“Ayla?” Niel rasped from beneath the blankets.
She could not answer. Her throat would not work. He crawled up, emerging from the blankets with his hair tangled, now completely loose from the tie that had held it, and concern in his eyes. She pulled him higher, until she could curl against the heat of his broad chest, snuggling to him. His cock was hard again, jutting against her skin. His heart beat like a drum, and his arms circled her as she melted against him. He drew a deep breath, and if she could speak, she’d have teased him to ask what fresh air tasted like after he’d been buried in her loins, beneath the covers.
But her mind and her mouth were not presently acquainted.
“Are you alright?” Niel's voice rumbled in his chest.
She still couldn’t speak, but she hummed something that he must have taken as a yes—certainly it wasmeantas a yes—and pressed her lips against his chest. Niel’s hand stroked the back of her head, and he squeezed her tighter against him. He drew the blankets around them both and held her as she came back to her senses.
“How?” she whispered at last, when she could manage the sound, from the comfort of his arms.
“How what?” he whispered back, still playing with her hair.
“I thought you had never done—but you knew to—” she mumbled. “How?”
“Did I please you, then?” he asked, his voice wickedly low. Ayla made a soft noise of affirmation, wordless. “Perhaps I am simply good at this,” he said.
“Very,” Ayla whispered. She did not think anything had ever felt so good.
They lay in comfortable silence for another moment, until Niel cleared his throat.
“And… soldiers talk about women, and how to bed them,” he muttered. “A lot. It is hard not to overhear, when one is stuck with them on sentry or on a march. I was not thankful for it at the time. I am now, a little.”
“I am plenty thankful,” Ayla said. “I can be thankful for the both of us.”
“I…” Niel started to say. His hand stopped stroking, and cupped the back of her head instead, holding her to him.
“What?” Ayla asked, when the knight did not continue.
“No,” he said. “I… was going to say that I would gladly give you more reasons to be thankful, but… promise me, instead, that you will not suffer a man who does not take your pleasure as a matter of course. Who does notdemandyour pleasure.”
She did not want to suffer any man but him.
“You have the cloak,” she whispered. “You could run, and I could follow.”
She felt his head bend down to hers. His lips rested on the part of her hair.
“Perhaps,” Niel whispered quietly. “Tell me where we’d go.”
“Somewhere warm,” she suggested, her throat unaccountably thick. “Where it does not snow. So far from here nobody has heard of it.”
“And where we do not need to stay beneath the blankets for warmth,” Niel suggested. His hand slid down her back, slowly marking her shape.
“Somewhere we could ride, for miles. Not so many walls.” She tilted her face up to his. He pressed a kiss slowly to her lips and Ayla felt all the tension leave her body.
“I like the sound of that,” Niel whispered against her. “Will you dream of it tonight?”
“I think so.”
“Then I will too. Sleep, Ayla. And dream.”
It was not terribly late, but she did not want to talk about tomorrow, or even think about it. And there was nothing else to speak of, with the army camped outside and the chance it was all coming to an end. Niel's hand stroked her hair. She tucked herself back against his broad chest and felt the heavy beat of his heart against her cheek, a comforting drum.
Tomorrow, she thought, if it all came to an end. They would set a place to meet, and Niel would leave with the cloak, and she would find a way to get past Ditmar. It would be well. Tomorrow, all would be fine.
She slid an arm over his waist to hold him tighter, and drew a ragged breath, trying to believe it herself.
The Siege Ends
