Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CALDER
I had not lost control.
Nothing about what just happened had been accidental or driven by instinct alone.
I noticed the moment Milo leaned into the kiss differently, felt the quiet shift in the space between us when he stopped holding himself back, and I had allowed it.
I could have stepped away. I could have ended it before it began.
Instead, I had stayed exactly where I was and let him close the distance.
That was not loss of control.
That was choice, and the understanding of that ignited something in me more than danger ever had.
Milo’s hands slid to the back of my neck again, fingers threading carefully through the thicker strands of fur there as though the contact already felt natural to him. The sensation sent another unfamiliar awareness through me, sharp enough that my focus narrowed instinctively toward him.
I guided him backward carefully until the backs of his knees touched the couch.
Milo sat first, pulling me down with him a second later. “This will hold,” he murmured against my mouth, clearly sensing my hesitation.
I lowered myself cautiously anyway, conscious of my weight and the old wooden frame beneath us. The couch groaned beneath our combined weight. Milo did not seem remotely concerned. The moment I relaxed, he moved closer again, his hands still resting at my neck, his attention fixed entirely on me.
Then he climbed into my space. His legs straddled mine and he leaned into me, close enough now that the heat of him became impossible to ignore. Every point of contact sharpened my awareness further–his breath, the pressure of his body against mine. The soft sound he made when I touched him again.
Milo brushed his forehead against mine before kissing me once more.
I followed more easily this time.
The uncertainty of the first kiss remained, but not the fear of doing harm. I adjusted carefully to him instead, learning the angle and pressure he responded to best, paying attention to every hitch in his breaths.
My hands wandered slowly at first.
One remained at his side while the other slid carefully along his back, mindful of my claws and the force in my grip. I felt the immediate response in him when I touched him there—the catch in his breathing, the way he leaned closer without seeming aware he had done it.
“You’re thinking too much,” he murmured against my mouth.
“I am ensuring you remain uninjured,” I answered.
Milo huffed a quiet laugh. “You’re okay. You’re not going to hurt me.”
I wanted to believe him, but the more I did, the harder it became to maintain the restraint I had relied on for centuries.
The closeness between us no longer felt accidental or uncertain. It had become deliberate–chosen.
And slowly, inevitably, I became aware of the pressure building between my thighs, of my shaft lengthening and growing firm.
Milo stilled for a fraction of a second, just long enough that I knew he had noticed the change in my body as well. His breath caught slightly, then steadied again. “Well,” he murmured, warmth threading through his voice now, “that’s new.”
“I have never…” I stopped, not because I lacked the words, but because I was unaccustomed to speaking them aloud.
Milo waited without rushing me.
“I have never wanted anyone like this,” I admitted finally. “Human or otherwise.”
The words felt unfamiliar in a way that had nothing to do with language and everything to do with what they meant, but the confession remained between us nonetheless.
“I do not fully understand it,” I continued, my hand tightening once at his back before I deliberately loosened my grip again. “But I do not want this to stop.”
For a moment, Milo simply looked at me. Then something softer appeared in his expression. Recognition, perhaps, as though my words had reached something already waiting quietly inside him. “That makes two of us,” he said.
I watched him carefully and waited. His hand flattened against the back of my neck again, simply holding me instead of pulling me closer.
“I’ve been with people,” he admitted quietly. “But it was never like this.” He paused briefly, searching for the right words. “It was easy–temporary. I never really had to think about what happened afterward.”
I understood that more easily than I expected.
“This isn’t that,” he added.
“No,” I agreed. It was not.
The difference between this and everything before it already felt too large to ignore.
Milo let out a breath that sounded almost like a soft laugh, though there was no humor in it. “After the cave, I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” he admitted quietly. “About that moment.”
I understood immediately which moment he meant. “Nor could I.”
Something changed in his expression at that. It was not surprise… more like recognition. It was as if hearing the truth spoken aloud had finally removed the last remaining distance between us.
“Yeah,” he hushed. “I kind of figured that out when you disappeared for three days.”
“I attempted distance.”
“You failed.”
“Yes.”
That earned a real laugh from him this time, brief and warm, and the sound did something dangerous to my concentration.
Milo’s thumb brushed the back of my neck, absent and thoughtful. “You know this is probably a bad idea,” he said eventually, not as a warning, but as an acknowledgment.
“I do.”
“And you’re still here.”
“I am.”
He studied me for another quiet moment before exhaling softly. “Yeah,” he murmured. “Me too.”
That felt more important than either of us saying we should stay.
I still did not know what this would become, I did not know what it would cost either of us, but for the first time since entering the cabin, one thing felt completely certain: I did not want to leave him.
The thought of putting distance between us felt wrong.