Reeve’s brows shot up and he grinned as one of his hands slid under her backside. “I can’t wait to show you what I learned.”
And so Reeve finally put all those questions he always came up with to frustratingly good use.
“How does this feel?”
“What if I use my thumb and my palm together?”
“Can you go again? I want to try that with my mouth.”
“’Ow ‘oz ‘his ‘eel?”
“Those aren’t words, Celeste, so how am I to know if—oh, all right, clearly you’re enjoying it.”
Eventually, when his hands and jaw tired out, she took advantage of the return of his will. With his morale higher, he lasted much longer, and then, sweaty and exhausted, they curled up together beneath the linens and finally found stillness.
The candle had burnt down to a flickering nub, and in the darker darkness, Celeste wrapped her arms around Reeve’s neck. Despite his bulk and the scars, his skin was soft like she imagined and pleasantly warm too. She nuzzled her face against his shoulder, then came to an abrupt halt. She hadn’t lied for once when she’d accidentally admitted to being with a…highnumber of men, but she had never remained with them after, arms entangled and bodies pressed together.
She lifted her head, stricken suddenly that he wouldn’t want her cuddling into him, stabbing him with her bony elbows and hips and rubbing her cheeks on his shoulder. But Reeve only grinned sleepily up at her, his arms resting around her middle, hands spread on her back and hugging her close.
Celeste studied his face. She could ask, and she could get the truth, but then she knew she needed to trust what she saw. And what Celeste saw was a good man who was happy.
“You have a little scar on your forehead,” she said, touching it gently. “And here, on your shoulder.” She’d seen that one in the caves under Briarwyke, but the details of the others that crossed over his chest and his stomach hadn’t been visible in the low light. “This one was deep.” She ran a hand below his navel, tracing a particularly bad injury.
“Mmhmm. That one almost killed me.”
“Thank Valcord it didn’t,” she said, squeezing him tighter.
He chuckled. “Thank Flint, actually. He healed me after we brought down the hydra.”
Celeste listened to the quiet left after Reeve’s words. He wouldn’t remember being drunk, laying in the same spot, telling her about how no one wanted to listen to the sad things. But she remembered.
“You and your friends were brave,” she whispered, pressing her head to his chest, “but bravery is difficult in the face of so much danger.”
She felt him shrug. “We protected the riverfront. It was considered a great success, but…” He made a small, uncertain noise.
“But what?”
He was quiet, but she could feel the struggle beneath her as if he were searching for a way to both lie and not.
“You’re a good man, Reeve,” she said into his chest, “but you don’t have to be brave and strong all the time.”
He lay still for a moment, and then Reeve slid out from beneath her and rolled to his side. His arms remained around her, but he squeezed her into his chest, and she felt his cheek rest on the top of her head. “No one expected it that morning,” he said, voice rumbling quietly into her, “but the call came, and we went because it was our duty, me, Flint, Gable, and Rory…”
Celeste ran fingers along Reeve’s spine as he spoke, his amber eyes dark and solemn. There was very little heroism in his words this time, only a heaviness as he told her the story she already knew. This version was bloodier, more painful, and of course, there was death. A kind of death that he’d not yet experienced, not of someone who he had grown up with and considered not just a brother-in-arms, but someone he had had a deeper kinship with. His friendships with the others were always important, but none had been like his with Rory.
As the heartbreak of the tale tapered off, Celeste felt tears in her eyes but blinked them away. He went on to tell her that he was afraid, sometimes, it would be him next, and he hadn’t really done anything yet.
“But you’ve been to so many places in the realm and helped so many people.”
“Maybe, but when it comes to Rory, no one else really remembers. Or, they remember less, as time goes on, and…well, he was just one of us, you know? And it’s a noble thing to be a knight, honorable to serve Valcord and the temple, but…”
“It’s lonely,” Celeste finished for him, and he nodded.
His voice had gone drowsy, his grip on her a little weaker, and he told her of a different time when he and Gable had been conscripted into the ranks of an eleven-year-old who had lost her cat.
“Scratched me to the Abyss when we found it,” he mumbled between deep yawns, “but it couldn’t be blamed, stuck in a well half the day…”
Celeste chuckled and sighed, the sleepiness in his voice intoxicating. “Thank you for telling me,” she said. “You can always tell me anything, even the sad stuff.”
