Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Rook woke slowly.

Sheets warm; pillows smelling of cedar and soap. Aches everywhere, but far away now—tired, not sharp. Her leg complained when she stretched; she stopped before it became a problem.

The smell reached her before the kitchen did.

Carrot, garlic, thyme. Steam carried the soft promise of gentleness.

She padded in wearing his oversized shirt, sleeves past her hands, hair still damp from the earlier shower. Emmrich stood at the stove, sleeves rolled, collar open, a wooden spoon moving through a small pot. When he turned, something shifted in his face—not alarm, not pity. Just that careful, aching tenderness she was only now learning how to hold.

“You’re awake,” he said, his face softening. “Good.”

“What… is it?” Her voice rasped at the edges.

“Soup.”

Rook blinked. “You… made soup?”

“You sound shocked.”

“I am.” Almost a smile.

“The hospital said your throat might stay sore,” he said, looking back to the pot. “Thought this would go down easier.”

She hadn’t realised her hands were clenched until they let go.

He set a bowl on the island, a small silver spoon, a folded napkin. A thin slice of toast on the side, crust trimmed away. A glass of room-temperature water—no bite.

“I didn’t have you pegged as a chef,” she rasped, a cheeky ghost of a smile as she sat.

Emmrich snorted. “My dear, I hide many things. You’re in my home now; expect great and marvellous wonders.” He brushed a thick strand of ebony hair behind her ear and kissed her temple before sitting beside her. “I dismissed Manfred for the day.” He fanned his napkin across her lap with fussy care. “I wanted to take care of you myself. Thought you could do with quiet.”

“Don’t want to share?” she managed, amused.

Her gaze dropped to his mouth; the smirk vanished. She fixed on the water, reached for the spoon with a small shake. She closed her eyes and pushed away the thought of his lips on Zara.

The first mouthful was warm and soft. Barely seasoned. It slid past the burn with only a prickle.

The second stung; she winced and tried to hide it.

Emmrich saw. He didn’t miss a thing with her. He took her hand, thumb rubbing over her knuckles, leaving his own bowl untouched. “You don’t have to finish.”

“No. It’s… good.” A scrape. She hated the sound of herself.

“Darling, save your voice—”

“It’s okay,” she cut in. “Hurts… a little.”

Another spoonful. Slower. Halfway down, her stomach turned mean. Nausea rose—tidal, unkind.

She sighed and pushed the bowl away. The untouched toast looked sad on the plate.

He was there in the next second, chair pulled closer, one hand bracing the back, the other steadying her forearm. “It’s alright,” he murmured. “Too soon. We stop.”

She gave a small, broken laugh. “You… made—” The cough took her.

He passed the water. “Sip. Slowly.”

She obeyed. The wave ebbed. When she looked at him, his eyes held something dangerously close to devotion and very far from demand.

“I’ll make it again,” he said, thumb stroking her cheek. “Every day, if that’s what works.”

That hurt worse than the sting.

“I’m trying,” she whispered.

“I know.” He squeezed her arm.

“Hate… feeling weak.”

“You are not weak,” he said. “You are recuperating.”

They stayed like that—her breath evening, his hand a quiet weight on the chair—until the nausea backed down and the room slid into a softer focus.

*****

Emmrich asked first before he touched the remote for the fire behind the glass. Rook hesitated; heat still made her think of Friday night, hospital lights and a throat that wouldn’t obey. He started to set the controller down. She heard herself say, “Wait—” and he paused, the line of his shoulders easing.

“Low, then,” he said, and set it barely above a whisper of flame. “If you’re uncomfortable, I’ll turn it off.” He kept the controller with him, a promise in his hand.

One of his throws—heavy, soft—was tucked around her shoulders, the faint cedar of his wardrobe threaded through the wool. She curled along the settee, half on him, cheek to his chest. His heartbeat was steady under her ear; his palm made slow circles through her hair, never catching, never pushing. It had been her idea to lie beside him. He’d said “yes” too quickly, as if the word had been waiting behind his teeth, and he held her now like a man wary of drafts—like the smallest gap might let her slip away.

The TV was off. The room had that hush she could live inside: the faint tick of the thermostat, the muted sigh of the fire, the shift of his breath under her cheek. When she trembled, he drew her in without moving the moment anywhere she hadn’t chosen to go.

Her eyes were slipping shut when the door chime rang.

Emmrich tensed—small, immediate. The hand in her hair stilled; his chest went a fraction tighter beneath her cheek.

“Just a second,” he breathed. He eased her upright with the same care he’d used to lower the flame—an apology pressed into the glide of his fingers along her forearm—then crossed to the door.

She tightened the blanket and sat up slowly; the firelight lay a thin warmth over the room.

The intercom crackled. Emmrich checked the screen and pressed the release. Down the corridor, the latch clacked.

“Still got all your limbs, I see.”

Varric.

Relief and irritation arrived together.

“Come in,” Emmrich said—welcome set to room-temperature.

Varric stepped inside, rain freckling his coat, the damp bringing a grit of city air with it. He carried a box. “I’ve contacted the insurance company, the landlord,” he sighed. “Haven’t gotten far. They sent a bunch of forms for you to sign.” He set the box on the coffee table. “It’s all in there. I filled in everything else. Bianca sent over toiletries, that sort of thing.”

Rook managed the smallest smile. “Thanks.” The word landed heavily and exactly right.

“You look better,” he said, keeping a respectful distance. “Not great, but better.”

“From you? Shit—mark the date.”

He smirked, flicked a glance at Emmrich. “I’m guessing you haven’t left her side?”

“I have not.”

A look passed between them. Not a truce. An understanding.

“She’s safe here,” Emmrich said, quieter. “Ivy can stay as long as she wants.”

Rook kept her gaze on the flame behind the glass. It tugged at the back of her throat—in memory, not in smoke.

“I have… nothing,” she said. “No home. No clothes. No phone. Everything I had is gone. Everything.” The sharp breath, hand to ribs. “F—fuck.”

The cough took her hard. Emmrich was beside her in an instant, and he removed the blanket so she wasn’t restricted. A glass of water in his hand. “Sip,” he murmured, guiding the rim to her mouth, his other hand splayed between her shoulder blades. “Slowly, my dear. That’s it.”

Rook obeyed. The wave broke and ebbed. Varric had started a step and stopped, hands visible, eyes soft.

“Good. That’s it, darling,” Emmrich said, his hand rubbing her back, the other still helping her hold the glass as her hands shook. “You’re alright. I’ve got you.”

