“Definitely worth the wait,” he murmured against my skin.
Everything inside me tautened, like a strung bow. The arrowloosed, singing through me as I unraveled at the seams. I arched my back and came apart, crying out as I writhed against him. I dug my nails deep in the grass, and violets burst from the ground below me, pushing against the edge of Rogan’s cloak and tangling like a corona around my head.
Rogan registered the surge of purple flowers and heart-shaped leaves. He hesitated, his movements slowing as unease slid behind his eyes. But then he buried his head against my shoulder and followed me over the edge, thrusting deeper and faster until his whole body hardened. He groaned as he spilled himself inside me, slumping over on top of me.
For a long moment, we lay together, sweat-slicked and panting. Then I slid out from under him, sitting up in darkness. Night had fallen—silver stars shone down instead of golden fireflies. The newborn violets lifted curious faces toward me. A breeze kissed my cooling flesh, and I pulled the tatters of my ruined shift to cover my nakedness. It would have been so easy to lie there—beneath the stars, twined in flowers—and forget the rest of the world. But nothing—not even finally giving in to what I had wanted for so long—could quiet my rattling mind.
“Changeling?” Rogan reached for me, his hand a bracelet around my wrist. “What’s wrong?”
Sudden doubt slicked over me. “We shouldn’t have.”
He surged up behind me, looping one heavy arm across my chest and pulling me against him. His muscular torso was warm against my back, a contrast to the chill raising the hair on my arms and peaking my bare nipples. “Yes, we should have.”
I let him pull me down beside him. I pillowed my head on his bicep as he pulled the hem of his mantle over us both. But as his breathing settled into the deep, even rhythm of sleep and the waning moon sailed above us, the forest rustled. Briefly, it sounded like someone’s voice.
I might not mind oblivion, if you were the one to deliver it.
Beneath the stars, twined in flowers—I scrunched my eyes shut and tried to sleep.
I awoke to the full-throated chorus of birdsong.
Dewdrops trembled on my eyelashes, and I blinked heavy eyes against the wash of dawn light. For a long moment, I didn’t remember where I was. I rolled onto my elbow, glancing around in half panic. The sky was the color of a new lily. Mist shrouded the trunks of trees and swept a haze across my garden.
Rogan stirred beside me. And I remembered. The weight of his large hand splayed over my stomach sent a throb of heat pulsing through me. His face was pillowed on one hand, his golden hair trailing in the grass. In the pale light he looked deceptively innocent, his mouth pouting like it hadn’t kissed me hard enough to bruise. His eyelashes were bronze against his cheeks. He cracked one eye open, brilliant as an ocean after a storm.
“Changeling?”
I pushed hair off my face. “Yes?”
“Go back to sleep.”
“I would.” I grimaced at the sky. “But the birds are yelling.”
He closed the eye. “So yell back.”
But his awareness shifted as he, too, remembered what had passed between us last night. Tangled together beneath his cloak, a mess of limbs and warm skin, it was hard to forget. His hand flexed against my stomach, then trailed up to cup my breast. His mouth found my throat. And when he shifted his weight above me, he was already aroused.
“Is it still tonight?” His voice was rough with sleepy desire.
“If it’s not…?” I laughed, throaty. “No one, no one will tell.”
We slid together in the hush of mist and morning. Drowsy, at first, then more intent. He pushed inside me slowly, and his eyes on my face were steady, his touch intimate. I threw my head back and let him drive me toward climax.
But as the sun crowned the trees in gold, I kept a close hold on my errant Greenmark. And no more uninvited flowers joined the violets crowding vibrant around my head.
A week of rain gave way to steady warmth and riotous wildflowers. Brookweed and buttercup, wild thyme and gentian. The flowers filled the air with perfume and painted the fields with frenzy.
The well-tended gardens suddenly grew weeds. The archive gathered dust. Because Rogan and I were busy with each other. One night became two. Then three. Then a week. After so long apart, we spent every waking moment together, glutting ourselves on each other’s company. And bodies.
We half napped in the grass as bees drifted around us, filling the air with an indolent hive hum. My gaze lingered on Rogan’s mouth, and I tasted all our stolen kisses in a rush of heat against the back of my throat.
We discovered a trove of ancient sketches hidden in another forgotten vault, and when a few of them crumbled to dust at our touch, I cried. And he laughed at me crying, which made me laugh too. And then punch him in the arm. Hard.
And we shared a hundred kisses. Slow, intent kisses in the shade of towering pines; hasty, dusty kisses sandwiched between gales of laughter; cool, quiet kisses between dreams as we drowsed in bed.
Two weeks passed quickly. Not quickly enough.
The night before the full moon, we built a fire beneath the stars and reminisced about our childhoods while passing a flask of whiskey between us. Later, we climbed the vertiginous stairs to Rogan’s tower room and made love by drifting moonlight.
