She winced at herself, hating herself for still feeling that little thrill of desire and curiosity that zipped through her stomach. Years of yearning could not be undone in an instant.
Fawn had glimpsed his cock once before, she’d stepped outside behind the tavern and accidentally glimpsed him relieving himself. She’d spent so many nights stroking herself over a glimpse of his broad, hairy chest or the massive stretch of his torso, the thickness of his forearms and wrists, or even those massive hands, that seeing all of him at once was completely overwhelming.
It was so long and thick, like nothing she’d ever seen on a human man, but on most horses. There was real heft and weight to it, curling down in a gracefully curved pointed tip while it was soft.
“You should lean against me, it’ll help you warm up,” Erryc offered, his tone not unfriendly, but clearly he did not enjoy the idea. Salt in a skinned knee.
“Fine. I don’t want to get sick any more than you do,” she muttered, too cold to imagine refusing, even with her pride. “We will simply bear it, despite the indignity.”
“Indinginity?” he repeated, as if in disbelief she would choose such a word.
Fawn stared resolutely at the floor, refusing to elaborate. She held still, shoulders tensed and raised up by her ears.
After a breath or two, the floorboards creaked under him as he crossed to her side, his joints crackled as he knelt down behind her on the bearskin rug.
Fawn refused to find any sort of pleasure or comfort in the slow-growing tepid temperature of his skin against hers as he stretched his legs out on either side of her, drawing a knee up. She could barely feel the touch of his inner thigh against her side, the hand he rubbed up and down her arm. Her throat grew tight as she felt her skin begin to thaw.
After tonight, they might not even be friends. No, worse. Tomorrow perhaps, Erryc might find it in himself to still offer her friendship, but her pride was too injured to allow her to receive it. She would never visit the tavern again. She would find a different path to walk, she would reroute her entire life around avoiding ever seeing him again.
Erryc’s hand rubbing her arm slowed, dwindling down to just his thumb brushing back and forth over her shoulder.
“Can we talk about what happened at the fountain?”
“I’d rather we didn’t.”
“Clearly,” he grumbled, blowing out a breath. “You would rather we shiver on the darkest, coldest night of the year than have a conversation.”
“I’m not the one who broke the bridge.”
“You couldn’t stop and just talk to me anywhere else?”
“I stopped there because I thought it was the only place I thought you wouldn’t follow me! We fell in the creek because you did!”
“Fawn, I– no… you’re right. I’m sorry that I brought this on our friendship. I shouldn’t have involved you in my problems. I wanted to spare the feelings of others without even making them self conscious. I thought our friendship could withstand a little embarrassment. When I make a fool of myself in front of you, it’seasy to bear. You always just laugh it off, think nothing of it. I had imagined... perhaps you felt the same way about me.”
Fawn gritted her teeth together, then sighed. “I’m sorry, I don’t.”
He might have been the only person in the world she couldn’t stand to think of her as foolish, even in the slightest. It stung to hear how he perceived their relationship as so inconsequential that it didn’t matter what she thought of him.
She kept her gaze adamantly in front of her. The fire was starting to catch the rest of the log, its radiance finally permeating the room. The pair of them fell into silence, the room filled with only the crackle and occasional popping sound from the fire.
Her defensiveness died down as the moments stretched on, nothing said between them. It wasn’t true anger, only shame and regret. It cooled into sadness, the realization that even now, Erryc’s first priority was making sure she was warm and safe. She didn’t know how to put aside her damaged pride and just be truly vulnerable with him.
Drier, somewhat thawed, she suddenly felt more aware now of her nakedness than she had when she had first peeled her clothes off. Her body had been so cold it hadn’t felt like being exposed, but now that her blood had heated she felt every sensation that had been dulled before. His skin brushing against hers, the hair on his legs bracketing her, her naked pussy against the fur of the rug. Her nipples drew tight as he shifted behind her and something grazed her lower back.
Fawn swallowed back a moan as the sensation rippled through her, every part of her body becoming aware that she was sitting directly between his bare thighs– her clit pulsed awake, butterflies zipped through her middle, her core achingly empty and suddenly slick.
It was torture for him to keep touching her like this, to continue lighting sparks in her veins, to keep kindling lust with each caress. It shouldn’t have aroused her the way it was. She hugged her knees in tighter to herself, putting the smallest sliver of space between her body and his, just to keep from touching.
“Do you really hate me that much?” Erryc sighed, and she thought she felt his hand tense against her, before he removed it from her.
“I don’t hate you,” she murmured, “But I... wish I had not revealed so much of myself to you.”
“If I had a change of dry clothes here, I would–”
“Not my body, Erryc. My... feelings towards you,” she said haltingly. Even beginning to voice it made her stomach contort with discomfort. “I don’t know how I can ever face you now.”
“I thought I had stopped things soon enough–”
