Page 82 of The Girl Who Only Died Once

“Or, you know, received psychological help once in his life,” Chloe says. “How many problems in the world could’ve been solved by some of these people getting an evaluation and, you know, therapy.”

“Too bad that doesn’t exist for demons,” he says dryly. “I know a few who could use it.”

“Yeah, we tried to find psychology books for Ambra. It wasn’t terribly helpful,” Chloe says, and his smile is soft in the darkness.

“The fact that you tried…” he trails off, and for a moment the shadows in the room are peaceful.

She’s exhausted. There was battle that day, her eyes drag with each blink, but she can’t imagine stopping the conversation, doesn’t want his words to cease, these spoken confessions in the middle of the night. The tiny touch against her arm, not born out of any desperation or battle, but out of the actual want for contact.

People don’t do that to her.

So instead, she reaches her hand out, resting it against his arm as well, on the faded Henley he still wears.

It feels like any other piece of clothing. Like she’s lying next to anyone she might meet at a bar, anyone she might take home for a night of fun, as if she was a normal person who could do those things with abandon. As if she had a normal life and normal encounters and a normal risk assessment of strangers. As if she could normally rent out a hotel and bring someone back, just for the sake of contact.

He inhales, sudden and sharp, but she doesn’t move her hand.

“Chloe,” he starts, an undercurrent of warning in his voice, before he audibly swallows, the bed dipping with his movement. “Think of what you’re doing.”

She’s not doing anything he’s not doing, with his hand still against her elbow. Against her bare skin, she might add, where the warmth of him bleeds over into the contact, where his thumb gently caressed.

But she has no time to put these into words, to organize her thoughts into something that’s smart to say back, before he shifts close, his other hand drifting to her chin.

Her breath catches then at the sudden danger of it. At the hand that killed those people just a few short hours ago now touching the skin of her cheek.

Before he tilts her chin up towards him and, in the dim light from just the broken streetlamps outside, presses his lips against hers.

For a moment, she marvels at it. At the heat from his lips, the subtle shifting of the demon face underneath the human. At the stubble still against his cheek, the innate normality of the contact.

At how she hasn’t been kissed in far, far too long.

It’s not smart. It’s not intelligent. It’s not anything she’d even remotely call a good idea, but before she can stop herself, she presses back against him. Abandoned the small touch on his arm to wrap herself around him, deepening the kiss.

Opening her lips against his, swallowing down his breath, for all that he doesn’t need it.

He makes a small sound in the back of his throat, halfway between shock and satisfaction, and grips her chin harder.

Like he owns her. Like he owns the interaction, owns all the fallout and conflict and stupidity that comes with it. Like he can see all of her neurosis, all of the parts of her that are impractical, flighty, prone to run.

And wants this anyways.

A hand slips to her hip, gripping her tight like a brand, and even outside of her control she presses deeper against him, against the hard strength of this body, against the stubble and the broad shoulders and the bad decisions.

For a split second, he gentles the kiss, like it’s a thing to be savored and cherished, before he pulls back, pulls away from her grip, leaving her lips stinging.

His eyes reflect the dim light back at her as they blink at each other, Chloe’s pulse jumping in her throat.

His hand still holds her chin in place, commanding.

“Be careful, little alchemist,” he whispers, his voice a low gravel. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I think I might,” Chloe breathes back, even though that, too, is unintelligent to even say.

He hmms in the back of his throat, before letting his hand fall, shifting away from her.

It feels like an end of a conversation.

He makes a soft sound, something halfway between a chuckle and a sigh, and she can feel the weight in the bed, in the pull of the blankets, but he says no more.

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