Page 192

More importantly, it was right.

Talia exhaled, a slow release of breath that seemed to carry the weight from her shoulders. “I needed to hear you say that.”

“I know,” I said, my voice low.

Her eyes held mine. “No, I don’t think you did.”

She took a step, then another, closing the distance between us without fully closing it. Enough that the air between us grew warmer.

“I have had enough people telling me what my body means for my future,” she said, the words quiet but sharp. “Compatibility. Fertility. Matching. Reassignment.” Her jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. “Every time somebody talks about what’s best for me, somehow the decision already belongs to someone else.”

I understood then, more clearly than I had before—the violation of it, the quiet erosion of choice.

“This does not,” I said, the certainty in my own voice surprising me.

Her gaze searched mine, wary but wanting confirmation. “No?”

“No.” I held her look, unflinching. “If something exists between us, it changes nothing unless you want it to.”

“And if you want it?” she challenged softly.

“I still require you to want it.”

She stared at me then, and I could see the importance of that answer settling in her—the relief of it, the possibility.

Her eyes dropped briefly to my mouth, and my body reacted instantly, a flush of heat and tension I immediately resented.

“Talia,” I warned, my voice tighter than I intended.

A faint, knowing smile touched her lips. “I know.”

“You are doing that intentionally.”

“Maybe,” she admitted, and for a moment—just a moment—I almost smiled.

She caught it, of course. Her expression shifted into something lighter, almost teasing. “Dangerous.”

“What?”

“You almost smiled twice today.”

I schooled my features back into neutrality. “This is irrelevant.”

She moved closer, until the space between us was measured in breaths. “Tell me to move,” she said, her voice low.

I should have.

Instead, my own voice came out rough. “Do you want to?”

“No.”

That single word hit me with more force than any surge of ŭre.

My hand came up, stopping just short of her skin—a hesitation she remembered, a boundary I’d honored before.

Her expression softened almost imperceptibly.

Then her fingers closed around my wrist.