The lantern had burned down to a low orange bead, swaying to the rhythm of the ship. Heat hung in the small cabin like a held breath. Andy was already leaning over Nia, foreheads brushing, his hands firm at her waist, their mouths finding each other between words that kept dissolving into air.
Stay with me, he thought, even as he whispered it against her lips. After that trial… I need you here, not in memory.
Nia's fingers curled at the back of his neck, pulling him deeper. Her pulse leapt under his mouth when he kissed along her jaw; her laugh came out as a broken sigh, the kind that made him forget the lines between need and worship.
"Closer," she breathed, eyes half-lidded and starbright. "Andy… don't be careful with me."
He almost answered what I never am—but what came out was a low sound that was more promise than language. The bedframe gave a soft complaint and then steadied. Their bodies found a rhythm that wasn't hurried; it was a conversation, the kind they only spoke with touch. Nia's breaths came quick, then deeper; she pressed her cheek to his shoulder like she always did when she wanted to anchor herself in him, as if saying Here. I'm here.
A faint, cold chime threaded the warmth.
[Bond Resonance: Stable → Intensifying]
[Progression: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ / 85%]
Andy's eyes fluttered, not from surprise—he'd expected the system, the way it always eavesdropped on the heart—but because the number felt secondary to the way Nia exhaled his name like a vow. He kissed her again, slower, letting the system sink to the edges of his awareness.
On his right, barely an arm's length away, Aurelia stirred. She had rolled to face the wall earlier, the golden spill of her hair across the pillow like stray sunlight. Now, without opening her eyes, she took in one thing, then another: Nia's quiet gasp, a low groan from Andy that sounded like something pulled from the center of him, the soft percussion of wood and breath. The heat in the room moved over her skin and settled there, as if it had decided she belonged in it.
Don't look, Aurelia told herself, even as her lashes trembled. Don't ruin it. Let them be—
Nia caught Andy's face in both hands and tipped him back to her. "Listen to me," she whispered, voice unsteady. "In the ruins… when you were… gone—" She swallowed, and her next breath shook. "I wanted to break the world open to find you."
"You did." His answer came raw. He pressed his forehead to hers until their breaths braided. "You always do."
She smiled, small and dangerous. "Then let me do it again."
They moved—and the room seemed to shift to make space for them. The sea's hush through the hull matched the cadence they built together, slow at first, then steadier. Nia's fingers trailed down his spine; he answered with a hand that knew her, knew where to press, where to gather her in, where to ease and where to refuse to ease at all. She arched, a soft sound breaking free.
I'm here, Andy's body said into hers. I'm here, I'm here, I'm not leaving you in any dark.
Across the narrow stretch of mattress, Aurelia's hand clenched in the sheet. The small sound that rose in her throat shocked her—half-caught, almost nothing, but real. Heat pooled low and stubborn; she pressed her lips to the back of her wrist to keep quiet. Jealousy pricked—sharp, first—but it blunted in the warm rush of something else: awe at how they fit, at how Nia's courage took and gave in the same breath; hunger for something she hadn't had and hadn't known she needed this much.
It's not theft to want to be worthy of the same kind of looking, she thought, heart drumming. It's not a crime to want to be chosen in daylight, not just in shadows.
Nia drew him back when he tried to lift his head; her eyes were wet and fierce. "Don't go anywhere," she said, the laugh in it steadying into command. "Not even for air."
He obeyed. Their mouths met; his name came out of her in pieces that made him want to say everything he'd never found words for. He didn't, because she didn't want words now. She wanted the weight of him, the proof of him. He gave it.
The system threaded the edges of his sight again, more insistent.
[Bond Resonance: Elevated]
[External Emotional Field Detected]
[Progression: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ / 86%]
For a heartbeat, the phrase snagged him—external emotional field—until he understood: the heat at his right, the quiet quake of breath he wasn't supposed to notice. He didn't turn; he only held Nia closer, because this moment belonged to her. But a part of him softened toward the space beyond his shoulder, the space that had started to belong to someone else too.
