Alex’s POV
She slept against my chest, curled into me like a heartbeat made flesh.
Morning crept through the slatted windows of our cottage in quiet streaks, painting her bare shoulder in honeyed light. The dawn touched her like it worshipped her—brushed gold across the fan of her lashes, traced the bow of her lip, and kissed the collarbone where the blankets had slipped low. Even in shadow, I saw every inch of her: the gentle twitch of her fingers, the soft rise and fall of her breath, the sigh she exhaled into my skin like a secret she didn’t mean to share.
Gods, she was beautiful.
Not beautiful in the sculpted way nobles carved into marble or poets pinned into sonnets. Not delicate. Not tame. Sasha was beautiful like a coming storm—charged, wild, alive. Gorgeous, the way fire dance
