Page 154 of The Silent War

She pushed her forehead to my mouth as if to hide it. I let her.

My hands tightened. “And this—” I tapped the island with two fingers. “This isn’t where goodbyes live anymore.”

“Where do they live?”

“They don’t,” I said. “Not for us.”

She inhaled like something heavy had been taken off her and then slid her hands along my jaw. “Show me,” she whispered. “Make this a different memory.”

I smiled then, small, because she’d just given me the exact order I needed.

“Look at me. Just me. Listen.” I murmured.

I told her what I loved.

About the way she went quiet before she laughed. The small crease that showed up across her nose when she was concentrating. The way her hands always found a wristwhen she was overwhelmed, as if searching for a pulse to match.

I told her about the weight of her head on my shoulder and how the city stopped screaming when she did it. I told her she was ours, and thatourswasn’t a threat—it was a promise of where she would never fall.

“Baby, you were made for our hands,” I said. “Not to be used. To be held.”

Her breath hitched at that. I felt it on my mouth, because we were close enough now that every sound had heat.

Her fingers slid into my hair.

Possession wasn’t only the story we told about her. It was the story she told back, in small touches, in the way she climbed into my space and stayed. She tugged me closer.

“Talk to me,” I said. “Tell me what you need.”

“Just you.”

“Then I’m here. Always.”

She nodded against my cheek.

“Lay back,”

She leaned into my hands and let me guide, not force. I stayed standing, careful, my hands mapping her.

Worship isn’t a metaphor. It’s technique. It’s patience.

“Eyes on me. Good girl. That’s it. Breathe.”

I kissed her like a man memorizing. Not hungry. A slow sequence written into skin, temple, cheekbone, mouth, the soft line of her throat—where my favorite sound in the world lived, her pulse.

Each place earned a yes from her breath before I took the next.

“Perfect. You’re perfect. Ours, always ours.”

Her chest lifted. Fell. I heard the small sound that meant her head had gone quiet.

I could have said a hundred other things. I didn’t. I stayedwith praise because praise was the only language she never had to translate.

I told her she was a good girl each time she matched my breath. I told her she was safe when her hands loosened where they’d been holding too tight. I told her she was mine when her voice dropped into that soft place I’d waited months to hear again. And when her eyes filled and tipped, I caught it with my mouth and said,There you are. That’s my girl.

“Come here,” I said finally, easing her upright, bracing her with a hand at the back of her head.

She dropped into my chest. I anchored her with my arms.