“You were going to be married. Surely you at leastthoughtabout it.”
Now it was my turn to look away. “I thought about it.”
I wished I knew.
There was a lot in my short, declarative sentence, and after Taran had digested it, he said simplyoh. Not in a pitying way, just thoughtful.
Perhaps sensing that my resolve was not rock-solid, he took my hand again and traced a fingertip along the edge. Followed it slowly down the line of my arm and let it fall to my thigh, where he spread his palm to smooth my dress over my leg and let me feel the heat of his hand. A small show of finesse: this was how he’d touch me. Gently and intentionally.
I wished that he’d ever asked when I could have been unconflicted about my answer. But there was probably a reason he never had. I let the moment pass.
“Taran, it’s a bad idea. I’d be all elbows and knees. Tears, too.”
He blinked, taken aback. “Tears? Why would you cry? I wouldn’t do anything to make you cry.”
It was the first thing I’d said that made him sound honestly wounded.
I’m sorry, Taran, I’d be thinking about my betrothed, who is dead, and is also you, and I find that very confusing sometimes.
I ducked my head as I looked for a way to deflect his question, so I was startled when I felt his hand cup my cheek.
He moved slowly enough that I could have turned my face away, but I found that I desperately wanted to know how Taran kissed someone he wanted to go to bed with, and I held very still as he leaned toward me.
The kiss was gentle and coaxing, his lips lingering at the corner of my mouth to warm me with his breath until I lifted my chin and turned into him. He took me in small sips, just a sweet give and take that drew on the hidden reservoir of heat in my center and urged it to spread through my body. When I opened to him, his thumb swept down my jaw, but only the tip of his tongue brushed my own. Making me the one to pursue him, the one to chase sensation and feeling.
He was being oh so careful, saying without words that if I left with him, he’d take very good care of me.
That ember of desire flared and brightened in my core, a feeling that for years I’d put aside for later. But this time I fed it, leaning in and pressing the backs of my hands against the hot skin of Taran’s throat, just below where his hand cupped my face. My forearms rested against the taut muscles of his chest. This had been the place I felt safest. Loved.
Our first kiss wasn’t like this. It had been about a minute after he asked me to marry him, or a minute after I realized he was serious. I hadn’t known what to do with my nose or my hands or mybreathingbecause it had been not just our first kiss but my first kiss ever,and Taran had been more concerned with getting an answer out of me than with showing me what to do.
Is that a yes? Please say yes, nightingale.
After I did get that single, joyous word out, Taran had runoutside to tell everyone, and then a full day’s march and our inescapable responsibilities had meant it wasn’t until late that evening that we had another moment alone. I spent some hours of reflection that day—the ones not spent selecting flowers for our wedding or naming our future children—on the thought that I had certainly not beenTaran’sfirst kiss. Acolytes of Genna had considerably more freedom than acolytes of Wesha, after all, and a reputation for…freedom.
When Taran finally did pull me aside late that night and lifted my face to his with two confident fingertips beneath my chin, I apologized earnestly.
I’m sorry, I’m probably terrible at this. But I’ll try to get better.
Taran was rarely serious, and he wasn’t then. He ground the tip of his nose into my cheek until I squealed and collapsed against him.
No, you’re perfect. But you are welcome to practice on me as much as you’d like.
And I did. As hard as I’d ever worked at singing the Maiden’s blessings with perfect pitch and diction, I worked on kissing him. I kissed him until our lips were swollen and his pupils were blown, until his hands flexed convulsively on my hips and his breathing ran ragged.
For all he’d imagined some stone-solid line he couldn’t cross with me, I couldn’t believe there was anyone who was as expert at kissing Taran ab Genna as I was—even in three hundred years, there couldn’t have been anyone as motivated as me to learn.
The kiss was deeper now, intent in a way it had never been before, with one hand tangled in my hair and the other pulling me hard against his body. I took his tongue fully into my mouth as my body lit with three years of carefully banked need. The kiss was no longer careful; it was hungry and desperate.
He was the one to break it, pulling back with a noise of surprise from deep in his chest.
Taran’s face had lit with the same gratified astonishment as the night I sang to Marit, softened by what looked painfully like tenderness.
I’d hoped to learn something about him. Instead, he was obviously wondering why I kissed him not like a woman trying to decide whether she wanted to take a man home from a party but like his sweetheart, who’d missed him terribly. Who loved him.
“Say yes, Iona,” he breathed, and my given name in his mouth was like a splash of cold water.
I wasn’t his sweetheart. He wasn’t a runaway acolyte who’d died on the cliffs half a year ago. If this new man wanted to celebrate his freedom, he could start by offering me my own.
