She was eager to give.
But, all at once, he was pulling her face away from him. Drawing her up. Kissing her dozens of times over.
“Was it not?—”
He didn’t let her finish. “It was amazing. But I want to savor tonight. I want to feel you in every way you will let me have you.”
She knew his meaning instantly.
Eira positioned herself over him and halted. For a breath, they simply stared into each other’s eyes. Thousands of words whispered against her mind, as though he were trying to tell her something without so much as a sigh. But Cullen didn’t utter anything aloud. His lips parted, but not a sound escaped.
Which left her to fill in the blanks. To question everything she felt and had felt for this confusing and frustrating man who, at times, she wanted nothing more than to be rid of. But…at other times—right now, she wanted to erase all distance between them until nothing was left.
“When morning comes, will you still be here?” she whispered. The words were fragile, still bleeding from the now ancient wound he had inflicted on her heart.
Cullen’s hands massaged her thighs. One released, coming up to her face, thumb stroking her cheek. “I told you, I will be here as long as you want me. Not a second more, or less,” he vowed. “I know I don’t deserve you. But I want you all the same.”
“It’s up to me to decide who does and does not deserve me,” she reminded him. “And tonight, you are all I want.”
“Then all I must do is ensure that remains true every night from now to forever.”
26
Eira was mildly sore the next morning. She woke loosely framed by Cullen’s arms. His body was halfway curled behind hers, warm breath tickling the nape of her neck. The candles had burned out in the night, puddles of wax spilling over into ivory stalactites.
Closing her eyes, she savored the moment. It spun out a fantasy, rebuilding the room around her. No longer were they in some abandoned home on the Isle of Frost, but the captain’s quarters of theStormfrost. He was her paramour and there were days where the only order she gave him was to remain in bed and be ready for her whenever the urge should strike her fancy. Other days, they would wake and emerge together, ready to strike fear into the hearts of all those ashore.
A soft, songlike noise of delight escaped her. It was followed by a gentle press of his lips into the back of her neck. She shifted, feeling the weight of his body behind her, the way their skin stuck together.
“Good morning.” His voice was thick with sleep and rather delightful sounding.
“It’s nice to have you here,” she admitted.
“That’s reassuring.”
“You had doubts?” Eira rolled onto her back as he sat up, wiggling down to the foot of the bed and standing—giving her a delicious view in the process that she shamelessly admired.
“You’ve never woken up next to me. The last time…” He trailed off, pausing as he slid on his trousers, buckle in hand. Cullen stared at nothing. “I don’t deserve you. I didn’t then and I certainly don’t now.”
Eira sat, swinging her feet off the bed. There wasn’t the slightest urge toward modesty around him, so it took a minute before she gathered her clothes and joined him, dressing in silence. There were a thousand thoughts that weighed on her. Yet, none of them seemed to be cohesive enough to be worth saying.
“Maybe, maybe not.” She finally spoke when her pants were on, as if each article of clothing restored her better senses. “I know my faults, Cullen. Over the past two years, they’ve been brought sharply into focus. I’ve been reactive and brash. I’ve acted without consideration for those around me—the people who matter most to me. I’ve made mistakes that have hurt people. That have gotten people killed.”
“Noelle wasn’t?—”
She stopped him with a pointed look, tugging her shirt into place. “Noelle was and wasn’t my fault. There was more I could’ve done and simultaneously things I blame myself for that were beyond my control. I recognize all of it.”
His objection relaxed into a tiny smile. One that had a gleam of pride in his eyes. Eira sighed heavily at him to convey that she knew he was thinking about how far she’d come. That prompted a laugh from him, which caused her stony expression to crack into a smile of her own.
“In any case…I don’t know if you deserved me or not as a general statement.”
“Fine,” he relented. “But at the least you deserved so much better than how I treated you that night.”
“On that, we can agree, as did Lavette.” She turned to face him, finding him fully dressed as well.
The air suddenly became thick. There was a weight on her chest that made it harder to breathe. Time went sideways and she wasn’t sure if they stood there for a second, or five minutes.
There’s no more running from this, a voice in the back of her mind nudged gently.Not anymore. There was only so long they would wait. Only so long until her own heart began tangling itself in ways that would become truly irresponsible to ignore.