Aurelia bit down on another sound that wanted out. The bed's small tremors, Nia's broken whisper—again, please—the heady hush after each gasp—none of it let her remain untouched. She pressed her forehead deeper into the pillow, a breath spilling that she caught in cotton. Her body felt drawn like a bow—held, held, held—without anywhere to loose the arrow. She willed herself to stillness and failed in small, shivering ways.
This isn't only envy, she admitted, eyes stinging. It's… witnessing something holy. And wanting to stand there, too, not to replace, but to add. To bring something neither of them knows they're missing.
Nia's voice threaded through the heat, tender and triumphant at once. "Look at me."
Andy did. She was flushed and radiant, hair scattered like copper fire over the pillow, the line of her throat offered to him as if she'd never learned fear. He cupped her face, kissed her slow enough to make her gasp a different way, then faster when she tugged at him with a sound that pulled him under. He changed the angle, and her whole body answered; he felt the shiver roll through her and chased it, not mercy but care, not haste but hunger honed by knowing.
Her nails pressed into his shoulder blade and she laughed helplessly into his mouth. "You're— gods— you're terrible to me."
"Liar," he said, smiling against her. "You love it."
She didn't waste breath on denial. "Yes."
The room's shadows swayed. The lantern clicked in its hook and steadied. Salt air slid through a crack in the window and cooled their overheated skin. The ship rocked, a lullaby with teeth.
Another soft chime, lighter, almost approving.
[Micro-Sync Achieved]
[Affinity Drift: +1% → ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ / 87%]
Nia's breath hitched at the same moment, not because of the number—she couldn't see it—but because his hands shifted and found her again, perfectly. She arched, a ribbon of sound leaving her like surrender. He swallowed it with a kiss that felt like taking oath.
On the right, Aurelia's grip on the sheet loosened. The ache changed timbre—less sharp, more molten—and the bitter edge of jealousy bled out. She drew a long, careful breath through her nose and let it go in a tremor. A quiet sigh escaped despite the barricade of pillow and teeth—soft enough to vanish into the rhythm of wood and sea.
She let herself imagine—only for a second—his mouth turning toward her with that same reverence, his hands learning her language. The imagining hurt and healed at once. She shook, barely, and then stilled, the want in her not a thief but a vow.
Respect, she told the heat under her skin. Or don't come at all.
Andy pressed a kiss to the hollow beneath Nia's ear and felt her shiver like a struck bell. "With me," he said, voice a rasp. "Stay with me."
"I am," she answered, fingers threading into his hair to keep him close. "Don't you dare stop."
He didn't. He mapped the line of her ribs with his palms, learned again the curve that made her gasp and the angle that made her go quiet before breaking. Their bodies spoke the old grammar they'd written together, and the sentence kept finding new clauses, new pauses, new mercy, new demand. When her voice climbed toward the edge, he anchored her with his mouth, with his hand, with the weight she asked for. When he slipped, she guided, and when she faltered, he steadied, until they weren't trading roles anymore but refusing to let the other fall.
They crossed a ridge together—felt it in the way the mattress lifted them a fraction, in the way the breath snagged, in the way the world narrowed to heat and light and a name repeated because it was the only word left. The sound Nia made was small and devastating. Andy chased it and found his own in the space where hers broke.
Aurelia's eyes opened, unguarded, at the sound. She didn't turn. She didn't need to. The shape of it remade something inside her—a quiet, gleaming acceptance. She pressed her forehead to her arm, and this time the breath that left her wasn't a stifled sob or a stolen moan. It was an exhale that said yes to the hurt and the hope together.
The lantern bead flickered, then steadied once more.
The system's voice came softer now, like it had learned the room's manners.
[Bond Resonance: Sustained]
[Progression: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ / 87% → 87%]
[External Emotional Field: Harmonizing]
Andy lowered his forehead to Nia's, their smiles clumsy and perfect. She brushed his cheekbone with her thumb, eyes still shining. "You didn't go anywhere," she whispered.
"Couldn't," he said. "You had me."
"Good," she murmured, then, bolder, "Again."
He laughed into her mouth—disbelieving, grateful—and the ship, and the sea, and the one who pretended to sleep all took another breath with them.