaze was too dark for humor.

  “That’s not an instruction,” he murmured. “That’s a prayer.”

  Her cheeks warmed, but she didn’t look away.

  “I want you to kiss me like you mean it,” she said, and her voice barely trembled. “Not like you’re afraid of your own hands.”

  Kylar went still. Then, slowly, he lowered his head, not touching yet, just hovering close enough that his breath warmed her mouth.

  “And if you want me to stop,” he said, “you say it. One word. I don’t care if you’re laughing, crying, angry, anything. You say stop, and I stop.”

  Kairi’s eyes held his. “And you won’t be angry?”

  “No,” Kylar said. “I’ll be grateful.”

  The honesty in that seemed to catch her in the chest. Her lashes lowered, then lifted again.

  “I won’t say it,” she whispered.

  He made a quiet sound, half warning, half surrender.

  “You’re trying to kill me.”

  Kairi’s fingers tightened around his. “Not yet.”

  That finally cracked something in him. Not his control. His composure.

  Kylar’s mouth found hers.

  It wasn’t the careful kiss of a man asking permission for every breath. It was still controlled, still listening, still anchored in that promise he’d just made, but the need was there now, unhidden.

  Kairi answered immediately, arching up into him as if she’d been waiting for this exact moment for years. Her free hand slid up his chest, then to his jaw, holding him there, keeping him close. When her fingers threaded into his hair, Kylar inhaled against her mouth like it hurt.

  His hands moved, not roaming, not taking, just holding: her shoulder, her upper arm, her waist, as if he needed to remind himself she was real and not made of dreamlight.

  Kairi broke the kiss just long enough to breathe, and her mouth brushed his as she whispered, “Dream boy.”

  Kylar’s eyes squeezed shut for a beat.

  “Wildflower,” he breathed back, forehead resting against hers. “Don’t—”

  She kissed him again, cutting off whatever warning he was about to offer, and the kiss deepened, steady and sure, like she was teaching him that wanting didn’t have to be dangerous if it was honest.

  Kylar’s breath turned ragged. He pulled back a fraction, just enough to look at her. "You absolutely want this?"

  She looked into his eyes and worked at calming her racing heart. "I absolutely want you. Like this."

  Kylar stared at her like the words had carved a new truth into him.

  Then he lowered his mouth again, slower this time, as if savoring the choice, and kissed her like a vow.

  Not a promise that nothing would happen.

  A promise that whatever did happen, he would carry it with care.