“Sorry,” she managed, raw.

“Don’t be,” Varric said, voice lowered to match the room. “Paperwork can wait.” He nudged the box an inch to the side with the back of his hand. “When you’re ready.”

The fire hummed; the storm ticked against the window. Inside the quiet, her breath found a steadier place to live. Rook nodded, the motion was small, but she wanted to show Varric she had heard him.

Emmrich didn’t move away and continued to rub her back. The fire hummed; the storm ticked against the window, filling the silence between them as she continued to catch her breath.

“Dearest, I will fix this. I will replace everything in my pow—”

“Not the photos,” she said, defeated. Her voice was small, but clear, so that both men heard it.

Emmrich stopped at once. “You’re right,” he soothed, setting the glass aside. “Not the photos.” He bent to kiss her forehead. “But the memories aren’t gone. They’re here.” His hand pressed warmly over her heart. “And here.” A brief touch on her forehead.

Varric came closer, lowering to a knee so he wasn’t above her. “One step at a time, kid. We’ll get you through it.”

She finally looked up. Tears fell, and no one rushed to wipe them away. The room held. The fire flickered. Somewhere under the ache, the soup cooled on the table, and the day—ragged as it was—made a shape she could carry.

*****

Later, when sleep took her, it came in little tides—one minute under, one minute up, then under again. The throw had slipped to her waist and then the floor; Emmrich gathered it and tucked it back beneath her chin, smoothing the edge with his knuckles until her breath evened.

He didn’t leave. He sat on the edge of the sofa beside her, half-turned, one knee angled toward the floor so his body made a quiet wall. From there, he could see the blanket rise and fall. He went very still—as if even a blink might wake her.

Opposite him, Varric had claimed the armchair, rain still jeweling the shoulders of his coat, a cup of tea haloing steam between his hands. When he spoke, he matched the hush of the room. “She trusts you.”

Emmrich didn’t look away. He brushed the backs of his fingers along the line of Rook’s jaw; she leaned into the touch, sleep-drunk and seeking heat. “She shouldn’t,” he said.

Varric grunted softly. “Then earn it. Properly.”

“I intend to.” Emmrich’s voice was bare. “No more secrets. No matter how much it hurts to say them aloud—or see the hurt on Ivy’s face.” His brow tightened; he counted the small catch before her next breath, waiting for it. Only then did he glance up. “Friday—she thought I’d chosen Zara. She couldn’t look at me. Looked like she could barely breathe in the same room.”

“You went after her.”

“I should’ve done it sooner. I waited for the all-clear before…” He exhaled and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“The point is, you did.”

“For what good it did. I regret allowing matters to proceed to that point.” His gaze fell back to Rook—the faint bruise at her throat, the exhaustion turning her mouth soft. “And now she’s here with smoke in her lungs, bruises, and Maker knows what else in her system.” Quiet words, cut clean.

“We could’ve lost her, Volkarin.”

His jaw locked. “Do you really think I am not aware of that?”

“I do,” Varric said. “I think you’re too damn scared to admit what it means.”

Silence stretched. The fire clicked behind the glass; rain stitched the window. Emmrich let the room hold it.

Rook stirred—just a soft exhale, a fingertip flex beneath the throw. Emmrich’s attention snapped back, the world narrowing to the rise of her chest. His palm hovered, then settled lightly at her sternum until the rhythm steadied.

“I promise not to hurt her again,” he declared.

“Then tell her the truth.”

“I don’t know how much she can take.”

“She’s tough. And if she isn’t ready, you tell her anyway,” Varric replied, setting the cup down so it wouldn’t clink. “Zara. The blackmail. The files. Solas. All of it. Let her choose how much she can handle.”

Emmrich didn’t answer. The tendons in his neck stood; shame flickered behind his eyes and was gone.

“You love her,” Varric said simply.

As she slept, he kissed her forehead, his breath barely audible as he spoke to the crown of her head.

The words landed like a confession.

“I do.”

*****

The open‑plan living room held its own hush. Low lamplight haloed the shelves and the curve of the sectional; under‑cabinet strips in the kitchen threw a soft line across the marble island. The only thing that truly shifted was the hearth, where artificial coals glowed softly behind the glass, rather than grand flames.

Emmrich stood with one shoulder against the stone surround, palms warming over the ember glow. The cut glass on the mantel gathered the firelight in a honeyed square; the whiskey inside it hadn’t moved since he poured it. He’d thought the burn might steady his hands.

It hadn’t.

Across the room, Rook slept, swallowed by his shirt. Every so often, some dream made her fingers tighten in the fabric like she was bracing for the next impact. The sight of it pressed on his ribs.

You almost lost her.

The thought landed with the same blunt weight it had carried since the sirens and smoke. He could still see the soot along her cheek, the tremor in her breath on the gurney, the way her eyes had found his through it all as if he were the only fixed point in a collapsing world.

You’re here, she’d said.

He hadn’t deserved the relief that ripped through him at that. He still didn’t.

Emmrich’s hand moved across his mouth, his thumb touching the ring on his finger, as he looked into the fiery pit.

Controlled.

Contained.

Unlike him.

How am I going to tell her?

What am I going to tell her?

The answer was simple.

Everything.

He’d spent the two days circling the same answers until they frayed.

Tell her everything.

Tell her now.

Tell her and accept whatever follows.

Because the truth had teeth.

He exhaled through his nose. The ember bed settled with a soft hiss, a skin of ash sliding over heat.

Beyond the entry, the Mourn Watch posted outside murmured in low voices—the quiet, competent sound of people who knew how to keep a perimeter without shattering sleep. The world, for the moment, held.

He turned his gaze backwards towards her. She’d burrowed deeper into the cushion; the shirt had slipped an inch, exposing the fragile slope of her throat where her skin still flushed from smoke and too many hands. He crossed to the back of the sofa, tugged the collar up with a care that felt like prayer, and let his fingers hover there a breath longer than necessary. The urge to wake her and count her pulses against his own almost won.

Time to stop treating her like something to protect.

Time to start treating her like someone with a right to know.

He rolled his shoulders until the tightness eased. Habit sent his fingers to his cuffs; he undid them and pushed his sleeves to his forearms. This wasn’t a boardroom.

And Rook needed honesty.

Emmrich set the untouched whiskey on the mantel—a witness to every compromise he’d refused and every one he’d made. His reflection ghosted in the window; outside, the Nevarran night stacked itself in glass and distant traffic, the city’s breath rising and falling as if the whole of it were waiting.

