Kiva looked at Matthew’s face and felt his mind across the space between them. She knew at once that something had happened. Something was wrong.
“So,” she said, bending her knees toward her chest and grasping the backs of her thighs. “Your choice has come at last.”
Matthew moved a few steps forward, his face gripped with pain. “Kiva, I—”
“And we’re going to be enemies, after all?” Kiva asked—though it wasn’t really a question. She knew. Somehow, she knew.
Matthew walked all the way forward and sank to his knees right in front of her. “It’s my mother, and my sister, they—”
“Don’t,” Kiva interrupted again. “You don’t have to explain.”
Matthew’s face took on a pleading look as he moved beside her. “It will be a while before they get here. One hundred years—one hundred seasons. Unless they’ve found a way to travel faster. Either way, I’ll have to go back into cryostasis while I wait for them to arrive. But at least you’ll have time to prepare the Vagri, for when my people arrive. And maybe when they get here and I wake up, I’ll be able to convince them to leave the Vagri alone. Let your people have their own little patch of land where they can live in peace. You’ll be older then, or even dead—I’ll still try. I owe you that much.”
Kiva closed her eyes as Matthew went on talking. She wished he’d stop. Just a day ago he’d admitted that his people destroyed everything they touched—that they’d destroy her people and their way of life if they came to live on Gle’ah. Whether that happened tomorrow or a hundred seasons from now scarcely mattered.
But at the moment, Kiva was barely thinking of her people. All she cared about was that Matthew had chosen, and that he hadn’t chosen her. Hadn’t chosen them. He was ready to throw away everything they had together. Everything they might have been.
The more Matthew talked, the further and further away their moment of delicious freedom on the plain seemed to recede. Their stolen kiss, so far from the pressures of her people, and his. It seemed to have happened so long ago now, in a completely different world. Kiva wished they could go back to that world.
And so, finally, when Matthew would not stop talking, Kiva turned toward him, put a hand against his chest as she leaned into his body, and stopped his mouth with a kiss.
This time it was Matthew who was hesitant, his lips stiff against his teeth as Kiva pressed her mouth into his. Slowly, his mouth softened, then parted slightly, his breath coming more quickly in his nostrils.
Emboldened, Kiva took her hand away from Matthew’s chest and stole it down under his shirt as she leaned further into him. Beneath the tight fabric, Kiva ran her hand up to his chest, then trailed her fingers back down again, to the tangle of black hairs just below his navel. Matthew’s breath caught in his chest and he put his hand on hers, stopping it from descending any further—but not, Kiva noted, pushing it away from his body.
“What are you doing?” Matthew whispered.
“Pretending,” Kiva said. “Pretending that I’m not the Vagra, and you’re not a Stranger. Pretending that none of this is happening.”
Matthew shook his head. “But it’s not that simple.”
“I don’t care,” Kiva said. “I’ve been alone ever since I had my first vision, right on this spot. It took me away from my family, from my friends. No one understood me, understood what I was going through. Then you came and I thought maybe it didn’t have to be that way. That maybe I didn’t have to be alone in this world.”
“But it doesn’t have to—”
Kiva wrested her hand away from Matthew’s stomach and set her finger on his mouth. “Just let me talk. I need to say this. And you need to listen.”
Matthew was still for a moment. He nodded.
“What you said about it feeling like home when you look at me—I feel that way too, okay? But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how we feel. Whatever happened out there between you and me, it ends right here, right now. When we leave this spot, you’ll go back to your ship and do whatever you have to do, and I’ll go back to my village and do whatever I have to do. And it will be over. So can’t we just pretend, for a second, that it isn’t happening? Can’t we just be in this moment, before it all falls apart?”
Kiva stopped and waited for Matthew to answer, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he moved through the few inches of space that separated them and kissed her—softly, tenderly, his mouth half-open and tasting sweet on Kiva’s tongue.
Kiva put her hand on his chest again and pushed him down until his back touched the ground. Then she threw her leg over his waist and straddled him, her knees settling gently into the web of grass on either side of his body, her dress creeping up on her thighs. She crossed her arms to reach down for the hem. Then she pulled the dress over her head and cast it aside in a single movement.
Matthew’s hands rested on her hips and his breath caught in his chest as his eyes drank her in. For a slow moment they stayed like that, just looking at each other. Kiva saw a hesitation flicker across Matthew’s face.
“What’s wrong?”
“Do you really want this?” Matthew asked. “Do you really want me?”
Kiva frowned. “Yes. Don’t you?”
“Of course!” There was a laugh in Matthew’s voice, and he sat up and wrapped his arms around Kiva, buried his head against her chest. The air was cool, but his skin felt hot to the touch, almost feverish. “More than anything.”
Kiva tilted her head back and closed her eyes as she felt Matthew’s mouth move against her breasts. She reached down, fumbling for his shirt. Matthew raised his arms as she pulled the shirt off and threw it to the side.
Together, they fell back to the ground. Holding herself up on her forearms, Kiva kissed Matthew fiercely, pressing her tongue deep into his mouth. Matthew ran his hands softly down her back. She let out a soft moan. When Matthew’s hands reached her hips, he pulled her close and rolled her over onto her back.
For a few moments, they simply looked into each other’s eyes. Kiva brushed Matthew’s cheek with the back of her hand.
“Did you know this was going to happen?” Matthew asked. “Was this something you saw in one of your visions?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“And yet here we are.”
Kiva smiled. “Yes. Here we are.”
She darted her head forward to seize Matthew’s lower lip softly between her teeth, then sank back to the ground, pulling him with her.
They didn’t talk anymore after that.