Then he made a low sound in his chest, not quite a word, and pulled me forward into him.
I went. I didn't even hesitate, just leaned into the solid warmth of him and let his arms come around me, one hand spread wide across my back, the other cradling the back of my head with a gentleness that made my throat ache. He was so warm. He was always so warm. I pressed my face into the curve of his neck and breathed him in. Earth and herbs and woodsmoke. His hand moved in slow circles across my back, and I felt the tension I'd been carrying since Nathan had grabbed me begin to ebb away.
“Ellie,” he murmured. I looked up at him, and he bent to kiss me again. This time, he tipped my head back, deepening the kiss. By the time he was done, I was breathing harder and my heart had sped up. His mouth left mine, moving up across my cheekbone, then down, lips moving down the side of my neck. I felt the warmth of his breath and the heat of the tip of his tongue, flicking over my skin and I shivered, tilting my head to give himbetter access without even thinking about it. A small, breathless sound escaped me that I couldn't have held back if I'd tried.
His mouth found the hollow beneath my ear, and my fingers curled into the front of his tunic, gripping the soft leather like an anchor. He kissed the spot where my pulse hammered, lingering there, and I felt his lips curve into the faintest smile against my skin. He could feel my heartbeat. Of course he could.
"Good? Yes?" he murmured against my throat.
"Yes," I whispered. "Very good."
He huffed a quiet laugh, warm breath fanning across my collarbone, and kissed his way down the tendon of my neck with an unhurried thoroughness as though he was cataloguing every inch of skin and filing it away for later reference. His beard brushed against my throat, softer than I'd expected, and the contrast between that gentle rasp and the heat of his mouth sent sparks skittering down my spine.
His hand moved from the back of my head to my shoulder, thumb tracing the edge of my collarbone where the tunic met skin and slid down the front. He paused there, fingertips resting against the leather lacing that held the front of my tunic closed.
"Can I?" he asked.
My stomach flipped. Not with fear. With something else entirely—a hot, nervous anticipation that made my pulse hammer in my throat. I thought about saying no. I thought about all the reasons this was complicated, all the reasons I should slow down, be sensible, be careful.
Then I thought about two years of feeling nothing. Two years of being numb and hollow and convinced that whatever part of me was supposed to want this had been scraped out and discarded like the membrane from a hide.
"Yes," I whispered.
His fingers found the first lacing and pulled, slow and deliberate. The leather slipped free with a soft whisper of soundthat seemed impossibly loud in the quiet of the cave. He moved to the second, then the third, each one loosened with the same careful patience he brought to everything, giving me time to change my mind at every step.
I didn't change my mind.
The last lacing came free and the tunic fell open, the leather parting down the centre of my chest. Cool air hit my skin and I shivered, resisting the urge to pull it closed again, to cover myself, to hide. The old voice in my head—Nathan's voice, always Nathan's voice—whispered that I wasn't enough. That my body was too soft, too round, too ordinary. That he'd look and be disappointed, the way Nathan had been disappointed.
Daska eased the tunic back off my shoulders, the leather sliding down my arms, and then he stopped and looked at me. His eyes moved from my face down my throat, across my collarbone, lower. I watched his expression change, watched something kindle behind those dark eyes that made the breath catch in my lungs.
"Beautiful," he said, the word rough and low, almost reverent. "Ellie. Beautiful."
I shook my head automatically, the denial rising before I could stop it. "I'm not—"
"Beautiful," he repeated, firmer this time, and his eyes came back to mine with an intensity that silenced me. There was no politeness in it. No flattery. He said it the way he said everything—like it was simply true, and he saw no reason to pretend otherwise.
My eyes burned. I pressed my lips together and looked away, blinking hard, because if I held his gaze for one more second I was going to fall apart completely, and I'd already cried enough for a lifetime."Daska—"
He kissed me again, cutting off whatever inadequate thing I'd been about to say, then pulled back to watch as he lifted hishand, giving me time to track the movement, to stop him if I wanted. His fingertips brushed the hollow of my throat, then traced downward, following the line of my sternum with a touch so light it was barely there. My skin prickled in the wake of it, goosebumps rising despite the warmth of the fire. Slowly, so slowly, his fingers tracing the swell of my breast with a reverence that made my breath stutter. His thumb brushed the underside, following the curve, and I heard myself make a sound—soft, involuntary, something between a gasp and a sigh.
He cupped me gently, his large hand warm and steady, and I watched his face as he did it. The way his lips parted slightly. The way his pupils had blown wide, the dark centres swallowing the brown until his eyes were almost black in the firelight. He looked at me like I was something sacred, something he'd been given permission to touch but still couldn't quite believe was real.
His thumb found my nipple and brushed across it, feather-light, and my back arched before I could stop it. A shiver ran through me that had nothing to do with the cool air. He did it again, watching my reaction with that focused intensity, learning me the way he learned everything—with patience and attention and quiet, devastating thoroughness.
"Good?" he murmured.
I couldn't speak. I nodded, my fingers still twisted in the front of his tunic, holding on.
“Down,” he murmured, gently guiding me back until I was lying across the furs. He lowered his head, his long hair falling forward and tickling my skin. The first press of his lips against the upper curve of my breast was so gentle it was almost chaste.
The second was not. His mouth opened against my skin, hot and wet, and he kissed his way down the slope of my breast with the same unhurried thoroughness he'd given my neck, lips dragging across every inch of skin as though he intended to memorise the taste of me. His beard rasped softly against thesensitive underside, and I sucked in a breath as his mouth found the peak of my breast and he paused there, his breath warm against the sensitive skin. I felt the question in the hesitation, the silent check-in, and I answered it by threading my fingers into his hair and pulling him closer.
He took me into his mouth.
The sound I made was embarrassing. A broken, gasping thing that echoed off the cave walls and would have mortified me if I'd had any capacity left for embarrassment, but I didn't, because his mouth was warm and wet and impossibly gentle, his tongue moving in slow circles that sent lightning forking down through my belly and into my thighs. My head fell back, my eyes closing, and my hand tightened in his hair without conscious thought.
He made a low sound against my skin—approval, satisfaction, something primal that vibrated through the sensitive flesh and made me whimper. His free hand came up to cradle my other breast, thumb stroking in lazy counterpoint to what his mouth was doing, and the dual sensation was so much, so overwhelminglymuchafter two years of nothing.