I should have told you sooner. I let you believe I was keeping you safe when I was keeping the bank safe, the plan safe, myself safe. Zara... she saw too much. She threatened to use you to break me. And I let it come that close because I thought I could control it.

The embers clicked.

The scene unfolded in his mind’s eye: her eyes opening, the first blur of confusion clearing; the way she sat up too fast because she always pushed past what hurt; the hand she’d set on his wrist when he started to pace. He would not pace. He would stand where she could see him, all of him. He would not reach for her until she reached for him.

Emmrich drew a slow breath.

No excuses left.

He glanced toward the front door. He wouldn’t let anyone through without her say‑so, then back to the only thing in the room that mattered.

Rook would be waking soon.

And when she did, he would tell her everything.

Even if it meant losing her.

*****

Rook surfaced to the hush of firelight and the warm weight of a blanket tucked beneath her chin. The room was quiet. Too quiet. Yet it held a weight that was getting impossible to ignore. Her throat burned; smoke still clung low on her skin beneath clean wool. She blinked—once, twice—and found him.

Emmrich.

Sleeves rolled. Collar open lower than she had seen him before. The flames carved small hollows under his cheekbones. His gaze was already on her—had been, she realised—held there as if looking away might undo her.

She pushed up, and a ripple of pain mapped the bruises she hadn’t counted yet. He didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Weather, contained. Yet she saw the subtle way his throat tightened as he watched her move.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she rasped.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re sorry.”

He took one step and stopped, as if there were a line on the carpet only she could erase. “I am sorry.”

The room breathed. The blanket rose and fell.

She could still hear it.

Not words.

The sound.

That low, ugly catch at the back of his throat when Zara’s mouth hit his—his moan—and his hands where a stranger would put them, bracketing hips like intent. Even knowing what she knew now—the video, the blackmail, the wire—it still didn’t scrub the picture.

It lived in her nerves.

Later, minutes or years, Rook had moved and was upright on the far cushion, the city cooling midnight blue beyond the glass. He’d taken the opposite end of the sofa and left a country between them.

Despite the immense desire coursing through him, he refrained from reaching out to her. All he could do was sit and bear the pain, and he’d go through hell and back if it earned her forgiveness.

“Say it,” Rook said, voice rough. She held on to the cold like a rail. “Say what I saw.”

He didn’t flinch. “You saw me kiss Zara,” he said, tone level enough to lie down on. “I placed my hands to keep her turned toward the corridor camera. I moved us to the wall to shield the wire and sell proximity. I leaned in.” A measured breath. “I made a sound, so she’d believe me.”

Her jaw set. “You moaned.”

“Yes.”

“Like you enjoyed it.”

“I did not enjoy it.” The darkness flickered in his eyes, then he caged it. “I knew there was a chance you’d see. I chose the ugliest version because it made her careless. I haven’t stopped hating it, haven’t stopped hating myself since.”

She held his gaze until the backs of her eyes ached. Don’t blink. Don’t give him air. “You kept it going. You moved her to the wall. Your hands tightened on her hips.”

“I did,” he said. “For the frame. For the wire. So she’d talk.”

Her fingers found the cushion seam and worried it until the thread bit. “And?”

Emmrich drew a breath like a man walking into a furious storm.

“I had to. There was too much at stake. The video of you and me—the one Zara recorded. I made her delete it. Every corner of her phone, every hidden folder, even the backups in the cloud.” Another breath, trying to steady himself. “She threatened to go public. Not just me—she’ll use you. Your name. Your job. They’ll call you naïve, or ambitious, or worse. They’ll make you a headline and a cautionary tale. I would rather they attack me and you hate me, than watch them make a fool of you because you chose me.” He paused, shifted forward, and came to the edge of the sofa, one knee drawn up, hands laced and lowered between them—not quite begging, but close. “Aveline has been in contact. A copy was already sent to an unknown number. A burner. That’s the only—”

The words landed like cold pins.

“So you kissed her,” Rook said, throat scorched, “and it still didn’t change the outcome? You were prepared to let me walk away thinking I meant nothing?”

“Darling, that is not what you mean to me,” he said quietly. “I told myself I was protecting you. Maybe I was protecting the plan. Maybe my pride.” His jaw worked. “But I will not hand them your reputation to devour.” He leaned in, fingers tightening once before he stilled them. “If this goes public, I’ll take the blame, and I’ll take it alone. If you walk away, I’ll make certain your name never touches it. If you stay, we face it together. On our feet. With the truth.”

“The files are safe?”

“Yes, paper copies destroyed; the Guard have already retrieved what’s left. The hard-drive copy is secure. Only one was made.”

“They’re sure?”

“Yes.”

She rubbed a hand over her face. “Well, at least that’s something.” Past him, the glass held the dim city and their pale ghosts—two figures sitting too far apart. “On Friday,” she said, voice scraping, “you called me a car crash.”

His eyes shut like he’d been struck. “I did. I picked something cruel because I thought if you hated me, you’d walk away before this caught you.” He opened them again and let her see all of it. “Cowardice dressed as strategy. It wasn’t true.”

“You don’t get points for eloquence after that.”

“I’m not asking for points, darling,” he said softly. The endearment slipped and stayed. “I’m asking for the chance to repair what I broke.”

Silence stretched. City hum. The slow tick of the vent. She drew a careful breath. “Next time you need to sell a story,” she said, “find another currency. Not my humiliation, and most certainly not your body.”

“Understood,” he said at once. “I won’t use that theatre again. We’ll design signals that don’t cut you open.”

“Good.” She shifted upright, uncurling from the arm of the sofa so her feet touched the rug—ground first, then words. “Now help me get rid of it.”

“How?” His voice, soothing. “Tell me how, and I’ll do it, my dear.”

“Replace it,” she said. “With the truth. With your words. The exact moment. What you felt, not just what you did.”

He breathed like surfacing. “I felt sick. The wire burned under my shirt, and I wanted to rip it out. Your name was a live thing in my mouth, and I couldn’t say it. I timed the corridor camera’s sweeps and prayed she’d talk before you found us. When she did, I wanted to shove her away hard enough to crack the glass. I didn’t. I couldn’t.”

The image shifted. Not erased but re-scored.

