The words hit different out here.
Not in the stone room. Not between walls. Out here in the open cold desert, under the fat amber moon, said in that same warm, conversational tone he used for everything — what a dirty little bitch — landing like a palm against her cheek.
"Don't say that—" Her voice cracked in half. "Don't — Cruxius — please don't call me—"
He leaned down over her.
His lips found her left nipple.
He took it in his mouth and sucked — hard, deliberate, rolling the stiff little peak between his lips with focused, unhurried intention, his tongue pressing flat against the sensitive bud and dragging across it in slow, devastating strokes while his fingers kept working the mess they'd made between her thighs.
Nano's eyes went hollow.
Not rolled back. Not scrunched closed. Just — hollow. Wide open and aimed at the stars above her with an expression that had passed the border of overwhelmed and arrived somewhere quieter and more broken on the other side.
