I must have been staring too long.
Because when his eyes opened this time, they opened fully.
No half-sleep.
No rough murmur from somewhere beneath a dream.
No absent warning spoken into the dark.
Just those dark, impossible eyes opening and finding me exactly where I was — turned toward him, caught between the first pale light of morning and the dangerous softness of my own undoing.
For one second, neither of us moved.
Then the corner of his mouth shifted.
Not into a smile.
Something quieter than that.
More knowing.
"You're doing it again."
My breath caught.
I should have looked away.
I didn't.
"What?"
His voice was still low from sleep, rougher than usual, slower too, as if waking had only sharpened him instead of softening him.
"Staring."
Heat rose so fast into my face that it almost hurt.
"I wasn't—"
"You were."
The answer came calm. Certain. Unfairly amused.
He was still lying half on his side, one arm heavy around my waist, the sheets pushed low enough that I could see the dark spread of tattoos over his shoulder and chest, the faint tension of muscle beneath skin still warmed by sleep. Morning had only barely begun, and somehow he already looked like a problem I had no hope of surviving gracefully.
I swallowed.
"You always wake up accusing people?"
"Only when they're guilty."
That made me let out the smallest, most helpless breath of laughter.
His eyes stayed on my face.
Watching.
Taking in every little thing — the embarrassment, the lack of denial, the pulse he could probably see at my throat if he looked long enough.
Then his hand moved.
Slowly.
His fingers slid from my waist to the curve of my side, not roaming, not greedy, just deliberate enough that I felt every inch of the motion anyway. He shifted onto his back, bringing me with him by default, and I had to brace one hand lightly against his chest to keep from falling fully into him.
Bad decision.
Because then my palm was on him.
Warm skin.
Bare skin.
The faint rise and fall of his breathing under my hand.
My fingers almost curled.
His gaze dropped to where my hand rested against him, then lifted back to my face.
"That's new," he murmured.
I blinked. "What is?"
"You touching me first."
That ruined whatever remained of my dignity.
I started to pull my hand back immediately, but his hand came up and caught my wrist before I could fully retreat.
Not hard.
Just enough.
Just enough to keep me there.
"Don't."
The word was quiet.
Flat.
But not cold.
I went still.
His thumb moved once against the inside of my wrist, over the place where my pulse was betraying me completely.
Then, like he was doing me the courtesy of not making it worse, he released me slowly instead of all at once.
I left my hand where it was.
That seemed to satisfy him.
The room stayed quiet around us, wrapped in dim early light and the thick stillness of a house not yet awake. The curtains hadn't been opened. The air was cool in the way large rooms always were at dawn. Somewhere far below us, maybe in the kitchens, something metallic shifted softly and then went still again.
Here, in this bed, none of that seemed real enough to matter.
His eyes returned to mine.
"You slept well."
It wasn't a question.
I nodded once. "I did."
"Good."
A small pause.
Then, "Bad dreams?"
I hesitated.
Because the truth was yes.
And also no.
I had woken from one. But waking beside him had somehow bled the worst of it out before it could settle under my skin the way it usually did.
"Not after," I said softly.
His expression changed by half a degree.
Enough that I saw it.
Enough that I knew he understood exactly what I meant.
His hand came up then, slow and unhurried, and pushed a loose strand of hair back from my face. The touch was so gentle it almost hurt more than if it had been rough.
"Good," he said again.
The word landed differently this time.
I looked down, because if I kept looking at him the way I was looking at him now, something in me was going to give itself away too easily.
His chest was an easier place to look.
The tattoos there pulled at my attention immediately — dark lines, shadows, patterns that disappeared beneath the sheet and reappeared higher at his shoulder, elegant and violent all at once. My fingers moved before I had fully decided to let them, hovering just above a line of ink before lightly touching it.
He went still.
Not tense.
Just aware.
I traced only the edge of it, carefully. "Do they all mean something?"
His gaze sharpened slightly, but not in warning.
"Yes."
"All of them?"
"All of them."
I glanced up. "And you're not going to tell me what any of them mean, are you?"
