Chapter 52 Nova
NOVA
The porch creaks under my toes.
It always does. Kaz promised to fix that board six weeks ago, but I’m not holding my breath. Honestly? I think I’d miss the sound if he ever followed through.
The paintbrush twitches in my hand as I drag pale gold across the slatted railing. The color catches the last of the afternoon sun and glows like memory. I’m not painting for perfection. I’m painting for permanence. For roots.
For us.
Dar shrieks somewhere behind me—half laugh, half battle cry. I turn just in time to see him rocket across the yard in a whirlwind of bare feet, his dragon cape flapping wildly behind him like it’s stitched from stars. Kaz follows a beat later, bent low in full mock pursuit, pretending to roar.
He’s shirtless, barefoot, gloriously sun-drenched. His braid’s come loose at the end, curling behind his ear, and he’s got grass stains all over his knees like he’s ten years old again.
Dar dives behind the old barrel chair.
Kaz halts dramatically. “Where’d he go? My co-pilot has vanished!”
Dar cackles. “I’m IN STEALTH MODE!”
“Oh no,” Kaz gasps. “He’s too powerful.”
They collapse into giggles, and I can’t help it—I grin so hard it aches.
This is what I fought for.
Not the uniform. Not the stars.
This.
I go back to painting, dragging the brush in slow, steady lines. The porch is still chipped in places—little scars from weather and years and too many unfinished promises. But I leave them.
I like it imperfect.
Footsteps climb the porch stairs behind me.
Then his voice, low and warm.
“I should’ve done a second coat.”
I don’t turn around. Just smirk and say, “I like it imperfect.”
Kaz’s hand grazes my lower back—casual but reverent, like he’s checking if I’m still real. I lean into the touch, and he leans in with me, pressing a kiss behind my ear.
“Dar’s passed out on the hammock,” he murmurs, voice low and amused. “I bribed him with frozen mango.”
I finally turn.
His eyes catch the light like honey spiked with fire. Still too much. Always too much.
I dip the brush back into the tray and say, “We have at least an hour before he wakes up and demands snacks again.”
Kaz arches a brow. “An hour, huh?”
I shrug. “Give or take.”
He plucks the brush from my hand, sets it on the railing.
Then he kisses me.
It’s slow.
Not the frenzied, breathless kiss of those early days when everything was urgent and breaking. No. This one’s steady. Intentional.
Earned.
We drift inside without a word.
The air is warm, scented with citrus cleaner and wine. The living room glows with low light, and the speakers hum soft music—something wordless, all strings and gravity.
I pour us each a glass of red, fingers brushing his as I hand his over. He doesn’t say thank you.
He just watches me like he always does—like he’s trying to memorize the shape of my soul.
We sit on the rug.
Not the couch.
The rug.
Because sometimes bodies need floorboards beneath them. Something solid. Something real.
The first sip burns sweet. My head tips back, and I close my eyes, breathing deep.
When I open them, he’s closer.
His hand traces the curve of my knee, trailing upward. My skin wakes under his touch, every nerve humming to attention. His fingers find the hem of my shirt, lift, pause.
Permission.
I nod once.
He pulls it over my head, slow as molasses, eyes never leaving mine. His shirt goes next—tossed somewhere toward the fireplace.
No rush.
No games.
Just the slow unfolding of two people who already know what’s underneath.
He kisses my collarbone. My jaw. My wrist.
And I laugh—soft and breathy—because somehow he still makes me nervous.
“What?” he whispers.
“You feel different now,” I murmur, threading my fingers through his hair. “More dangerous.”
He grins. “I almost died.”
“You did die. A little. Came back wrong.”
“Came back better,” he corrects, mouth finding the spot just below my ribs. “For you.”
We undress each other like unwrapping something sacred—like discovery, not desperation.
The wine is forgotten.
The music stays.
There’s a kind of reverence to it tonight. We’re not rushing. We’re remembering. Skin to skin. Breath to breath. Every kiss a question. Every touch an answer.
He knows where to find me.
Not just my body.
Me.
And I know him.
The scars.
The silences.
