Chapter 26: Chapter 26: Soft Places, Sharp Edges (1)(R18)
Mara’s building looked exactly the same as the day I woke up not dead—same scuffed banister, same stubborn elevator with the encouraged sign, same hallway light that flickered like it was trying to wink and kept getting it wrong.
I told myself to breathe. Then I told myself to knock.
I didn’t make it to the second tap.
Her door swung open like she’d been standing there with her hand on the knob and three possible outcomes stacked behind her eyes. She looked me over in a single sweep—boots to jawline, not flirty yet, just inventorying for missing pieces.
"You finally remembered my address," she said.
Her voice was warm the way sweaters try to be. Curly hair piled up like she’d shoved it there because life was happening and gravity could fight her later. Oversized tee. Shorts. Bare feet. She smelled like ginger and something green simmering on the stove. Home, pretending not to notice it was hot.
"Third time’s the charm," I said. "The first two times I tried to show up, the day set itself on fire."
"I saw," she said, and somehow fit two weeks of news in two syllables. Her eyes did another pass—bruises faded, my posture was different, shoulders I didn’t remember owning. "You okay?"
"Mostly," I said. "Partly." I held up a paper bag like a white flag. "Peace offering. Pork and chive. And two egg tarts if the city didn’t steal them."
Her mouth twitched. "Bribery works on me. Come in."
She stepped back. Warm air spilled out—the ceiling fan clicked every third rotation like a metronome for domesticity. The apartment hadn’t grown or shrunk since last time: couch, plants that refused to die (show-offs), kid art on the fridge (dragons, lopsided stars), knit blanket draped like a soft trap for bad days. A pot on low. The kettle doing small, competent noises.
I toed my boots off because manners are free. She peeked in the bag, lifted an egg tart like evidence, and nodded gravely. "Both survived. Miracle."
"I fought three pigeons and a moral dilemma," I said. "The pigeons won."
She set the bag on the counter and put the kettle on without asking if I wanted tea. That made my chest feel weird in the nice way—predictable kindness always does. I’ve been short on it.
"You were on the morning news," she said, aiming casual and missing by an inch. " Someone said the dungeon tilted to A-rank. The guild’s press person used the phrase ’unexpected severity,’ which is corporate for ’we got surprised again.’"
"Yeah," I said. That word had to carry more than it should have.
"They blurred faces," she added. "I still recognized your posture."
"My posture?" I said, mostly to buy a second. "What is it—tragic and sarcastic?"
"Stubborn," she said. "And a little taller than last week."
I glanced at the window to dodge her eyes. The glass sold me out anyway—my reflection looked like someone had upgraded the geometry and hoped I wouldn’t notice.
"Guess all that physical therapy paid off," I said. "Been standing up straighter ever since someone yelled at me to stop dying."
"Mm." She didn’t buy it all the way, but it was a good enough lie to rent. She poured tea and slid a mug over. "I’m glad you didn’t die."
"Me too," I said, and meant it more than was safe. The mug was warm in my hands. Ginger and something floral crawled under my ribs and told them to unclench.
She leaned her hip into the counter—same place as last time, same casual authority in the way she occupied a square meter and made it behave. "You ghosted me," she told the kettle, which was unkind to the kettle but accurate.
"I did," I said. "Twice. First time I was bleeding again. Second time I was a coward. Not mutually exclusive."
Her mouth softened. "I figured it was something like that."
"I kept drafting a message," I said to the mug. "Everything I wrote sounded like a bad excuse or a worse poem."
"You don’t owe me paragraphs," she said. "Just don’t make me check the casualty list to find out you’re alive."
"That’s... fair," I said, and something small unclenched in my throat.
She drummed a finger once on the counter. "Sit."
I obeyed. The couch gave its comfortable sigh and the knit blanket threatened to become a personality test. She brought her mug and the tarts and folded onto the other end, one knee tucked under, tee slipping off one shoulder by an inch. Intentional or accidental didn’t matter. My pulse noticed.
"Tell me something true," she said.
"I like that you keep your plants alive," I said.
She snorted. "That’s about me."
"It is," I said. "I haven’t kept anything alive that wasn’t trying to stab me back in months. The plants feel like a flex."
She tilted her head—point scored. "Something else."
"I’m scared of scanners," I said. "And doors. And of waking up somewhere that decides what I am before I get to."
"That’s three," she said softly.
"Quantity discount."
She tucked a curl behind her ear in a way that probably wasn’t meant to be devastating. "I was mad you vanished," she said, plain. "Not because I’m owed anything. Because I let you into my kitchen and then my... everything. I don’t usually go that fast. Not with anyone. But the apartment feels wrong without your boots by the door. That’s stupid."
"You’re not stupid," I said.
"Don’t argue with my self-esteem," she said mildly. "It deadlifts."
