Her lashes fluttered as if something behind them had just unclenched.
"I know," she answered, and then corrected herself, because the room now required that kind of honesty. "I hear it when you shove the fruit closer. When you send a maid away so I can lose a minute without being watched. When you walk the corridor at the hour the day breaks people. But I wanted to hear it here."
"Here," he echoed.
He lifted his hand, stopped short of her cheek, waited.
She didn't move away. He let his knuckles trace the line where the morning had kissed her skin warmer than the rest. The comb caught the light like a quiet crown.
"Do you want me to kiss you," he asked, blunt because courtship had never been his language and he would not hide behind light words.
"Yes," she answered, immediate, as if she'd been waiting for permission to be asked.
He leaned in the way he crossed a dangerous bridge—tested weight, measured footing, then committed.
