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"How long have you been watching me put those down?"

A quick breath against her temple. "Long enough."

Her chest did something she'd not asked it to do.

He was not in a hurry now. The first kiss outside had been because there was no time. This one was unhurried because there was. His hand at her waist, the mechanical one, was steady against her back. His hand paused at her hip, as though confirming she was still there.

"You're — I don't know what you are, Idonea."

"Neither do I."

"Good."

He laughed softly against her mouth. He hadn't laughed for weeks. The sound went through her ribs like something physical.

He walked her backward towards the bed. She let him. His boot caught the chair leg, and he laughed again, quieter, into her hair. They sat down on the edge of the mattress together.

Her hands went to his belt, the sudden coolness of leather under her fingers catching her by surprise. Her hands were steadier than the rest of her, which surprised her. The rest of her had gone very quiet.

He stopped her with his hand over hers. "Wait."

She looked at him.

"Idonea." His voice had gone rough. "If we do this. I will not want to undo it. I will want nothing else."

Her heart squeezed painfully. "Neither will I."

His hand left hers, and he was kissing her again, and she stopped thinking.

No one had touched her since Jovana.

The bed, she'd told herself, had stopped interesting her. Her body had gone elsewhere. None of it was true. She had been waiting for hands that didn't arrive as an interruption.

Jovana's stars on her collarbones. Jovana saying the world will give you another, the cruellest thing Jovana had ever said to her and the truest.

For the first time, she let herself believe it.

She got his shirt up. He helped her. The mechanical arm caught the sleeve in a way the flesh arm wouldn't have, and he flinched, slight, almost hidden, the flinch he'd learned to put away before anyone saw it. He laid the shirt aside. His mouth came back to hers.

She didn't let him pass it over.

Her hand went to the seam at his shoulder, where the brass met him.

He stilled under her palm. "Don't."

"Why?"

He didn't have an answer ready. She waited.

"Lysander."

"It is not —" He stopped. "No one touches it."

"I understand."

"You don't have to —"

"I know what mine looks like." She kept her hand where it was. The skin there was thicker than the rest of him, ridged where the surgeons of the Order had grafted brass into bone. "Show me yours."