“I had to wait for the clear—that they had enough for a warrant. By then, it was too late.” His head bowed. “The one person who mattered most had seen. And the damage it’s caused…” He swallowed. “I will live with my choices for the rest of my life. I drove you away that night and felt you had no choice but to run home. I made you leave… when I couldn’t reach you, when I couldn’t follow....” Emmrich stopped—sharp, involuntary.

For a moment, she only watched him.

The man across from her was all the things he hid: cracked, throat working around words he’d rather swallow, hands laced tight to stop the shake. Eyes unguarded, rimmed with fatigue and something rawer. Not the CEO. Not the strategist. A man stripped to bone and intent, ashamed and still holding the line so she didn’t have to.

Broken, yes—bared, completely.

And waiting for what she would do with the truth he’d set between them.

It clicked into place.

Her heart went hard and fast against her ribs—too loud, too close—like it might batter its way out. He was right there: the shattered version of her impervious man, all power and polish set aside, head bowed, shoulders slumped, sleeves shoved to his forearms and collar undone another notch, as if apology needed bare skin to breathe. Something in her snapped toward him. The want was simple, primitive: to fold herself into his chest and feel his long arms come around, to let the breadth of him be a wall, to say it didn’t matter because they had made it through the ordeal and were still here.

Alive.

Rook almost moved.

Almost.

But the words wouldn’t come. Forgiveness stuck where smoke still clawed her throat; the yes lived somewhere she couldn’t reach. She sat with the ache of it—wanting to cross the space, unable to. Not yet. So she held herself still, palms pressed to the seam of the cushion, and let the revelation stand between them: she wanted him; she wasn’t ready; both things could be real at once.

And she found herself torn.

“In the future,” she started, “you don’t get to protect me from the truth I’ll hear, anyway. You tell me first.”

“Yes,” he said. “Even if I look ugly in it. Especially then. I will choose you in rooms you’re not in.”

Her mouth twitched—almost a wince, almost a relief. “And that ‘car crash’?”

“Never again,” he uttered, the words heavy with regret. “I will bear the weight of this shame, I will carry it for you, for as long as you deem necessary.”

She slid the inch between them until her knee touched his. He remained completely still. She took his hand, and the warmth of his palm spread across her chest, harmless. “No theatre,” she said. “No sound. Just this.”

His palm pressed against her; her heart knocked into it and, for a moment, remembered how to keep time. Neither of them spoke.

“Tea,” she said at last, not looking at him. “I will be in the guest room. I need a few minutes alone, where no one can watch me.”

“I can do both, dearest,” he murmured.

She rose. He stood too, but only to open the way. In the kitchen, metal kissed metal—kettle on, water rising. No footsteps followed her down the short hall. The penthouse, illuminated by the lamplight, appeared to exhale, finding solace in the calmer atmosphere.

The guest room was a soft square of blue. City glass washed the wall. She made it to the large chair by the window and her body simply… stopped. Hands leaning on the back of the frame. Jaw locked. Her hair veiled her face as she lowered her head.

The picture looped.

His hands on Zara. The lean-in. That sound.

It was a plan. It was survival. It was ugly on purpose. Rook knew the words. They slid off the place that hurt.

Her throat burned. She swallowed, and the motion dragged. Don’t cry. Don’t—

The loop widened. Not the corridor now. Not the bank.

A front step. A door half-closed, half-open. A woman’s back is in a red coat walking away because errands become hours become never. Rook, as a young one, on the stairs with a shoe untied and a biscuit she’d made herself small for, learning the rule that fixes everything and nothing: If you are good enough, they stay.

Her chest hitched. She pressed both palms under her ribs, as if she could hold the ache in. Air went thin. The carpet under her bare feet felt too much and not enough—scratch at the edges, no grip in the middle.

Be good. Be quiet. Don’t ask to be chosen. Earn it. Earn it harder.

She pulled one breath. It broke in the middle. Pulled another. It broke again.

From the kitchen: the first burr of a kettle just before boil. A teaspoon laid gently on ceramic. The sounds of competence.

Of someone who had stayed.

The loop answered with teeth.

Zara’s mouth. His hands. That noise, was so real…

He can pretend. You can be mistaken. You can be the fool.

Tears blurred the room without falling. Her eyes ached with keeping them in. She dug fingertips into the chair arms until the pads hurt. It didn’t hold.

The first sound out of her was not a sob as she sank into the chair. It was a small, animal thing—air catching on a corner. Then another. Then her face went hot and the tears came all at once, awful and silent, until they weren’t silent anymore. She pressed the heel of her hand to her mouth to keep it down and tasted salt and wool and ash-that-wasn’t-there.

You should have known.
You should have asked sooner.
You should have been enough that no one could make a theatre of you.

She folded forward, forearms to her knees, forehead to the heel of her hand, breath stuttering like a skipped record. The body keeps its own ledgers. It balanced them now.

On the other side of the door, a soft knock. Not a question pressed; a presence offered.

“I’m leaving the tray just outside,” Emmrich said, voice low through the wood. “No need to answer. I’ll be waiting in the living room until you are ready to talk to me.”

Footsteps retreated. A hush settled back.

Rook reached for the window latch and stopped. No cold. Not tonight. Nails tracked a line down her forearm—pain, then nothing, as if to break her line of thought, but the tears kept coming. She counted her breaths and lost count just as quickly.

She pressed her nails into her palms, enough to almost draw blood, and then released and gripped the chair instead.

No more. Not now.

She turned her wrists. Old scars showed in the low light. She looked and did not go there. Not again. A path less travelled and one she had promised her younger self and Varric that she wouldn’t follow again. No matter the odds.

A voice…

He chose you now. He said it. He stayed. He is staying.
He did that, but he also did the other thing.

Both truths. Both heavy.

A father lost before language. A mother who couldn’t love long enough to stay. The corridor kiss rewound and played again. Between those openings and endings sat the child waiting on the stairs, promised two minutes, but kept waiting there until morning when Varric came to save her.

Across all that time, she kept the same bargain: If you earn their love and care, you will be safe.

The bargain failed her.

After a while—two minutes or twenty—the door edge darkened with a shadow and moved away again, as if someone had approached and thought better. She pictured the tray outside. Steam cooling. A cup she could touch when she was able. No hand on the handle. No pressure on the choice. Her mouth opened and a sound came that cost something. She let it. She let the next one, too. The crying went from careful to ugly, breath to hiccup, hiccup to wrecked sob, until at last her body spent itself enough to fall into the quieter kind—the kind that leaves the eyes sore and the limbs hollow.

