Morning should have sent them scurrying apart, guilt nipping at their heels. Instead, it stitched them closer.
Riyan refused to let her move far. Each time she tried to rise, he pulled her back down—into the sheets, into his arms, into the gravity that was him. "The world will wait," he murmured against her neck, voice rough with sleep.
She laughed, a soft, nervous sound that cracked into a sigh when his mouth found her collarbone. "You're insufferable."
"Maybe." His lips traveled lower, each kiss a deliberate anchor. "But you're not running."
And she wasn't. That was the dangerous truth. She lay back, let the sunlight paint across their skin, and let his hands map her like he was memorizing a language only they spoke. There was fire again—urgent, consuming—but threaded through with a sweetness that undid her more than the heat. He touched her like she was both wildfire and something fragile he might break.
Time slipped. Hours blurred. They spoke in whispers between kisses—ridiculous things about music, books, the future they weren't allowed to imagine. She teased him about his arrogance; he teased her about how easily she melted. Their laughter tangled with gasps, with silences heavy enough to burn.
By afternoon, exhaustion finally pulled her into his chest. His hand rested over her heart, thumb tracing idle patterns. For a fleeting second, she believed the lie—that this was real, that outside didn't exist, that their world was only the sheets, the heat, the quiet.
"Promise me," she murmured, half-dreaming. "No matter what happens outside… you'll still look at me like this."
He pressed a kiss into her hair, fierce and unshaking. "No matter what."
The bubble held. For one last day, it held.