It’s quiet, the only sound in the room the pop and crackle of the fire.

The shirt slides over her skin, baring a single shoulder to my gaze. A light cluster of freckles dapples her skin right up until the scars begin. My hands are as gentle as I can make them as I drag the shirt away from her shoulder, exposing more of her to the light. And to me.

I lay my hand against her stomach, against the scars there. She stills under my touch, but she’s still the way a jittery horse is when it’s not quite sure of its rider. Her muscles twitch almost imperceptibly under my palm.

“You’re beautiful,” I say. And she is. She’s the most beautiful creature I have ever seen.

Ana stiffens. “Am not.”

“Are too,” I say, swallowing thickly.

My body moves of its own accord, following the steps to a dance I have never learned but somehow know by heart. My hands are on her shoulders, pressing her back against the mattress. My knees are sliding along the coarse sheets to bracket her thighs as I crawl over her. My hair falls around her face, a dark curtain shielding us from the world outside this fragile, perfect bubble.

It is a sin to want anyone this much.

And I absolutely do not care. If this desire condemns me to the pit, then I shall burn with pleasure.

“I love you,” I say.

“I know.”

Such a very Ana thing to say.

My mouth descends upon her. I put everything I feel, everything I am, into that kiss.

I am a creature of words, it is true. But sometimes, only actions will do.

CHAPTER 34

Ana

My limbs feel oddly loose when I wake up, like my joints have been well oiled and my muscles thoroughly liquified.

I don’t hate the feeling.

Kiki rolls over, burying her face in the crook of my neck. We have shared a bed countless times before, but it has never felt like this.

I don’t hate this feeling either.

Her arm tightens around my waist. The sheets are tangled around my hips, giving me an unfettered view of the way her skin looks against my darker flesh.

Don’t hate that either.

“I’m hungry,” she mumbles, her lips tickling my neck.

I poke her in the arm, eliciting a soft grumble. “Well, maybe you should eat.”

Somehow (and I do not know how exactly such a thing is possible) she burrows even deeper into my side. “But I don’t have any food.”

Her leg comes to wrap around mine.

Really don’t hate that. But … “If you want me to get you food, you’ll have to let me go.”

Another grumble, this one decidedly less pleased, but she loosens her hold on me. It’s cold suddenly, without Kiki’s warmth wrapped around me like a snake on a branch.