She heard the tray lift—china breath against wood—and his voice through the door, low and careful. “Darling, it’s going cold. I’m coming in to check on you.”

The doorframe creaked—just enough warning to breathe. His steps were quiet, deliberate, like approaching something skittish he refused to scare. He crossed to the low table and set the tray down: warmed cup, honey, lemon. Steam from raspberry tea curled and thinned in the blue light. He didn’t touch her. He crouched to her level instead, hands loose on his knees.

“Dearest,” he said softly. “Look at me.”

She didn’t, at first. If she did, the picture would rip the rest of the way. If she did, she might have to stop pretending she was fine.

He waited.

She turned.

His face went ruined and gentle at once. He slid the tray aside and came lower—one knee to the rug, then both—until he knelt in front of her, level with her breath. No theatre. No audience. Just the two of them and a buzzing, awful quiet.

“May I?” he asked.

She managed the smallest nod.

His hands rose slow. Rings cool against her skin, he framed her jaw without steering, thumbs held still. He leaned until his forehead touched hers. Warm. Solid. Human. The simplest contact in the world—and it undid her.

The next sound out of her was hardly a sound at all: a scraped, leaking breath that split and stuttered. She tried to swallow it and her throat caught; her eyes burned; an ugly, helpless noise broke loose and she folded over his hands.

“I’m here,” he murmured. “I’m here, darling.”

He didn’t shush her. Didn’t tidy it. He knelt and took it—every tremor, every spill—letting the storm run through him and into the floor. When the worst of it eased, his breath found hers; he slid closer on his knees and gathered her in, an arm firm around her back, the other bracing her crown in his palm. He stayed there—grounded, kneeling—holding her together until the shaking ebbed, then drew back only far enough to find her eyes.

“No wire,” he said, low and rough. “No games. I will not use your humiliation as currency. I will not use my body as a theatre. If this blows, I take the blast alone. If you stay, we stand together. You and I against the world. I will tell you first. I will choose you, even when you cannot see me choosing you.”

Her laugh broke and shivered apart. She caught his wrist and held on, bracelets clicking against her palm. “Don’t let me fall.”

“I won’t,” he said, simple as breath. “My dear, I promise.”

She tipped forward until their foreheads met again. No kiss. Just weight and warmth and steadiness. After a time, when her breathing evened and the picture in her head lost its sound, she let his hand slide from her jaw.

“Again,” she whispered. “Replace it.”

He told her once more: the wire, the count, the prayer, the held-for-frame. Each word set a new nail in the story until the old one stopped shifting.

She shut her eyes. One breath. Then another. “Emmrich?”

“Yes.”

“If she ever tries to make a stage out of me again,” Rook said, voice like wire, “burn the theatre down.”

Something hard and clean settled behind his eyes. “Gladly,” he said—and reached for her, slow and visible. She met him halfway with that fractional tilt of her chest. He set his palm over her heart, warm and harmless, and let the quiet do the work.

“I tried to handle it alone,” he said. “Told myself I was protecting you. Truth? I was afraid. Of how deep this goes. Of losing you.”

“Keep going,” she said. “I’m ready for the rest.”

He shifted—slow, visible—and came to sit beside her. “May I?” he asked, palm open.

She nodded. He guided her calves gently across his lap, settled her heels against the cushion, and drew an arm around her shoulders. Warmth. Weight. Nothing possessive—only the anchor of him.

“Solas and I were in the same foster family for a long while,” he said. “Not brothers. Not friends. Two boys learning the economics of scarcity.”

Rook said nothing.

“He was always there,” Emmrich went on. “Not head-on, but beside me. In doorways. At the edge of crowds. He liked shadows because they let him choose the moment. When we were younger, we did… heinous things to survive. Shameless things. He took the money; I built the means.”

His mouth flattened. “Skimmers cobbled from cheap boards. Signal repeaters. Little boxes that listened to doors. I told myself I was cleaner because I’d never lifted a wallet or held a knife. I wrote code, and when a job ended, I took an envelope and pretended that made me different.” A small shake of his head. “It didn’t.”

“He never let me forget,” Emmrich said grimly. “Every time I tried to walk straighter, he’d turn up and remind me of the boy I’d been. When I built a name—when Volbank opened, when the first investors said yes—he attached my name to things it didn’t belong on. A whisper here, a file there. ‘Careful, Professor,’ he’d say. ‘Be a shame if anyone learned what your clever hands got to do.’”

He looked at her and held the look. “I had leverage of my own, going back years. I kept every message he sent—every threat, every gloat. Time-stamped, mirrored, air-gapped. I logged the jobs he bragged about and the men he named. I traced the accounts he used and the companies he wore like masks—his, and the others.” His voice roughened. “And I erased my name wherever I found it. Not because I was innocent, my dear. Because I was done letting him own me.”

A breath. “Years ago, I called his bluff. I put a bundle of those records in a lawyer’s safe and another with someone who does not like him. I told him: if I disappear, if you smear me, if you try to make a stage out of me—those files breathe. His leverage corrupted the moment I stopped treating my shame like a leash. He still talks like a man who thinks words can freeze me mid-step. They did, once. They don’t now.”

He adjusted the fall of her legs with absent care and went on. “I’d had enough. I heard he was still running his racket—embezzlement, shell companies, the usual rot. Word started moving among investors that they should back FBC rather than Volbank because of what Solas could drag up. Threats, insinuations, ‘concerns.’” His jaw set. “So I pushed back. Exposed the files I had hidden. And when I could, I took his favourite stage and bought out the bank he started. Offence, not defence.” He glanced at her mouth—at the rawness there—and eased her closer beneath his arm. “That’s my history,” he said quietly. “Not the tidy version. The true one.”

Rook’s gaze lifted, cool and direct. “And I’m guessing you buying the bank he started went down well?”

A corner of his mouth moved—something like an apology, not triumph. “Precisely. Fade Banking Corp was a good acquisition on fundamentals. I would have taken it no matter who sat at the helm. But I won’t pretend it wasn’t also a message.” He met her eyes. “To him, to anyone who remembers the boy with the solder-burned fingers: I am not yours. I do not take orders from ghosts.”

He let the silence stand a moment, then gentled. “This is the part I should have told you sooner, darling. I keep records because I have needed to. I design contingencies because we were raised without nets. You call it paranoia; I call it weather—barometric pressure I can feel in my bones. It’s no excuse for shutting you out. It’s only the story I grew up reading.”