That faint, almost-smile again.
"Not this early."
I huffed a tiny laugh.
His hand shifted from my hair to my cheek, resting there with the kind of quiet ownership that made my stomach tighten in dangerous ways.
"What time is it?" I asked, because if I didn't say something normal soon, I was going to forget how.
His eyes moved briefly toward the clock on the far side of the room.
"6:23."
I stared at him. "That early?"
"Yes."
I looked at the curtains, then back at him. "I should get up."
His hand remained at my cheek.
"No."
The answer came too quickly.
Too simply.
I blinked. "No?"
For the first time that morning, something openly possessive darkened his face.
"No," he repeated, lower now. "You should stay where you are."
A flutter went through me so sharp I felt it under my ribs.
"I have to go before they look for me and im not there."
"I know."
"Then why are you saying it like that?"
"Because I don't want you to go."
The honesty of it stunned me silent.
He watched me absorb it without looking away.
There was no embarrassment in him. No attempt to soften the statement or disguise it in humor. He had wanted something, so he had said it. Simple as that.
Men like Malakai probably had no idea how to lie prettily when the truth would serve.
A part of me wanted to stay.
That was the worst part.
A very real, very treacherous part of me wanted to curl back into him, pull the sheets higher, and let the rest of the world rot in their thoughts.
But another part of me, the older part, the one built out of years of surviving by keeping structure where I could find it, forced the words out.
"I still have to go."
His jaw moved slightly.
He didn't argue immediately.
He just looked at me, the hand at my cheek sliding slowly down to my neck, where his thumb rested lightly over my pulse.
It felt far too intimate.
Far too deliberate.
"You always choose obligation," he said quietly.
I frowned. "What does that mean?"
"It means," he said, "that even when you're exhausted, even when you finally have a reason to stay still, you still try to run toward whatever expects something from you."
His words hit harder than they should have.
Because they were true.
I opened my mouth, then closed it again.
He noticed that too.
Of course he did.
A memory hit me then, sharp and ugly in the soft light.
Thirteen years old.
Limping.
Still expected to show up downstairs with polished shoes and brushed hair and a smile polite enough not to provoke anyone more than necessary.
Because pain had never been an excuse where I came from.
Because nobody in that house had ever looked at me and said stay in bed, you're tired.
My body must have tensed, because his eyes changed immediately.
"What?"
I shook my head too fast. "Nothing."
His fingers at my neck stilled.
"Kiera."
The warning in my name was quiet.
Not angry.
Never wasted.
I looked away.
For one terrible second, I was back there — too young, too sore, too frightened of being seen as weak. Tina's voice slicing down the hallway. Alyssa laughing from somewhere near the staircase. My father silent in the way he always was when silence cost him less than defending me.
I hated that memory.
Hated how quickly it could climb into soft moments and poison them.
His hand moved from my neck back to my jaw, turning my face toward him again.
Gently.
Impossibly gently.
"Look at me."
I did.
The dark in his eyes was different now.
Not dangerous.
Focused.
Protective in that cold way only he seemed capable of.
"You're not there," he said.
The words were so low I almost felt them more than heard them.
I swallowed.
"I know."
"No." His thumb moved once along my cheek. "You know I'm here" His gaze held mine. "I need you to know it here."
His fingers pressed lightly, once, against the center of my chest.
The gesture undid something in me.
My breath went unsteady.
He watched it happen and went on, slower now, each word placed exactly where it needed to go.
"No one in this house gets to demand your pain from you. Not your time. Not your strength. Not your obedience at the expense of your body." His voice lowered further. "If you're tired, you rest. If something hurts, you say it. If a place becomes too much, you leave it. You understand me?"
I stared at him.
This was not softness the way I had imagined softness used to look.
This was something harder.
More deliberate.
More real.
Care spoken in the language of command because command was the only language he trusted enough to make promises in.
And somehow, I understood him perfectly.
"Yes," I whispered.
His expression eased by the smallest fraction.
"Good."
Silence returned.
But it wasn't the same silence.
It was fuller now. Heavier. Like the room had absorbed what he'd said and agreed not to let it be taken back.
