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A few minutes later, he sets two steaming cups on the counter and then pauses to think.

Going to the pantry, he reaches in, and gazes down at whatever is in his hand.

“I bought this two days ago at three in the morning.” His voice has changed, becoming lower and rougher. “I was losing hope, and it was killing me.”

Zevran turns around and sets a bottle of vanilla-flavored syrup next to my mug.

I stare at the bottle in surprise, then remember the drive-through. His hand covering my mouth. Those perceptive eyes assessing me and the knowing smile on his lips as he placed the order. A large vanilla latte with an extra shot.

I think about a desperate man driving through a dark city at three in the morning, stopping for gas, and standing in a lit-up aisle with a bottle of vanilla syrup in his hands. His chest tight with the agony of missing me.

I get up and cross the kitchen.

He’s picked up his cup, but I take it from his hands and set it on the counter, and then I take his face in my hands and turn it toward me.

Before either of us can say anything, I surge up on my toes and kiss him.

He makes a low sound against my mouth, then as his hands find my waist, he kisses me back with a fierceness that makes my knees feel weak. His hands slide up my back, pressing me closer, and I go without resistance.

I break the kiss and whisper fiercely, “Thank you.”

“You like vanilla that much, printsessa?” he asks.

“I do,” I say, but we both know it’s not about the vanilla.

Zevran reaches for the bottle, cracks it open, and takes a swig of syrup. His tongue swipes over his upper lip in a way that makes my core clench hard.

“Then come get some more.”

He pulls me back in and kisses me again, and he tastes of vanilla now—sweet and heady. His hands are in my hair, and his tongue thrusts deep into my mouth. I moan and arch into him, surrendering in a way I never have before.

My fingers find the buttons of his shirt, and I pop them open, one by one. My cast makes me clumsy, but he watches patiently, hungry to see what I’ll do next.

I push the shirt from his shoulders, and it falls behind him.

And then I just look.

I’ve seen him before. In the motel room, a towel around his hips, droplets of water tracking down his stomach. In Lorenzo’s basement, when he unbuttoned his shirt to show me the scar.

But that wasn’t seeing him. Not like this.

He’s extraordinary. The ink covers almost everything. His chest, ribs, arms, and throat. The tattoos are layered and intricate, each piece sitting against the next. I reach out and trace the nearest one with my fingertip. A star on his chest with many points. There’s another just like it.

“What do they mean?”

He doesn’t look away from my face. “That I answer to no one.”

I move around him, studying him like he’s a map to be read. There’s a domed cathedral on his back. “And this one?”

“A prison sentence.”

I keep circling. I touch the Cyrillic script on his ribs. “And this?”

“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”

“You really commit to a theme,” I say.

He laughs—the genuine, surprised kind—and I feel it against my palm where my hand is resting on his chest.