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The sheets are a tangled mess, the air still warm from your embrace. Sylus lies on his back, one arm folded behind his head, the other draped across your waist as if he refuses to let you slip away. His chest rises and falls in a steady rhythm, but his skin is still damp, strands of silver hair clinging to his forehead. With parted lips and flushed cheeks, he looks devastatingly beautiful.
Minutes ago, he gave you so much love it made your body feel worthy of worship. Now, you want him to know your devotion mirrors his. You want him to know you cherish every part of him—every scar, every mark.
You prop yourself on one elbow, your gaze roaming over his features. With two fingers, you follow the curve of his hooked nose, moving slowly toward his lips. He presses a lazy kiss to your fingertips and a shiver passes through you at his tenderness. Leaning forward, you ghost your lips against the bump of his nose. He cracks one eye open, amusement flickering there, a small grin tugging at his mouth.
“What are you doing, sweetie?” His voice is rough, still husky from the moment you shared.
“Just admiring you.”
“Dangerous pastime,” he hums, and your soft giggle answers him.
Carefully, you shift to straddle him, settling your weight atop him. His smirk deepens when you lower your lips to his left shoulder. Three dark moles speckle his skin—two along the side, one closer to the front. You trace them lightly with your fingertip before leaving reverent, slow pecks on each.
“Am I your prey now?” he teases.
“Is being kissed such torture for you?” you murmur against his skin, glancing up through your lashes.
“You know damn well I’d let you kiss me until we’re old and gray.”
Your smile lingers as you drift lower. On the swell of his inner bicep, two more moles rest on his skin. You graze over them, placing tender, deliberate touches to one, then the other, feeling the subtle twitch of muscle beneath your lips.
Scars map the back of his arm—one a pale line across tanned flesh, the other a small round blemish. You follow each with quiet awe, your lips skimming his skin.
“Knife and a bullet,” he says quietly. “Same day.”
You don’t ask for details. Instead, you dwell on the scars, grazing them gently, as if to soothe the memory still etched there.
The trail continues: two moles lie along the back of his forearm. He bends the arm wordlessly, offering you access, and you honor them with patient devotion. His face softens into something peaceful, unguarded, and the sight of him trusting you so much sends a warmth deep into your chest.
You lower yourself to his torso. Faint marks dust his lower abdomen like tiny stars. Too many to count, but you trace them anyway, leaving constellations along your path. Moving to his left side, you pause at the lone mole resting there. Your lips ghost over it slowly, softly, then scatter hundreds of quick, playful pecks that make him chuckle and nudge you lightly.
“I think this one might be my favorite,” you whisper, because it’s yours alone to see. Sylus doesn’t bare himself like this for anyone else.
His eyes open halfway, heavy-lidded. “The rest will be jealous.”
“They have nothing to worry about,” you murmur, brushing the spot once more. “I could never neglect them.”
His laugh is quiet, and your heart flutters with adoration. Every time you hear it, you swear you’ll carry it forever in your memory, because it is the sweetest sound you know.
You pat his right arm, and he lowers it from behind his head, offering it to your care. Two more moles dot his biceps, each pressed with gentle, deliberate devotion. His chest rises faster with every caress and every light touch of your lips.
His right forearm tells its own story. A long scar cuts across the flesh. You outline it slowly, placing affectionate kisses along the line as though you could ease the pain it once carried. Beside it rests a smaller crescent-shaped mark, and you cherish it too, once, then again.
At last, you wander upward. In the corner of his right eye lies a faint line, almost invisible to anyone else, because few dare to look closely or too long. But you have memorized every detail, as though his body were a map drawn just for you. You brush your lips there so lightly his lashes flutter. A small sound slips from him, half scoff, half surrender.
Your lips pause at another subtle scar across the top of his left cheek, nearly invisible. You honor it too, lingering there. His gaze meets yours now, soft and full of love, and his hand rises to cradle your jaw.
He pulls you down to him. The kiss he claims is deep, insistent without hunger, more gratitude than desire. When you part, you rest your palm over the steady thrum of his heart.
“I love everything about you,” you whisper.
Sylus doesn’t answer with words. Instead, he gathers you close, hand cupping the back of your head, holding you flush against him, and leaving delicate kisses on your temple. His heartbeat lulls you to rest, because here, in his arms, you are exactly where you’re meant to be.