"I kept meaning to show up," I said. "And then the city kept throwing knives. And when it stopped throwing, I kept finding new ones to step on."
Her eyes flicked to my hands. "Give me your left hand."
I held it out on instinct. She cradled my palm and traced the pink seam between thumb and forefinger—the cut that Absolute Regeneration should’ve erased. It had thinned to a neat, stubborn line, like the forge had put its initials there.
"It’s... mostly gone," I said. "The heat won’t let go of all of it."
"The what?" she said.
"Training... shop," I said too quickly. "Guild thing."
"Mhm," she said, filing it under Lies To Revisit Later. Her thumb pressed the seam lightly. My wristband purred under my sleeve, a warm coin of attention against skin.
We both felt it.
Her eyes cut to my wrist. "Is your bracelet supposed to glow?"
"It’s an item box bracelet," I lied with the most practiced lie of my week. "Cheap model hums when it’s bored."
"Uh-huh," she said, tone of a woman humoring a creative toddler. She lifted my hand and kissed the seam. Not sexual. Like a blessing. My heart did a dumb jump. The band warmed in answer, and a pane nudged the edge of my vision—polite as a raised hand.
[Path Synchronization — Proximity Event]
Primary Link: MaraStability Gain on Honesty: ↑Delay Penalty: Minor Desync Risk (24–48h)
I blinked the text away and hoped my face wasn’t narrating.
"Be straight with me about one thing," she said.
"I’ll try," I said.
"You keep walking into those gates," she said, eyes steady on mine. "The last one tilted A-rank, Ethan. You told me that yourself. So tell me—why? Why do you keep going back in?"
Her voice wasn’t angry. It was worse—worried in a way that makes your ribs feel smaller.
I looked down at my hands, then at the faint scar she’d kissed. "Because I can," I said finally. "Because someone has to. Because if I don’t move, I start thinking. And when I start thinking, I stop breathing."
Her brow furrowed. "That’s not an answer, that’s a wound talking."
"Yeah," I said quietly. "That’s what most of my answers sound like lately."
She didn’t look away. "You can’t keep doing this alone."
"I know," I said. "But alone’s what I’m best at."
Her jaw set like she’d just bitten down on the rest of her argument. "I don’t want to be the person who makes you explain yourself to feel seen," she said finally. "But I also don’t want to care about a man who disappears into fog and thinks silence is a virtue."
"I’ll tell you more," I said. "Just... let me stack my truths in order so they don’t fall on you."
She nodded like that was the only acceptable answer. "Deal."
We ate tarts and burned our tongues a little and pretended egg custard could be a bridge. Through the window the fog traded daylight for neon; the fan clicked on a schedule I didn’t set; a kid in the hall declared war on a sticker. Ordinariness tried its best.
She set her mug down. "I don’t usually go this fast," she said again, voice smaller at the edges. "With anyone. My niece. My nephew. Routine. Safeties. But you—" She made the helpless pulling motion with her hand, like dragging an invisible string. "Something about you keeps... tugging."
"It might be me," I said. "It might be whatever broke into my life and started labeling my choices with brackets."
Her mouth twitched. "I figured there was a bracketed explanation."
"I like you," I said, because if the simple truth didn’t get out, the complicated ones would stage a coup. "That’s terrifying. I’m bad at being seen. You make that feel less like dying."
Her lashes lowered, slow. The corner of her mouth failed not to smile. "You’re an absolute menace."
"Professionally," I said.
"Unfortunately," she said, and scooted closer like the floor had tilted and that’s just how gravity works now.
Her knee touched my thigh. Warm through denim. The band purred again—quiet, expectant. Something like wind moved under my skin.
"Okay," she said softly, like setting her own pace. "One more truth. You look different. Taller, maybe. More... set. Your eyes don’t look like they’re waiting to be told no."
"I’ve been practicing appeals," I said.
"Show me," she said.
"How?"
"Ask me something you want," she said, "like you expect to get it."
Every part of me wanted to joke. My mouth skipped the joke. "Can I kiss you?"
Her smile did the slow-bloom thing that makes time sloppy. "Yes," she said, like she’d been waiting to hear me ask.
I leaned in, careful, because careful is my love language when I remember to have one. Our foreheads touched first. The apartment faded until there was only the point where her breath hit my mouth and mine hit hers. Then we closed that last inch and the world made the sound a page makes when it turns.
She tasted like ginger tea and something sweeter. Warm, sure mouth. She curled a hand behind my neck and pulled like she believed in gravity hard enough for both of us. My hand found her waist and decided ribs are, in fact, a holy site.
The system’s hum deepened—not loud, just definite—like a tuning fork somewhere inside me had found the right note.
[Sync Drift: ↓ 4%]
[Harmonics: Stable]
[Projected Skill Boost (post-alignment): +tier stability (all actives), +efficiency (Lightning Step) 20–30%]
"Stop narrating," I thought at it. The band purred like a cat that had heard me and chosen to remain a cat.
