Malrik POV

We lay there for an hour, neither of us speaking just breathing, side by side. No strategy. No words. Only the quiet press of skin, the shared heat, and the silence that followed days of chaos.

When the moment finally came, we peeled ourselves from the bed and slipped into the shower, the steam rising around us like a veil. It washed away the weight of all the unsaid things clinging to our bodies.

I pulled on a plain black t-shirt afterward. Earlier, I’d been dressed in a ...