The way his breath hitches when I press my palm to his chest and whisper, “Stay.”
“I already did,” he says against my throat.
But it’s more than just staying.
It’s worship, in the way his mouth moves lower—across my breastbone, down my stomach, until his lips press to the hollow just above my pelvis.
He parts my thighs with hands that span from hip to knee.
Gold. Strong. Alien.
His palms are rough, scaled and warm, but his mouth—gods, his mouth—soft and slow and devastating.
“Kaz—” My voice is a breath, not a word.
He pauses, looks up, eyes glowing blue. “Tell me what you want.”
“You,” I say, barely holding together. “I want you.”
He grins, but it’s not cocky. It’s reverent.
He leans in and licks slowly up the seam of me, and my breath punches out of me in a half-choked gasp.
His tongue is longer, hotter than any human’s—sleek and sinfully dexterous. He explores me like I’m a new quadrant on a star map, and he’s determined to chart every constellation by touch and taste.
My hips buck, and he holds them down, growling softly—a low, possessive sound that vibrates straight through my bones.
“Stay still,” he whispers against my skin. “Let me make you come.”
I want to tell him he doesn’t need to try so hard. That I’m already halfway there.
But then he flicks his tongue across my clit in tight, practiced strokes, and language disintegrates.
I arch, cry out, clutch his head, fingers threading through his hair as he devours me. Not hurried. Not greedy. Just focused.
Worshipping.
When I shatter, it’s not a firestorm.
It’s gravity collapsing.
I don’t fall.
I’m pulled.
Tears blur my vision, and I’m not sure if it’s from the orgasm or the way he kisses the inside of my thigh afterward, like he’s thanking me for trusting him.
He rises slowly, dragging his body over mine.
I feel every inch of him—every gold-scale ridge, every firm, coiled muscle.
His cock brushes against my thigh.
Heavy. Hot. Different.
Not human.
Bigger.
Thicker.
Ridged along the underside with subtle bioluminescence pulsing in rhythm with his heartbeat. I reach down to touch it, and he hisses through his teeth.
“Stars, Nova…”
His voice is wrecked. Wrecking me.
“You okay?” I ask softly.
He nods, breath ragged. “Just trying not to embarrass myself.”
“You won’t.”
I wrap my fingers around him. He twitches in my hand, moans low in his throat.
“Nova—gods, you feel—”
I stroke him slowly, watching his face change—eyes darkening, lips parting.
“You still want this?” he rasps.
I guide him to my entrance.
“No,” I say, breathless. “I need it.”
He pushes in—slow, careful.
My breath stutters.
He’s bigger than I remembered.
Or maybe I’m just breaking differently this time.
He doesn’t move right away. He watches me. Waits.
“Okay?” he whispers.
I nod, wrapping my legs around him.
“Move.”
He does.
A slow pull back, a deeper thrust, stretching me in ways no one else ever could. Every inch is maddening. Every ridge drags against nerves I didn’t know I had. His cock feels like it was made for me—perfectly alien, perfectly right.
Kaz groans. “You’re so tight… fuck, Nova, you’re—”
I arch into him, meeting his rhythm, pulling him deeper.
Our hips snap together in steady, sin-drenched cadence. The room vanishes. The war vanishes. The years between us, the rules, the regret—they vanish.
Only this remains.
His body in mine.
Mine around his.
Breath to breath.
Moan to moan.
I wrap my arms around his shoulders, dig my nails into his back.
He growls.
Not a sound of dominance.
A sound of surrender.
“Don’t stop,” I beg.
“I couldn’t if I tried.”
He fucks me deeper, harder. His thrusts are precise but primal, like he’s trying to claim something he already owns.
And maybe he does.
My second orgasm slams into me harder than the first, and I break under him, sobbing his name against his neck.
He roars—low and guttural—as he comes, flooding me with heat.
His body locks, muscles trembling, every scale lit with faint blue light like he’s burning from the inside out.
He doesn’t collapse.
He cradles me.
Wraps his arms around me like I’m fragile, even though I just let him wreck me.
We breathe.
We exist.
There’s nothing left to say.
Because in that moment, we said everything.