Is she nervous? After last night and all the romantic moments they shared today, it seems like an odd response from her.
“Are you all right?” he asks.
“I’m...”
She doesn’t finish. Is she trying to hide the truth again?
“When I ask if you’re all right, it’s because I wish to know the truth,” he says softly, and she looks down at her hands.
“I’m sorry. I just...feel ridiculous. I gave you everything last night. Let you wrap your vines around me and kissed you so many times today. And it was wonderful. Amazing. You’re amazing. But this room. It feels like so much pressure to...to make something happen.”
He waits until she looks his way as he gathers his thoughts in response. When she lifts her eyes to his, he sets down his knapsack and apples and trails his fingers along her cheek.
“There’s no pressure between us, Arisanna. Forget everything you think you should be doing and just sit with me. All right? It’s little more than a room.”
Relief fills her eyes. “It’s not that I don’t—”
“I know. You’re stuck in your head again.” He offers her what is hopefully a reassuring smile and holds out his hand. “Let’s sit, all right?”
“I thought I was supposed to be relieving the overwhelm behind your eyes,” she whispers as she takes his hand and lets him lead her to a chair near the large window.
“You do that simply by existing when I need you most.”
Every day, it gets easier to talk when he’s with her, though he still stumbles over his words at times. She loves him regardless.
Should he offer her the other chair? Or invite her to sit with him? What would she desire?
Before he can decide, she whispers, “Don’t let go.”
So he doesn’t. He lowers himself to the velvet-lined, overstuffed chair and draws her onto his lap, where she curls up against him without hesitating.
And he just holds her. Rubs her back. Plays with her hair.
“How do you know?” she says against him.
“Know what?”
“Know how to comfort me like this? You do the things that soothe me, and I don’t remember ever telling you to do them.”
“I watch you. Listen to the sounds you make. I want to learn you. Everything about you.”
“Is that...is that how you knew what to do last night?” she whispers.
He takes a moment to gather his words as she rests against him. There’s no reason to hide what he was thinking last night. What he was doing.
“I didn’t know,” he eventually says. “But I listened for your breath catching. And felt your heart racing. You said my name a lot when...when I got it right.”
“You got it right a lot.” Her voice is so quiet he can barely hear her, but her words warm something inside him anyway.
She nestles closer to him, and he plays with her hair some more.
“I can’t believe they were planning to put my mother in this suite,” Arisanna murmurs. “Can you imagine?”
“It must be their nicest room. But I admit she seems unlikely to have appreciated it.” He doesn’t even try to hide his smile as he leans his cheek against Arisanna’s hair. “Tharios and Viala might never have emerged.”
Arisanna laughs. “I thought my face was going to catch fire when she said what she did right there at the dinner table in front of everyone.”
“The Lothlesi are very uninhibited. Though I’ve only met a few. Tharios has been to New Valderi, though.”