“Now,” he said, gathering himself. His arm tightened a fraction around her, where she sat sideways across his lap. “The files we retrieved also include your name and Varric’s—false signatures. They’re already with the examiners, being analysed against the specimens HR holds. The Guard have asked for more documentation: clean work product that shows your process, and fresh writing samples for comparison.”

Rook’s face drained. Her heels shifted against the cushion; his hand steadied at her hip.

“Am I going to prison?”

“My dear girl, no.” He closed what little distance there was, thumb sweeping once along her arm. “They’ll corroborate that you didn’t sign those accounts. The forgery will show—line quality, pressure, the way your hand connects letters. Your writing has a rhythm that can’t be faked.” A breath, even. “We’ll give them your onboarding forms, your meeting notes, your amendments on the Nevarra portfolios—clean exemplars. It will hold.”

She looked down, jaw tight; his ring brushed the ridge of her knuckles where her hands had knotted in her lap. “You know what hurts most? Not the lying. Not the hiding.” She swallowed; he felt it under his palm where her breath hitched. “It’s that you kissed Zara. Of all the people.”

“Darling,” he murmured, cupping her cheek. His palm was warm; he framed her face like it was the most important thing in the room. “She is nothing compared to you. And she knows it.” He didn’t look away. “Listen to me, my dear. When the world tilts, you’re where it steadies. When rooms go cold, you make them warmer. You’re brilliant and brave and so achingly good it undoes me. You make chaos confess. You make me better just by standing near. I look at you and think: here is my compass, my home, my future. I am trying to be a man worthy of the way you say my name.”

His thumb traced the damp gathering at her lashes. “What happened with Zara was leverage, never affection. A choice I despise. I let her think she had power over me because it kept the trail warm where I needed it—and I hate that the heat touched you. If I could scrub that moment from your memory with my own hands, I would.”

Rook drew a breath like it stung. “I hate her. She’s vile. We started at the bank at the same time, and Johanna took a shine to her. That bitter old bitch would say ‘jump’ and Zara would ask how fucking high. I was always compared to her—her stats, her figures. Solas thought well of her, too. But she did nothing. Lazy and entitled. She got away with bullying, with harassment, and so did Johanna. I was the only one who would stick up for the others and call her out. I made her look like a fool more than once.” A brittle laugh. “I never lived that down.”

“Jealousy, dearest,” he said softly, stroking his knuckles along her jaw to the hinge beneath her ear—slow, reverent. “And who wouldn’t be jealous of you?”

His hand settled at the back of her neck, easing tension with his thumb. “They resented your standards because they couldn’t meet them. Your courage because it exposed their cowardice. Your talent because it made their shortcuts visible.” His voice lowered. “You’re not going to prison. You’re not a scandal to be eaten. You’re the woman I would burn down a dozen careers to protect—and the one I respect too much to hide the truth from ever again.”

The quiet pressed in.

When he looked again, her eyes were rimmed red.

“I’m not asking for forgiveness,” he said. “I haven’t earned it. I’m asking for your truth. What you want. Even if it ends with you walking out that door.”

She held him there for a beat. “You should’ve trusted me.”

He nodded, throat tight. “I know.”

“I know it was fast,” she whispered into her hands. “Seven days. But I felt safe with you. I could breathe.” She lifted her head an inch; her eyes were wet. “That’s why I let it happen. Why I fell so hard. Because it was you.”

Something in his face came undone—control stripped to grief and fear. His fingers trembled as he reached for her hand. “Ivy,” he said, the word cracking in the middle.

“I trusted you. I chose you. And I watched you kiss another like I was nothing.”

“You’re not nothing.”

Her lip trembled.

His hands stayed gentle at her face. “I need you to hear this part.”

“For most of my life, I thought solitude was the point. Work was the path. I told myself I wasn’t built for… this. I mistook discipline for desire and career for a calling that didn’t leave room for anyone else.” A small breath. He didn’t look away. “I’ve said the word ‘love’ before. I thought I understood it. Then you stood on my banking hall table and looked me in the eye like you were weighing my soul.”

His mouth twitched—rueful, worshipful. “A week. That’s all we’ve had. I know what that sounds like. But I knew it then. In that moment. Something in me stopped and turned to face you. Since that second, every certainty I had about wanting a quiet, solitary life has been wrong.”

He framed her jaw a little more firmly, still not steering. “I want you. Not an idea of you, not a version I can manage—you. And if it takes time to earn standing here, I’ll earn it. If what we have is a week old, it doesn’t make it smaller. It makes me careful with it.” He swallowed, voice low. “I chose a career because it never left. I chose silence because it never shouted back. Then you arrived and proved there’s something louder than ambition and steadier than being alone. I love you.” The confession fell between them like a blade laid flat. “I almost lost you, and I’m the reason your heart hurts.”

A small sound—half laugh, half sob—caught in her throat. “You’re not the only one who fell.”

“I don’t expect your forgiveness,” he said, steadier. “But I will spend as long as it takes making this feel like safety, not a threat.”

She studied him as if measuring truth by the millimetre.

“Say it once more,” she whispered, almost defiant.

He met her gaze. “I love you, Ivy.”

Something in her softened and broke at once. Fingers found his shirt and tugged; their foreheads touched, breath mingling, salt bright at the corners of his lashes.

Emmrich tipped that last inch and kissed her—careful, unhurried, no theatre. Just the heat of his mouth and the steadiness of his hand at her jaw, easing the angle so it wouldn’t pull at her sore throat. She made a quiet sound into him, and he answered it with patience, taking nothing, matching only what she gave. When they parted, it was the smallest distance.

“I love you,” he said again, quiet and inarguable.

Her mouth trembled, then steadied. “I love you,” she whispered back, like laying down a weapon.

He gathered her closer without shifting the world—legs still across his lap, his arm snug around her shoulders, the other hand splayed warm over her sternum. She tucked under his chin and let the weight of him be a wall.

Outside, rain tapped against the windows, steady and muffled. Inside, it was still—except for the hitch of her breath.

Emmrich held her tighter.

And then, without warning, he trembled.

Rook felt it first—the slight stutter of breath beneath her ear, the shift in the rise and fall of his chest. His hands clenched in the shirt she wore like he was trying to keep himself on the ground.

She shifted just enough to see him.

Eyes shut, he clenched his jaw. Throat working with effort. When she touched his cheek, her fingers came away wet.

He didn’t pull away.

Didn’t pretend.

Didn’t hide.

