His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides, his jaw tight, the scent of her tears still lingering thick in the air, tangled with the warmth of her skin and the heat of her emotions, and something about it broke through the weight he’d been carrying all evening: the hesitation, the control, the lines he kept drawing and redrawing around them. All of it crumbled as something snapped inside him.
With a sharp breath, like he was surfacing from deep underwater, Kaius stepped forward without thinking, his movements fast, purposeful, instinctual. His hands found her face, her cheeks still damp and warm, and without giving either of them time to second-guess or run, he crashed his mouth onto hers.
The kiss wasn’t soft. It wasn’t slow. It was fire—wild and desperate and raw, and it tore throu
