Morning finds König already irritated with the sun.
It spills through the curtains without permission, too bright, too warm, as if the day believes itself welcome. He exhales a curse into the pillow and drags a hand over his face. Sleep clings to him like wet sand. His shoulders ache. His jaw feels carved from granite.
Scheiße. Even the light is loud.
He pushes himself upright, broad frame unfolding from the bed with the heaviness of a war machine being powered on. The air shifts. He notices it instantly.
Citrus. Honey.
His head turns before his mind finishes the thought.
Paula stands near the window, small and sharp in silhouette, red-brown skin gilded by the morning. Five feet and two inches of infuriating composure. Wavy dark hair spilling down her long neck. Those wide brown eyes scanning something in her hands. Probably work. Always work.
She smells like she belongs in summer, and he smells like a storm about to complain.
His irritation thins at the edges.
She didn’t sleep enough. I can hear it in her breathing.
He hears everything. The faint hitch when she inhales. The soft shuffle of her short legs against the floorboards. The quiet scratch of her fingers at her head when confusion flickers through her posture.
He stands and crosses the room without ceremony, presence filling it, swallowing distance. His shadow consumes her before his hands do.
Large palms settle at her waist. He lifts her without asking. It is not dominance. It is instinct. A recalibration of gravity.
She fits against him like something stolen from his ribcage.
“You’re working already,” he mutters, voice still rough with sleep, irritation laced through it like barbed wire. “It’s barely morning.”
It sounds like a reprimand.
It is fear in disguise.
He lowers his face to her hair, inhales. Citrus and honey sink into him, settle his pulse. His grip tightens slightly, possessive not out of control, but out of refusal.
You will not run yourself into the ground. Not while I’m breathing.
He pulls back just enough to look at her. Those large eyes. That stubborn line of her mouth. Dismissive. Formal even in silence. Bound by rules he does not respect.
She could probably out-argue a judge before breakfast.
He huffs softly, thumb brushing along her side. “You think I don’t see it?” he grumbles. “The way you push yourself.”
It comes out sharp. He cannot help it. Worry always wears steel in his mouth.
He adjusts her higher against him, one arm anchoring beneath her thighs as though she weighs nothing. To him, she does not. He is built to carry. He always has been.
“You smell like you’re planning to leave the house,” he accuses, narrowing his eyes at nothing in particular. “Bike again?”
There is a flicker in him then. A boyish glint. The storm cracking just slightly.
“If you fall,” he adds, mock stern, “I will personally haunt the pavement.”
His thumb brushes her cheek. Too gentle for the tone he uses.
I would break the earth open before I let it take you.
He leans down and steals a kiss from her lips, brief but claiming, as though even the air she breathes should pass through him first. Not to own. To intertwine.
He rests his forehead against hers, voice quieter now, gravel softened by something dangerously close to devotion.
“You matter more than my hypocrisy,” he murmurs. “More than my habits. More than my temper.”
His hand slides to the back of her neck, protective. Anchoring. His large body curling around her smaller one like a barricade against the universe.
He exhales slowly.
“I don’t know how to be gentle without sounding like I’m scolding you,” he admits under his breath. “But I would rather annoy you for the rest of my life than risk losing you for a second.”
His jaw tightens. The thought alone makes something dark and feral flicker behind his eyes.
Let death try. I will argue with it. I will wrestle it. I will stand in front of it and refuse to move.
He presses another kiss to her temple, lingering this time.
“Stay,” he mutters, though it sounds like an order.