He opened his eyes—and the look there ruined her.

Not guilt.

Grief.

“I thought I’d lost you,” he said, his voice splintering like glass. “That I’d ruined everything. That you’d never come back. That I’d never see your eyes again or hear your voice. And it was my fault.”

His shoulders shook.

“I’ve never cried in front of anyone,” he admitted, tears falling freely. “Not since I was a boy. Not when I buried my parents. Not when I was left alone. But Friday night…when you…”

She cupped his cheek, her own tears drying warm. “You’re not alone anymore,” she whispered.

He leaned into her touch like it was the only thing tethering him to the world. “I don’t know how to do this,” he said, barely audible. “I know how to command. How to lead. How to pretend. But this? Feeling like this? I don’t know how.”

“Then we figure it out,” Rook said softly. “Together.”

He breathed once, steadying, and eased back a fraction to see all of her. No more hiding. No more distance.

He kissed the corner of her mouth first. Then the other. A blessing, a question.

“Ivy,” he murmured, rough with relief. “Tell me what you want.”

She slid her hands into his hair. “You,” she said simply. “I want you.”

“Always,” he promised, and the word felt binding and right. “You shall always have me.”

They were already kissing when she felt the change in him—the way his mouth softened, the way he stilled just enough to ask without pulling away.

“Are you sure?” he breathed against her lips.

She answered with teeth—one deliberate bite to his lower lip, a claim rather than a question.

A groan broke loose in his throat, helpless and low.

“Yes,” she whispered into his mouth. “I’m sure.”

“Tell me how.”

“Your room,” she said, the words a pulse against his lip. “Take me.”

He gathered her—one arm beneath her knees, the other at her back—and rose. The blanket slipped; he let it fall to the floor and carried her down the hush of the hall, shoulder brushing the doorframe as he eased the master door open with a heel. No lamp—only the city’s silver wash across the floorboards. At the foot of the bed, he lowered her with care, hands lingering at her waist to be sure she’d found her balance.

He drew her in and framed her at the edge of the bed and kissed her like a vow renewed, patient and unafraid. When he broke for breath, their foreheads found each other again.

“Stay,” she whispered.

“I’m here,” he said, the promise settling in his chest like something finally set right. “I am not going anywhere.”

They undressed each other like a conversation. She opened his shirt; he let her kiss every inch she freed. At her hem, he waited until she raised her arms for him to lift the shirt over her head. Each time her breath snagged, he paused without asking; each time her hand smoothed over his shoulder with that slight squeeze—go on—he did.

The mattress took them, and he lay beside her.

He kissed her, then moved down her throat, across the rise of her breasts—closing soft heat around each nipple before he drew back to see her. Worship, not surveillance.

“Still yes?” he asked, voice a thread.

She let him see the smile. “Yes.”

His palm travelled her belly—patient, sure. Fingertips circled first, coaxing slick until her hips chased him. When she rocked into his hand, he gave her a finger—shallow, careful—letting her take him rather than making her. The sinew at his forearm quivered against her ribs as he held himself up; he breathed through his nose to steady it.

“Tell me,” he murmured, not going deeper until her fingers wrapped his wrist and guided him.

“More,” rough with need and the rawness in her throat.

He eased to the knuckle, withdrew, pressed back in—slow, delicious repetition that let her open around him. When she softened, he gave her two—angled just so—thumb finding her clit with a tenderness that stung her eyes.

“Look at you,” he breathed, polish gone. “Opening for me. That’s it, darling.”

Her thumb rested beneath his jaw; she felt him set his teeth when she gasped—and felt him release because she had. His gaze kept flicking—her mouth, the hollow of her throat, her eyes—a quiet triage that read as care. His free hand dug into linen instead of into her, a neat tell of how hard he held back.

He didn’t chase. He built her. Patient, filthy-sweet, voice a low ribbon that anchored and ruined at once: “So warm for me… taking my fingers so well… good girl… let me take care of you.” Every circle of his thumb said I’m here; every careful curl said I’m listening.

Heat gathered exactly where she wanted it. He felt the change and held her there, wrist steady, pressure exact, until the world tightened and slipped. She came—quiet, breath catching on a sigh she couldn’t swallow. He stilled through the crest, then caressed her down in smaller circles, mouth a whisper at her cheek: “There you are… that’s it.”

She was pliant when he drew his fingers away. She caught his hand before he could reach for the linen and brought it to her mouth, sealing her lips around his slick fingers and sucking them clean. The composure peeled off him in an instant—eyes gone dark, a small rough sound behind his teeth, and he kissed her, open mouth, tongue diving as he chased the taste of her.

“You filthy girl.” He growled.

He kissed the corner of her mouth, then lower—over her jaw—and bit her neck while his resumed the steady circling, keeping her soft and open for him.

Rook reached between them. He was heavy and hot in her hand—so thick her palm couldn’t meet her fingers—more than memory, more than need. A fact. He groaned against her cheek, breath faltering as his hips bucked once into her fist.

“Fuck,” he hissed when she stroked him slow. Pre-come wet his crown and slicked her grip; it smeared warm across her knuckles and the inside of her thigh. She picked up pace and he moaned into her skin, mouth finding her breast—palming one while he licked and bit at the other, teeth catching her nipple until she gasped for him.

“Darling, I must admit—” His voice broke into panting. “I haven’t touched myself since Thursday.” His tongue dragged lazily over her peaked nipple; his teeth nipped her lower lip when he came back up, a sharp, filthy kiss that made her tighten her fist. “The last time I came was in your wicked mouth,” he groaned, eyes going dark when she squeezed and twisted at the head. “Maker—keep that up and I don’t know how long I’ll last.”

“Then take me,” she said, stroking him from root to tip, thumb grinding through the slick at his slit. “Fill me. Make it me yours.”

A rough sound tore out of him. He wrapped his hand around hers, guiding the rhythm lower and meaner, his forehead to hers so she could feel how ragged he was. “You’re going to take this cock,” he said, voice ruined. “All of it. Open for me and let me leave you dripping.”

She answered by milking him harder, wrist flex tight, the wet sounds between them obscene. He bit her neck again—hard enough to mark, soft enough to soothe with his tongue after—and the weight in her hand kicked, hot and eager.

“Now,” she whispered, dragging his cock down to press at her entrance, still slick from his fingers. “Don’t make me wait, Emmrich.”

His control frayed audibly. He rutted once through her folds, coating himself in her, then stilled at her opening, head notched and throbbing.