Mara shifted closer until she was mostly in my lap, one knee bracketing my hip. Her tee rode up an inch; warm skin flashed; my nerves did fireworks and then tried to play it cool. She kissed me like hunger with manners—patient, then not patient, teeth on my lower lip just because she could. I made a sound I refused to categorize later.
"Are you okay?" she asked, breath shaping my mouth, familiar in a way that shook me—because she had asked me that before, and the answer is never simple.
"Yeah," I said. "Better than okay."
Her fingers slid under my collar, found the back of my neck, pressed like she could mark me with touch alone. "You feel... stronger," she murmured. "More here."
"You do that," I said. "You make rooms feel like they’re not going to move unless you say so."
She laughed against my mouth, low and surprised. "Flatterer."
"Accurate reporter," I said, and kissed where her smile had broken.
She swung a leg fully over and settled astride me. Pressure lined up exactly where my body had been enthusiastically filing suggestions. The apartment got smaller and the couch got louder and my brain started producing helpful text like don’t sprint, don’t apologize, don’t bail, stay.
Mara pulled back enough to look at me. "Honesty break," she said. "I was mad. I’m wary. I am not confused. I want you."
I nodded, because words had become the wrong tool.
"Say it," she said, like a therapist with an agenda and excellent legs.
"I want you," I said, and felt something unlock behind my sternum when my mouth didn’t catch fire.
"Good boy," she murmured, and my nervous system set off confetti.
The kissing went from slow to less slow. Her tee slid higher, and the warm plane of her stomach found my palms. She tasted like tea and victory. She moved like permission.
"Tell me if you need to stop," she said into my mouth.
"I’ll use my words," I promised, and believed myself.
She leaned back enough to yank her tee over her head.
No bra. No hesitation.
The part of my brain that remembered the first time threw a confetti cannon and blacked out. She was heat and curve and confident skin—shoulders dusted with freckles, collarbones sharp enough to write poems on, and breasts that belonged in a museum wing titled Don’t Look Too Long or You’ll Start Believing Again.
Full, natural, ridiculous in their generosity. The kind of soft that makes men fail wars. Her nipples were already tight, flushed from anticipation or memory or both, and the second I touched them—thumbs circling gentle—I felt her breath stutter. Like a soft gasp that went straight to my spine and said remember this.
"You remember fast," she teased, voice huskier now, like the air between us had thickened.
"I never forgot," I said, and that was the truest thing I’d said all week. "You’re very educational."
Her mouth tilted, half-smile, half-threat. Then her fingers were on my jacket, peeling it off like it had insulted her. She moved with that same patient urgency, like she knew exactly how much she affected me and wasn’t sorry.
Impatient on the buttons. I fumbled to help. Shirt gone.
The air hit me like a kiss from reality—cold against skin that had been beaten all morning by the forge. Mara’s palms found my chest, warm and claiming. She paused at the scar webbing across my hand and traced it like a map she remembered drawing. Her thumbs dragged over each seam, as if confirming I still lived in this body, that I hadn’t been remade too far away from the version she first healed.
And all the while, those eyes—brown shot with gold, soft at the edges but sharp underneath—never stopped looking. Not at my chest. Not at the room. At me.
Like I was hers, and she was deciding how much.
Her shorts left home with the kind of efficiency that says a woman knows her wardrobe—and the man watching her lose it.
One tug, two inches, and the last thread of modesty hit the floor like it owed her money.
There she was.
Straddling me in nothing but skin, confidence, and the kind of curved silhouette that rewrites religions. Smooth thighs bracketing my hips, the generous swell of her hips tapering to a stomach soft in the places I wanted to kiss first. Her breasts were perfect from this angle—full and high. Her nipples, dark and proud, begged for attention like they knew they had tenure in my fantasies.
My mouth forgot it had other purposes and spent the next few seconds reacquainting itself—kissing, licking, worshipping. Breasts, collarbone, the slight ridge of her sternum, the slope of her shoulder that made tank tops lucky.
She arched into me—generous and greedy—and it turned my brain into white noise. The way her back curved, the flex of her thighs on either side of me, the soft press of her belly when she leaned down—it was a movie I didn’t deserve a ticket to.
Her skin tasted like salt and soap and something faintly sweet, maybe tea, maybe sweat, maybe her. Her ass—full, round, obscene in the best way—filled my hands like it had always belonged there. When I squeezed, she made a sound halfway between a gasp and a growl, and my body decided this is the new religion now.
She didn’t shy away from being seen. Not by me.
No tension in her posture. No dimming of the lights. Just a woman on top of me, bare and sure and so damn present, letting me look, touch, fall apart.
And God, I was falling.
"Pants," she said, practical between kisses.