Page 66 of Beneath the Desert Bloom
She held her breath.
His chest rose and fell in slow, deliberate rhythm. Bare. Lined with something like old scars or lightning. His shoulders were broad enough to shadow the walls. His skin caught the light like sun-baked stone, ridged, bark-like, the texture impossibly alien and so goddamn beautiful.
Of course. Of course you’re about to jump a tree demon. This is your life now, apparently.
She didn’t flinch. She just wanted him.
His glowing, mournful, impossible eyes never left her face. He was waiting.
Her mouth opened. Nothing came out.
And then he said it.
Her name.
Soft. Cracked.
Real.
“Nora.”
He said her name, and the sound broke something open in the air.
He didn’t say it loudly, or forcefully. It was soft, like a memory spoken aloud for the first time in years, and yet it struck her like thunder. The syllables were weighted with recognition.
Nora.
She hadn’t realized how long it had been since she’d heard her name said like that. Like it meant something. Not barked in irritation or mumbled in passing. But spoken like a truth.
She couldn’t answer.
Her tongue was heavy behind her teeth, her breath shallow in her lungs. Every inch of her skin felt stretched, vibrating just beneath the surface, like she was the storm front and he was the pressure system moving in.
His gaze stayed fixed on her, golden eyes catching the weak light of morning, their depth unreadable but full. He looked at her like someone who’d studied her before time, someone who already knew the shape of her breath and the rhythm of her blood.
And she just stood there. Barefoot. Sleepless. Still in the nightshirt she hadn’t changed out of in days. No mascara, no armor, no clever quip in her mouth to make sense of the moment.
She wasn’t ready for this.
But she didn’t want to be ready.
She just wanted.
The distance between them felt unbearable.
Her feet moved first. Just a shift in weight. One toe nudging across the floor like she needed to confirm it was still solid beneath her. Her fingers twitched at her sides. She was aware of everything: the air cooling against the back of her knees, the uneven grain of the floorboards under her heels, the burn of her own heartbeat against her ribs.
He watched her move, letting her come to him. Letting her choose.
She could have left, could’ve turned and sprinted into the heat and let the desert sand chew her soles to ribbons.
But she didn’t.
She took a breath. Then another. Let it rattle in her throat and settle in her belly.
Then she stepped toward him.
Just one step.