He kissed her—soft first, then deeper, like he wanted to feel the ‘yes’ on her tongue—and when he lifted his head, his mouth stayed open, like he’d forgotten how to close it. He set himself at her entrance with careful alignment—no lunge, just the blunt heat of him waiting—his gaze steady on hers.

“Tell me if I’m too much,” he managed, restraint taut as wire. “I won’t rush you. And I won’t hurt you.”

“You’re a lot, but you won’t break me,” she murmured, lifting her hips and dragging her wetness over him. He hissed.

He pushed the head inside—slow enough she felt each millimetre. The stretch burned sweet and then settled; she held his jaw and felt it ease beneath her thumb when she exhaled. He waited. Then he notched deeper—stopped—let her body take him. Another small roll—deeper again—stopped. He refused to take what he hadn’t been asked for.

“Breathe for me.” He braced on one forearm to prevent leaning into her, his other hand guiding patiently. “Slow. Let me in. Look at me.” She did. “Good girl,” he murmured, and sank another inch.

Fullness started low and flooded outward—heat and girth and inevitability—her body learning his shape and deciding to keep it.

“More,” she breathed, legs wrapping, ankles crossing, pressure at the backs of his thighs coaxing him. He searched her face one last time. She nodded.

He slid the rest of the way in with a single, long, careful thrust until his hips kissed hers. She moaned—helpless, low—and he made a rough, reverent sound he couldn’t catch.

“Maker,” he rasped. “You feel—so tight—so full of me. Perfect.”

He stayed buried and still. Fingers dug into linen, not her skin; the tendon at his elbow quivered; he held his breath to keep from moving. He pressed his forehead to hers—the single allowed weight—and watched her: the change in her mouth, the way her throat worked, the moment her body stopped bracing and welcomed the stretch.

Full. The word erased thought. When the edge softened and heat replaced ache, she rolled her hips to test it. He groaned like someone had given him absolution.

“Don’t stop,” she whispered.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He drew back and fed her his length again—slow, measured—until he was seated deep, and for a moment they just breathed, mouths close enough to share it.

“Move,” she whispered. “Slow.”

He did. Shallow arcs, staying seated, pulling back only enough to make the return count—every stroke a promise kept. His voice anchored her, devotion braided with filth. “Look how you take me… open for me… good girl… let me give you all of it.” Then lower, exactly the edge she wanted: “Fuck, look at you—so needy, taking every inch I have to offer.”

Her throat tickled; she swallowed; his body went still on instinct. She tapped twice on his forearm—go on—and he did, relief leaving him in a breath she felt.

She slid her hands to his back and urged him deeper. He obeyed with a careful shift that changed the angle just enough to brush that place that made her nerves spark. He felt it and chased that—not speed, not force, precision. His mouth hovered near hers, as if he wanted to catch every sound she couldn’t help.

“More—like that.”

“Good girl,” he breathed, heat turning reverent to raw. “Take me. Take all of me. Show me.” His eyes dropped to where they met; his voice went darker. “Look at that—stretched around my cock. Mine.”

She wrapped him tighter with her legs, met his rhythm, coaxed that deeper roll until pleasure rose clean and hot, carried on the controlled drag of him along tender, hungry places. He held himself like a man defusing something delicate—so close to breaking and refusing to let it—until she lifted her mouth to his ear and gave him the only order she had left.

“Emm, please, don’t stop.”

His exhale broke against her skin in relief. He didn’t change the pace; he pressed deeper on the same count and kept her exactly where she needed to be until it snapped—tight and low, breath catching on a sound she tried to swallow and failed. Her hands slid to his shoulders and held as her body gripped and fluttered around him, wet and clenched, milking him. The world narrowed to heat and weight and the careful way he stayed.

He carried her through the shiver, whispering fragments between their breaths. “Yes… there you are… take it… beautiful.” One last, helpless slip of possession—soft, adoring: “Mine.” He caught himself, as if the word might break something; she felt him swallow it back and kiss her brow in apology she didn’t need.

When she eased, he was shaking with the effort of holding the line. He kept himself high, breath ragged.

“Hands,” he rasped—asking. When she nodded, he caught her wrists, laced their fingers, and pinned them just above her head against the pillow. Not crushing—held. He set again, deeper now, the wet sound between them obscene.

“Feel that,” he said, hips rolling, the crown of him dragging exactly over what made her gasp. “How deep I am? Take it.”

“Emm,” she breathed. “Harder.”

He searched her face; she gave him the smallest yes. He gave it to her—long, deep strokes that had her whining into his mouth, wrists flexing in his grip. “Stretching you so no other will ever be enough,” he said, wrecked and sure. “Say you feel me.”

“I feel you,” she gasped. “All of you. How could I not?”

He bit off a groan, jaw hard. “Where?” he asked, voice torn. “Tell me where you want me.”

“With me,” she said, decisive. “Inside me.”

Something hungry and grateful flashed across his face. “I’ll fill you so full you’ll feel me for days.” His rhythm hit that line where control frays—still precise, now ruthless. “Think you can handle it?”

His answer was her moan.

“My dear girl—there—take it.”

Heat stacked fast. She met him, ankles locked low on his back, guiding the angle until it hit and hit and hit—each thrust a thick, perfect drag that had her climbing again. He felt the change and locked the tempo, pinning her hands that fraction more, breath breaking at her mouth. “Stay with me—don’t run from it—that’s it—take me-take every inch I offer.”

It hit harder the next time—sharp, wet, hot—her body spasming around the thick of him, clutching, pulsing. He snarled against her cheek, barely holding back, and she gave him the words that cut the last wire.

“Finish inside me,” she said—clear, impossible to mistake. “Now. With me.”

“—Ivy.” Her name tore out of him, loud and bliss-drunk.

He lost it. Three hard, helpless thrusts—deep enough to knock another broken sound from her—and he spilled with a rough, unguarded groan, buried to the hilt, pulsing into her until there was nothing left to give. He stayed braced above her, still pinning her wrists, forehead pressed to hers while the aftershocks dragged through him. She kept him, tightening on purpose, and felt every throb.

When he finally found breath, he eased her wrists free and cradled her face instead, still seated deep, still shaking.

She pulled him down and kissed him—soft now, ruined and sweet. He kissed back like gratitude.

“I love you, Ivy”, he said against her mouth—plain, certain.

“I love you, too,” she answered, and he stayed with her, inside and close, until their heartbeats came down together.