Chapter 99 Cian
Malia's POV
His lips brush mine. Soft. Hesitant. A question rather than a statement.
I respond by kissing him more forcefully.
The kiss is different, like going down into water, like coming home to something I didn’t know I’d been missing. Cian kisses like he does everything else-with his whole body, with his whole mind and attention, in this moment, with nothing held back.
His fingers comb through my hair, tilting my head up slightly as he deepens the kiss. I emit a soft noise against his lips—shock and relief and desire all twined together.
He has a morning aroma, like breakfast coffee, but also something very individual. His lips sketch a confident rhythm on mine that makes my stomach lurch, as though he’s been rehearsing this, working it out, waiting for the right time.
This is the right time. Kissing him back with all I‘ve got—all the fear and gratitude and desperate longing to believe that this is real, that he’s real, that I’m not going to wake up from this nightmare and see the broken pieces. But this does not shatter. It deepens.
His tongue traces along the seam of my lips and I open them instantly, allow him in, allow him to eat me away from the inside out. I have one hand clenched in his shirt, the other lifted up and placed against his chest where I can hear his heart racing just as wildly as mine.
The kiss stretches, time stretching senselessly. This is it—his mouth on mine, his hands tangled in my hair, the solid warmth of him reassuring me that I’m not dreaming, I’m not imagining that this is really happening.
So when he does break away, it’s slow—little kisses across my lips, my cheek, the corner of my mouth, as if he just can’t slam on the brakes completely.
We're both gasping for air. His forehead touches mine again, and with a tenderness that squeezes my chest, his hands move from my hair to cradle my face.
His thumb glides over my cheekbone. "Malia. You're so beautiful."
I open my eyes and find him looking at me with a look I can't quite place—gentle and intense, like he’s both dying to protect me and in need of my protection.
"I just wanted to do that for a long time," he confesses softly.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." There is a small smile tugging on his lips. "But the timing never felt right. I didn't want you to think I was taking advantage or—"
I kiss him again to stop his words. Shorter this time but no less intense.
“The time is right,” I say into his mouth. “You’re perfect.”
“I’m really not.”
"You are to me."
His eyes search mine for a moment before he looks away as if he expected me to have some kind of doubting hesitating expression on my face.
Then he pulls me against his chest, both his arms encircle me in a hug that is like a promise. I press my face against his neck, inhaling, allowing the rhythmic beating of his heart next to my ear to mute the last echoes of nightmare voices.
"Look at me," he says softly.
I do. Meet those grey, intense eyes that have seen too much, that always saw too much.
His thumb glides along my cheekbone as well. "You're brilliant and strong and brave enough to live in a world that keeps telling you that you shouldn't live in one, mind you, but doubt your own worth. You're kind when kindness isn't reciprocated. You fight even when you are tired. And you open up allow us to see you, really see you, even when it’s terrifying.”
“I'm scared I'm going to lose you," I whisper. "All of you. Maybe someday you'll wake up and decide this is all just too much, too confusing, too...”
"Stop." Gentle but firm. "That's not going to happen.”
His forehead leans into mine instead. Eyes shut, those deep lashes graze my cheek. Quiet spreads between us, heavy, close - not empty, but full of things words can’t hold right now. My hand feels his heart, calm and even, each pulse measured on purpose, as if shaping a message: I remain. Here. Yours.
His hands cup the base of my head like something rare might slip away if held too loosely. Not ownership. Something closer to sheltering. As if I’m the one breakable piece he was never meant to have but somehow does.
Seconds drift by. Maybe minutes. Hard to tell when breath echoes louder than clocks. Silence stretches time like taffy pulled too thin.
“I’m scared too,” he admits against my mouth. “But I’m not scared of losing you. I’m scared because of how much I love who you are. And I don’t know how to survive a world where that stops being enough.”
My fingers twist tight into the fabric of his shirt.
Now the sun is up all the way, the sky a perfect blue, the world stirring and bustling around us.
But here, in this garden, cradled in Cian’s arms and his too-big jacket.
I feel … Safe.