It's another small word. Only two syllables. But it's almost too big. Like his own matching admission. Like his 'I don't especially want to stop, but' only so many minutes ago. Like he understands. Like he feels it, too. All those words fluttering back.

(I would do anything for you. You make me want to wake up each day, and you're in my dreams every night. You're the most important person in the world to me.

That's what I've been doing. For the past year.
Choosing you, and her, every single day that I can.

I love you. Every minute. Every year. The whole time.)

As Luther's mouth deposits these sudden dots of heats across her abdomen, that ripple outward, causing her muscles to quiver under the press of his lips, to shake when he finds a new place and her skin feels somehow like it's never been touched right, or mattered that someone was, not really, until this moment.

As Luther starts stripping her of a truth she's buried so deep in her bones so long and so deep. She had Claire. She had Krakoa. She didn't need anything else. She didn't deserve anything beyond those two miracles she already didn't deserve. She may have not wanted Luther, but she was also nowhere near the only person in the world who recognized how perfect -- how good -- he was.

She was only the first. And the one who couldn't have it.

(....who could've? This whole time? Who was? Or was about to? Always had?)

That rule, burned in as stark as her tattoo, so well known it was deeper than breathing, that was growing holes everywhere as Luther kissed his way up the rungs of her ribs like somehow they each mattered, and her back arched her body into his mouth, helplessly, one hand digging into her comforter and the other finding the back of his. Incapable of not touching him now that she could.