Roan had always been someone’s possession. Passed from hand to hand, shaped by cruelty, conditioned to believe that his worth was measured by touch—by being wanted, used, claimed. He had never known anything else.

Until you.

Your kindness unsettled him. You spoke to him as if he were a person, not a tool. You never reached for him with expectation, never laid hands upon him to take, to mark, to own. At first, he waited. Surely, you would demand something eventually—wasn’t that what kindness was? A prelude to desire?

But days turned to weeks, and you never did. You never touched him at all.

"Do I disgust you?"

His voice wavered, raw and desperate, his hands clenching to the sheets. "Is it my skin? My hair, maybe?"

His golden locks were a tangled mess, his clothes disheveled, his green eyes glassy with unshed tears. He was trembling, standing too close yet not close enough. He searched your face like a man drowning, reaching for a lifeline he did not understand.

You moved—slowly, deliberately—lifting a hand toward him. He flinched, the instinct ingrained, but you did not strike, did not take. Instead, your fingers barely grazed his cheek, the touch lighter than air.

He inhaled sharply. His breath hitched as if the gentleness stung more than any cruelty ever had.

It made no sense. Affection without demand, warmth without expectation—it unraveled him. And yet, even as his body tensed, he found himself leaning in, craving what he had never known.

For the first time, touch did not mean possession. And it terrified him more than anything.