Her eyes jerked up and over to him, and she shook her head. “I’m sorry. What?”

“Staying with me,” he finished. “I didn’t ask because I wanted—I asked because I want you with me. That’s it. No more, no less.”

Roar slowed in the hallway, and turned to face him. Her hand lifted and one delicate finger traced over the leather straps of the supply harness he wore.

“You’re a good man, Kiran Thorne.”

He scoffed beneath his breath. Most people would take one look at him and call him trouble, danger at the very least. He was glad she saw differently.

“I’m a man, that much is true. And I want to be good for you more than I want anything else in this cursed world.”

Her tiny finger curled beneath one of his leather straps and drew him closer, slowly, temptingly. At the same time, her head tilted to the side and she looked up at him with blue eyes that broke his heart and put it back together again.

“You ARE good for me.” She lifted up on her toes and stole another piece of him from the corner of his lips. She kept doing that—chipping away pieces of him he did not even know were loose.

She turned and led him the rest of the way to his door, pushing her way inside, finger still wrapped around his harness strap. But as soon as she stepped inside the room, she halted on a gasp, and her hand dropped away. Kiran followed her inside, closing the door behind them, and found her kneeling next to the bag containing her belongings, clutching it tightly to her chest and staring up at him with tears in her eyes.

“You saved my things,” she said through choked tears.

“Of course I saved them. When the storm first started, I went straight to your room. You weren’t there, but your bag was.”

She made a noise somewhere between a sniff and a laugh. “I—I’ve been so worried all day that I forgot completely that I’d left this in my room. I would have been devastated if it had burned.”

Kiran swallowed the lump in his throat and murmured, “I would have been devastated if you had burned.”

Roar pushed her belongings off her lap and rose to her feet. She came to him, snaking her arms around him and tucking her head beneath his chin. He returned her hold, and they stayed like that for a long while. Together they reminded him of some kind of tourniquet—like the pressure each of them exerted on the other held all their wounds closed.

“I never want to feel like that again,” he spoke against her hair, his voice scratchy. “I never want to imagine a future without you.”