The morning came in quietly, the way mornings do after nights that take everything out of you. The sky above the garden had shifted from black to a deep, bruised blue, and the first pale threads of dawn were just beginning to bleed through the gaps in the trees when the world finally started to breathe again.
They had been at it for hours.
What had begun with a single crossing of that invisible line between them had consumed the entire night whole. Ayame had given herself to it completely, more resilient than Nathan had honestly expected, meeting him with a fire that had surprised him in the best possible way. He had not planned for it to go on that long. Usually the first time with a woman was its own contained thing, measured and deliberate, but Ayame had drawn something out of him that he hadn't particularly been looking for, and so he had given in to it. Fully. Without reservation.
