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I shift, pushing him onto his back gently, rising up over him until we’re eye to eye in the dark. My hand cups his jaw, thumb grazing the edge of his mouth. “Then we burn the fucking system down before it takes me.”

His eyes close, his throat working like he’s trying not to cry again.

“Cass,” I whisper.

And when I kiss him, it’s not about sex or heat. It’s not about want. He doesn’t kiss back—not at first. Then slowly, like his bones are learning the shape of safety, his lips move under mine. Soft. Starving. Barely there.

When I pull away, he whispers, “Stay.”

“Always.”

And I do. Because if the pillar wants me, it’ll have to come throughallof them first.

His mouth moves beneath mine with a kind of reverence that splits me open more than anything rough ever could.

There’s no rush. No heat-for-the-sake-of-it. Just the slow, careful press of lips on lips, like he’s still trying to convince himself I’m real. That Iwantto be here. Withhim.

And I do.

My body hums with it. This quiet need. This ache that’s not about sex or conquest or proving anything. It’s justhim.Caspian. The man who pretends he’s only made of sin and smirks, but kisses like he’s afraid the world will end if he breathes too hard.

I shift closer, pressing my hand to his chest. His heart flutters against my palm—uneven. Unsteady. He lets out a breath against my mouth and the sound is wrecked.

Still, he doesn’t ask for more.

That’s what destroys me.

Because any other man would take.Hastaken.

But Caspian waits.

I tilt my head, deepening the kiss—not with hunger, but with purpose. A gentle drag of lips. A quiet slide of tongue. My fingers trail to his jaw, then back into his hair. He shudders like I’ve cursed him. Or saved him. I can’t tell which.

When I pull back, his eyes are glassy in the dark, wide and too open. He looks at me like I just handed him something he didn’t think he was allowed to have.

I lower my head to his shoulder, curling into the crook of his body. “Don’t shut down,” I whisper against his skin.

He doesn’t respond right away. His arm slides around my back, slow. Cautious. Like he’s afraid he’ll crack me open if he holds too tightly. “I won’t,” he finally says, voice hoarse. “Not with you here.”

We lie like that—tangled and still. His thumb drags idle patterns against the curve of my spine, and I can feel the battle in him quiet. Not gone. Never gone. But for this moment, this breath, he lets himself rest.

I bury my face in his throat and breathe him in.

Not because he asks for it.

Becauseheneeds it.

And because I do, too.

He doesn’t meet my eyes when he asks. Doesn’t even look at me.

It’s routine now—this question that scrapes across my skin like sandpaper every time he says it. Casually. Like it doesn’t matter. Like I won’t notice the quiet ache behind the words. Like I’m supposed to pretend the softness between us doesn’t exist unless we fuck it into shape.

“Do you want to?” he mumbles, voice rough and barely there. “Sex. I mean… if you want it.”

I let out a breath, not frustrated withhim—not really—but with whatever’s curled its claws into his sense of worth, whatever part of him decided this was all he was good for. Lust without warmth. Contact without connection. It’s like he thinks his body is the only offering he has left, and I hate that he ever learned that lesson.

I shift, resting my head more fully against his chest, letting the beat of his heart speak louder than the question he asked. “No,” I say simply.