Soft. Barely there. Just the lightest brush, feather-soft and sweet. As if he were testing something he had never dared touch before. It wasn't demanding. It wasn't chaotic. It was… careful. That startled me more than anything. He pulled back, but only slightly. His lips no longer touched mine, yet he was still right there. Close. Too close. His gaze pinned me in place, golden and hot, and it was doing something to me I didn't have words for. He didn't move. Didn't smirk. Didn't joke. He just stayed. In my space. In my face.
Waiting. For me. For something else. I couldn't tell. But the thought sent a strange thrill curling low in my stomach. What did I even want? Without thinking, I caught my bottom lip between my teeth. Just slightly. Just enough to taste the lingering sweetness of him still on my mouth. His eyes dropped instantly. Tracking. Watching every tremor. For the first time, I realized, he wasn't just waiting. He was giving me the choice.
Mine. I took it. My hands lifted on their own. His jaw. His hair. Silken strands slipping through my fingers as I pulled him back down. Malvor didn't resist. Didn't tease. He let me. The kiss was different this time. Deeper. More demanding. Not practiced. Not careful. This was messy, needy, and real. A hunger I didn't recognize until it was spilling out of me. Gods, I enjoyed it. I knew how to kiss. Knew it as a skill, perfected like everything else I had ever been trained to do. But this? This wasn't skill. This was wanting.
My fingers clenched in his hair. My breath hitched as I pressed closer. He met me there, matching my urgency, deepening the kiss with a slow, decadent roll of his mouth. My lips parted instinctively. He didn't hesitate. His tongue slid against mine, teasing, coaxing, claiming. I melted. A sound escaped me, small, unintentional, real. Malvor groaned, pulling me flush against him.
He was good at this. Infuriatingly good. And I should have expected it. But knowing and experiencing were two different things entirely. I didn't stop. Not until the kiss broke on my ragged breath. My forehead brushed his as I tried to catch air, my hands still tangled in his hair like I wasn't convinced I could let go. He didn't ruin it. Didn't cut the moment with a joke. Didn't try to twist the heat into humor. No.
He kissed me again. Hungrier. Deeper. His hands urgent now, sliding up my back, mapping curves he had only dared glance at before. I pressed into him, fingers trailing down the lines of his shoulders, across his chest, learning him by touch. He groaned into my mouth, tilting his head to take more, taste more. I had touched countless bodies. Perfected a thousand responses. But this, wanting this, was terrifying. Terrifying, and addictive.
And then, without realizing it, I slipped. Habit took over. My urgency softened into rhythm. My kisses became too precise. Practiced. My hands moved the way they always had. Not real. Not messy. Performance. Malvor felt it instantly. He broke the kiss, catching my hands in his own.
"No." The word was quiet but solid. I blinked, startled. Breath uneven.
"Not like this," he murmured, eyes searching mine. "Not the expectation." My fingers twitched in his grasp. He held them tighter, though gentle.
"I don't want this," he said. His voice was low, steady. "I want you. The real you." The real me.
My lips parted, but I couldn't speak. How? How was I supposed to give him that? I knew how to please. How to arch, how to moan, how to look up through my lashes at the right moment. I knew how to be wanted, how to be used, how to deliver satisfaction like a script drilled into my bones. But this… gods, this was different. This wasn't a role. This wasn't routine. I didn't know how to be this. So we stopped. No fight. No words. Just a quiet, slow unraveling back into ourselves. He held my hands a moment longer, as if anchoring me, then softened, releasing me. Softly, impossibly softly, he leaned forward and pressed a kiss to my forehead. No smirk. No arrogance. Just warmth. The gentleness stung worse than rejection. Slowly, he walked away.
I sat there on the edge of my bed, pulse stuttering in my veins. My hands still felt warm where he had held them. My skin still carried the ghost of his lips. I thought I knew what he wanted. I thought I understood desire. Intimacy. The exchange of give and take. But Malvor had stopped me. He had looked at me like I was something else entirely. Like I was missing something. That kiss on my forehead, tender, reverent. It terrified me more than any cruelty ever had. Because sex was easy. Sex was math. Rhythm. Expectation. Training. I had learned to anticipate every touch, to mold myself to fit the needs of others. My body was a temple offering. My worth, measured by performance. But this? This wasn't performance. This was unmapped territory.
What did he see in me that I couldn't? What did he want that I didn't know how to give? The truth clawed at me: I didn't know who I was when I wasn't serving someone. I didn't know what I liked. What I wanted. The thought left me restless. My body ached with unfinished tension, my mind a storm of questions. I lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, the echo of his touch still haunting me. For the first time in years, sleep did not come easy.