35. Kalev
KALEV
She breaks apart beneath me, and I damn near follow her into the dark.
The way she moves—hips arching, thighs locked around me, mouth parted like she’s too stunned to close it—I feel it like a pulse across my whole body. Her cunt clenches around my cock, velvet and heat, slick and pulling, and I have to hold still or I’ll spill before I earn it.
She’s shaking.
Not from pain. From release. From something holy.
I clutch her tighter, burying my face in the curve of her neck, trying to memorize every sound she makes when she comes.
She smells like skin and salt and something I don’t have a name for. Something that means mine.
And fuck, I missed her.
Not just in the body sense—not just her heat, her curves, the gasp she makes when I press in deep.
I missed the way her heart stutters against mine.
The way she grabs fistfuls of my back like I’m something to anchor to, not something to fear.
I missed being a man she wanted.
Not a weapon. Not a ghost. Not a memory.
Her. Me. Us. Now.
She’s still pulsing around me in little aftershocks. I stroke her thigh, slow and careful.
“You alright?” I murmur.
She nods, too breathless for words. Her eyes are glassy in the dark, but she holds my gaze like it’s the only solid thing in the room.
“Again,” she whispers.
That undoes me.
“Yeah?” I rasp. “You want more?”
She nods, eyes fierce now. “Want you. All of you. As long as you’ve got breath left.”
Gods.
I shift my hips and start to move again, this time slower. More deliberate.
My cock is still buried deep in her—thick and hot and so damn hard it aches—but I don’t chase release.
I chase her.
Every sound. Every tremor. Every moan like a secret she’s willing to give up just for me.
“Leah,” I whisper, dragging my mouth down her throat, across her collarbone. “You feel like home.”
She arches. “Don’t stop.”
“Not a chance.”
My rhythm builds, slow but relentless. I grind my hips just right, letting the base of my cock hit that sweet spot inside her that makes her whimper.
Her nails scrape down my back—light at first, then deeper. Her mouth is open, panting, legs wide and locked around me.
I fuck her like a promise.
Like I’ve got years to make up for.
Because I do.
The prison. The silence. The war.
All of it’s background noise now.
This is what matters.
The way she keens when I hit that perfect angle. The way her pussy grips me like it knows me. Like it wants me.
Like it remembers.
“You’re so wet,” I murmur, dragging my thumb down between us, circling her clit. “So perfect. Gods, Leah?—”
She cries out. “Fuck. Kalev?—”
“That’s it,” I whisper. “Come for me again. I want to feel you.”
She does.
A high, sharp gasp. Her whole body locks around me, inner muscles fluttering like a vice.
And this time I can’t hold back.
I thrust once, twice, then bury myself to the hilt and spill into her with a groan that’s more surrender than sound.
We stay like that.
Locked together.
My forehead against hers, both of us panting like we ran miles through fire.
When the world settles, I roll us gently to the side, keeping her tucked against my chest.
“Still breathing?” I murmur.
She huffs a laugh. “Barely.”
“Good. Let’s keep it that way.”
Her fingers stroke lazy circles across my chest. “That was…”
I wait.
She swallows.
“That was the first time I didn’t flinch when someone touched me like that.”
My heart punches my ribs.
I kiss her forehead. “You’ll never have to again.”
We fall silent, but not in fear.
In peace.
In the kind of stillness that says we survived.
I hold her tighter.
I press my forehead to hers, still breathing hard, still trying to slow the thundering in my chest. Not from exertion. From something bigger. From what just passed between us—not just heat, not just sex. Something binding.
The kind of thing you don’t walk away from.
I don’t say the words out loud. Don’t need to.
But they settle into my bones like blood-oaths.
Anyone who comes for this dies.
I don’t care how high the order comes. Dowron himself could crawl out of the shadows and I’d gut him before he took another step.
Because this—Leah, our child, this thin slice of quiet—this is mine now.
Not by conquest.
By choice.
By blood and survival and all the wreckage that got us here.
I breathe her in.
Her skin is warm against mine, still damp with sweat. Her breath feathers against my throat. She hums low in her chest like a cat stretched in sun.
And gods help me, it undoes me all over again.
She trusts me.
Not in some abstract, battlefield way. In this—domestic, intimate, terrifyingly fragile way.
Her fingers trace lazy circles on my chest. We haven’t moved from the bed, haven’t even reached for a blanket.
“Hungry?” she murmurs finally.
“Starving,” I admit. “But I’m not leaving this bed unless you make me.”
She grins against my shoulder. “Bold of you to assume I won’t.”
“Please do.”
We laugh, low and warm, and I let the sound stretch through me.
It’s been years since I laughed like this.
Not the brittle kind. Not the gallows kind.
This is the laugh of a man who might actually live.
Eventually, she rolls away and grabs a wrap from the chair. I watch her—eyes half-lidded, body humming with the kind of spent energy that feels earned.
“You staring?” she says, cocking a brow.
“Unapologetically.”
I rise and follow her, tugging on my pants but not bothering with the rest. The apartment is small, secure, every angle defensible—just like I’d expect from her.
But it’s also soft.
A blanket folded on the couch. A line of tiny boots by the door. A toy half-tucked under the table.
Evidence of life.
Not survival. Not strategy. Living.
The kitchen is mostly automated, but she moves like she knows its quirks. I watch her hands, steady and precise as she works.
“I didn’t think I’d ever have this again,” I say.
She doesn’t look up. “Me neither.”
We eat standing at the counter. Some kind of spiced grain, roasted root, a protein blend I can’t identify but devour anyway.
She watches me like she’s cataloging every bite.
“I forgot how much you eat,” she murmurs.
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. “I forgot what food tasted like outside of ration paste and metal bowls.”
Something in her expression pinches. Not pity. Recognition.
We don’t talk about the prison. Not yet.
But we will.
We wash up in silence. Her fingers brush mine once over the sink and it hits like static—this stupid, domestic moment suddenly unbearably tender.
“I missed this,” I murmur.
She nods, not trusting her voice.
Later, we sit by the window. The sea glimmers beneath the stars, the surf hushes against the rocks like the world’s oldest lullaby.
She leans into me.
I wrap an arm around her shoulders and kiss the top of her head.
“This place is safe?” I ask.
She hesitates. “As safe as anything gets anymore.”
I nod.
“But it won’t be if Dowron knows you’re alive,” she adds.
“I know.”
“Do you have a plan?”
“Always.”
She doesn’t ask for it. Doesn’t press. Just accepts that I do.
It means more than she knows.
I let the silence stretch again. Let the rhythm of her breathing slow against my chest.
I’ve killed for less than this.
I’ve survived for less than this.
And I’ll do it again.
The bond between us—it’s not some flickering candle.
It’s molten. Dense. Permanent.
I don’t need to brand her. Don’t need to mark her.
She’s mine.
And I’m hers.
We sit there long enough that our breath syncs.
I close my eyes.
For a few hours, the war holds its breath.
No orders.
No weapons.
Just us.
Our child stirs once down the hall but settles again.
Leah exhales like she’s been holding that moment for years.
She whispers, “I didn’t think I’d get to want this again.”
I kiss her temple.
“You don’t just get to want it. You get to have it.”
And for the first time, she lets herself believe me.
That’s the terror.
That’s the miracle.
The stillness feels earned.
And so gods-damned pre-doomed.
But I’ll take it.
Because this—us—is the hill I’ll die on if I have to.
And gods help the bastard who tries to take it from me.