He takes a step toward me. Another. We’re only an arm’s length apart. His eyes work over me, pausing on the scar that bisects my brow. He touches it with his thumb, featherlight. “I’m sorry I keep trying to hold you back. I want you safe, but I’m with you on this. I trust you.” His lips brush my forehead, and they are unbelievably soft. He lingers there a moment, his thumb still by my temple, his breath warm on my skin. I want to step into his arms. I want to run.

I feel like I should say something, anything.

“I trust you, too,” I whisper.

He pulls back, eyes locking with mine, and it dawns on me that we’re not really talking about trust anymore. Not exclusively. I trust you so much, and that’s why everything is difficult, he’d said on the wind wagon. I understand now; it is impossible for us not to get hurt. Life and death is the way of the wastes, love and loss. It’s the cycle. We all lose eventually.

“Delta,” he murmurs. That’s it. Just my name. He takes my hand cautiously, threads his fingers through mine, and my stomach plummets like a stone in water.

“You could have anyone in the wastes,” I say. And it’s true. He’s beautiful. Caring. So much more than decent, which is all I can pass for on a good day.

“But I want only you.”

My heart thrums wildly against my ribs. Like my lodestone always finding north, I let myself be drawn to him. He tilts his head to the side, lowers his mouth to mine. Our lips brush, and it’s like I’ve found my heading. Like this was where I was always supposed to be.

He kisses me again, firmer this time, more deliberate. His lips are dry from days in the sun, but still somehow impossibly soft. He finds my hips and pulls me closer. When his hands slip beneath my shirt and roam up my spine, I don’t fold into myself or try to become small. For the first time in my life, I want to be touched there. I want him to feel every inch of me.

“Is this okay?” he whispers when I shudder.

I nod frantically, not wanting him to stop. As his fingers trail my scars, I kiss his nose, his chin, his jaw. When I find the hollow of his throat, he groans, and I immediately want to make him do it again.

I fumble with the buttons of his jacket and push it open. Run my hands over his chest. We may be two halves of a whole, but he is foreign to me, uncharted land. My hands explore, memorizing the shape of him, creating a map in my mind. He captures my face, brings my lips back to his, and we stagger a bit, bumping the table.