26. Camille #6
There is no desperation in it, no collision of fear and physical need. Jules moves slowly, giving me time to change my mind even after I have answered.
It is careful.
A question asked again with her mouth.
For one suspended second, I remain still beneath it. Then I slide one hand around her waist and kiss her back.
Jules exhales against my lips. Her fingers tighten at my jaw while her other hand settles against my waist, warm through the thin fabric of my blouse. She does not pull or demand, but I do. I draw her closer until there is no space left between us, our bodies pressed together from chest to hip.
She smiles into the kiss.
The small curve of it catches against my mouth, and something inside me gives way.
I kiss her more deeply. My hand spreads across the small of her back, holding her carefully but firmly, mindful of the injuries beneath her costume even as I want more of her. Jules leans into me without hesitation, one arm sliding around my neck as I shift the angle and take control of the kiss.
Her breath catches.
The sound moves through me like an electrical current.
The bond opens around us, not louder but clearer. Her affection reaches me without its usual layers of humor and deflection. I feel her fear that I will retreat again, her relief that I have not, and the fragile hope she has been trying to hide from me.
She can feel me in return.
She feels the desire first. The instinctive need to pull her closer, to keep her here, to learn every change in her breathing and every place my touch makes her soften.
Then she reaches what lies beneath it.
So do I.
The realization is not gradual. It does not arrive as a theory I can test or a variable I can isolate.
I love her.
The truth moves through me with terrifying precision.
I love her recklessness and the kindness she hides beneath it.
I love the way she notices what everyone needs and gives it to them before they can ask.
I love every inappropriate joke, every deliberate provocation, every moment she chooses softness despite having spent years learning how to disguise it.
I love Jules.
And in less than three hours, I am sending her into a system designed to consume her.
My arms tighten around her before I can control the response. Jules makes a quiet sound and presses closer, her breasts flush against mine, her fingers sliding into the hair at the nape of my neck.
She trusts me.
The knowledge is unbearable.
I kiss her as though I can make a promise through contact alone. That I will close the channel. That I will tear apart every contract, every ward, and every structure Eon has built around her. That whatever is waiting beneath the Tokyo arena will not have her.
I will not allow it.
There is no system I will not destroy and no authority I will not defy to protect her.
Jules leans fully into my hold without turning the moment into a performance. She does not laugh, provoke, or reach for a sentence sharp enough to conceal how vulnerable she is.
I only hold her tighter.
The world beyond the room recedes. The cameras, executives, contracts, and carefully engineered trap beneath the arena remain, but for one moment they are reduced to background noise.
There is only her mouth beneath mine. Her heartbeat against my chest. Her affection moving through the bond and meeting mine without obstruction.
Only Jules.
Only us.
When we finally separate, it is gradual. Her lips brush mine once more before she rests her forehead against me, both of us breathing harder than before.
Neither of us speaks.
I do not know whether she felt the full shape of the realization through the bond. She does not ask, and I am not yet capable of saying it aloud.
Jules pulls back first.
Of course she does.
A small, crooked smile touches her mouth. “Okay. So that was—“
“Don’t.”
She pauses, searching my face.
I do not want her to make it smaller by turning it into a joke. More importantly, I do not want her to mistake my silence for regret.
I lift my hand to her cheek, keeping her there for one more second. “Do not make this less than it was.”
Her smile disappears.
Something warm and startled moves through the bond.
“Yeah,” she says quietly. “Okay.”
We step apart.
Externally, we reset.
Internally, that is no longer possible.
I retrieve my tablet because structure is still required. The final performance begins in less than three hours. Devin and Voss expect the show to proceed, the Council expects the channel to open, and the Patron is waiting for the largest emotional yield of the tour.
Precision matters.
But when I look at Jules again, the calculation has changed.
Not the plan.
The priority.
She is not an asset, a variable, or a risk to manage.
She is the woman I love.
And I will burn every system I have spent my career protecting before I allow it to take her from me.
“Five minutes,” I say, my voice steady. “Then we leave for the arena.”
Jules nods and reaches for her jacket.
We move back into position, stepping into the roles the system expects us to perform.
But something has already changed.
This time, I changed it deliberately.