I let out a slow breath.
Then, because some part of me was still trying to survive this with even a sliver of dignity left, I said softly, "You know, for someone who didn't want me leaving the bed before him, you're very talkative this morning."
For one second he looked at me in complete stillness.
Then a low sound left him.
Not quite a laugh.
But closer than I had ever gotten from him at this hour.
"You bring out unwanted habits."
That made me smile before I could stop it.
He noticed immediately.
The look in his eyes darkened again, but not with anger.
Something more dangerous.
"Don't do that."
My smile faltered. "Do what?"
"That." His gaze dropped briefly to my mouth, then lifted. "Look at me like that and then ask innocent questions."
Heat rushed through me all over again.
"I wasn't looking at you any type of way."
"You were."
"You say that about everything."
"Because I'm usually right."
I laughed softly, and this time his mouth curved enough that it was undeniably a smile.
Small.
Brief.
But real.
My heart turned over hard enough to hurt.
This was getting dangerous.
More dangerous than the kiss.
More dangerous than his hands.
More dangerous than the possessive little mine still echoing through my body from the night before.
Because this — this quiet teasing, this warmth edged in darkness, this impossible version of him no one else seemed to get — felt like the kind of thing a girl could build hope around without realizing she was doing it.
And hope had always cost me more than fear ever had.
I must have gone quiet again, because his fingers moved once more against my cheek.
"What?"
I forced myself back. "Nothing."
He didn't believe me.
I could see that.
But this time, mercifully, he let it pass.
His hand slid away and he finally sat up, the sheet falling lower over his waist as he moved. Morning light had grown a fraction stronger now, enough to silver the lines of his shoulders, enough to make the room look less dreamlike and more real.
Real enough that the thought of getting caught and everything else started creeping back in around the edges again.
I sat up too.
The space between us felt immediate.
Noticeable.
Wrong.
I looked down at the blanket in my lap and smoothed it unnecessarily.
He watched me do it.
Then he said, low and certain, "You'll come back here tonight."
Not a question.
My pulse jumped again.
I looked at him. "That sounds very sure of itself."
"It is."
"And if I don't?"
That earned me a look.
A very Malakai look.
Dark. Level. Slightly offended by the idea that reality might not cooperate with him.
"You will." he said definitely.
" I have work today and might return late. So just eat and rest and do whatever u want. I'll be back and ill be with you."
Something in me melted and panicked at the same time. I nodded. I felt sad a bit then worried.
I tried to hide both reactions by sliding out of bed.
The floor felt cool under my feet.
I stood slowly, very aware of him watching me, of the marks sleep had probably left on my skin, of the fact that I had spent the night in his bed and was now trying to pretend I could walk away from it composed.
At the edge of the bed, I glanced back.
He was still sitting there, one arm resting loosely over his knee, bare chest lit by dim morning, hair still sleep-rough, looking like the kind of man women ruined themselves over in old stories and then pretended surprise when the fire burned.
"Don't stare again," I said, purely because I needed one last defense.
That almost made him laugh.
"Then stop giving me reasons."
My face betrayed me immediately.
He saw it.
Of course he saw it.
And the satisfaction in his eyes was the final humiliation.
I grabbed the first excuse I could. "I should get ready for breakfast. "
"You should."
But he made no move to stop me.
No move to leave either.
Just watched.
As if he was willing to let me go only because he already believed I was coming back.
At the door, I paused with my hand on the handle.
I looked at him one last time.
And there it was again — that terrifying truth, simple and impossible and heavier than anything else in the room.
I was not afraid of him.
Not here.
Not like this.
Not when it was just the two of us and morning and the dark warmth of everything neither of us had fully named yet.
"I'll see you later," I said softly.
His gaze held mine.
"Yes," he said. "You will."
I left the room with my heart beating too hard and my thoughts in ruins.
And somewhere beneath all of it — under the embarrassment, the wanting, the fear of what I was becoming — one quiet certainty remained untouched:
With him, I was safe.
And maybe that was exactly why I was already falling too fast to stop.