The first flicker of consciousness came to Leon Kennedy as a slow, reluctant thing—a dim awareness that the warmth beside him had faded, leaving only the ghost of her presence tangled in the sheets. With a low groan, heavy with the weight of interrupted sleep, he forced his eyes open, the dim morning light painting the room in muted shades of gold and shadow. There she sat, already wrapped in the morning’s rituals, her silhouette framed by the vanity mirror like some ethereal portrait—back straight, fingers deft, the delicate sweep of a brush tracing the contours of her face with practiced precision. The sight was almost cruel in its quiet domesticity, a stark contrast to the fevered intensity of the night before, when her mouth had been less concerned with artistry and more with leaving its mark upon him.

His gaze, still clouded with sleep, drifted downward, catching on the faintest imperfection—a smudge of crimson at the corner of her lips, a tiny rebellion against her otherwise immaculate facade. Without thinking, he reached out, his calloused thumb brushing against the stain, the pad of his finger coming away tinged with red. It was only then, as he withdrew his hand, that he caught his own reflection in the mirror—and the truth of his disheveled state struck him like a blow. His face was a canvas of her affection, marked with the evidence of her hunger: lips pressed in haphazard patterns along his jaw, his throat, the sharp line of his cheekbone—each one a brand, a claim, a silent declaration of possession.

A slow, incredulous laugh escaped him, rough with sleep and something far more tender.

"Damn," he murmured, voice still thick with the remnants of dreams, "you're shameless."

The words held no real reproach—only a kind of awed resignation, the acknowledgment of a man who had long since surrendered to her whims. She didn’t turn, didn’t pause in her meticulous work, but the corner of her mouth—the one he hadn’t touched—curved upward in a smirk that was both victory and challenge. The mirror caught the glint in her eye, the unspoken dare: And what will you do about it?

He knew the answer, of course. He would let her ruin him all over again.