He groaned then, low and helpless, forehead dropping to hers. “Is this what it is to want?” he whispered, voice rough with wonder.
“Yes,” she whispered, teeth catching on her lower lip as she leaned into his hand, needing more. “And worse. And better.”
His other hand found her hip, pulling her forward, settling her against the rigid line of his desire. Her breath hitched, pleasure rising, curling through her spine. She wanted—gods, she wanted—to lose herself in this, to be unmade and remade by his hands.
His mouth found her throat, and his lips brushed over the hollow beneath her jaw, the slope of her shoulder, the quick flutter of her pulse. Patience lived in every motion, his hands careful, searching, as though he could memorize her body by touch alone. She could feel him trembling now, not with hesitation, but restraint. His chest rose and fell with the effort of holding himself together, of not simply devouring her. His body wavered, then lowered, until he knelt before her, akin to a worshiper.
Her gaze dropped to where her hand rested against his chest. Faint smudges of charcoal marked his skin where she’d traced him before, streaked now by sweat and her own fingerprints. It felt wrong to wipe them away.
His palms moved down the length of her thighs, rough and warm. He caught her calves, thumbs brushing the backs of herknees, then traced to her ankles, anchoring himself in the shape of her. His hands returned, gliding up again over the curves of her—his touch both pious and searching, molding to every line. He cupped the backs of her legs, thumbs working into the knots of tension he found, drawing them loose in quiet, circling strokes.
She watched him, breath caught, heart in her throat. His head bowed, dark curls falling forward as he pressed a kiss to the inside of one knee, then the other. Steadfast and attentive. Her skin prickled in his wake.
He worked higher, his mouth trailing a series of unhurried kisses up the insides of her thighs. Every inch lavished, each kiss a vow. Her legs trembled beneath him. Her breath caught again and again as he mapped her with a devotion bordering on torment.
When he reached the place where her thighs met, his hands curled around them, thumbs circling the tender skin there. He didn’t rush. He didn’t claim. He learned. He memorized.
His thumbs swept to the apex of her, rapacious and indolent. She gasped, her hips jolting forward before she could stop them, knees giving just. His hands steadied her, a grounding pressure on her thighs as his thumbs circled again, feeling her. Savoring her.
Her hands found his shoulders, gripping tight as she bit her lip to hold in the sound rising in her throat. But he looked up at her, eyes gleaming with venal candor.
Give me that sound, his eyes conveyed.Give me that sweet noise and I will make the trade worthwhile.
“You’re shaking,” he observed, the barest trace of a smile at the corner of his mouth, though his voice roughened with want. He pressed another kiss, higher now, his breath feathering against her most sensitive skin. One hand remained, clutching her thigh, the other brushing along the outside of her hip,anchoring her, worshiping her. His mouth followed his hand, tasting, until she thought she might fly apart from the sweetness of it. He pressed a palm to her stomach, forcing her to lean back against the bed.
She had never been touched like this. Not just for pleasure, not just for possession, but a touch to show she was seen. Tended to. Known.
And when he looked up again, lips parted, face flushed with the sheer act of devotion, she sank her fingers into his hair, grasping it in surprised ecstasy. She closed her eyes, and for the first time in her life, allowed herself to be held. And with relentless strokes of his tongue against her, she rode a wave of sensation so unfamiliar, so addictive, that she knew even in the midst, as her vision swam, that the feeling had only begun.
Chapter 34
She woke to the room she did not know, to a body she did not trust, to the shape of him asleep beside her.
For a heartbeat she lay very still, listening. The inn creaked in the ribs. Someone coughed down the corridor. A cart rattled outside, iron wheel hitting a loose stone. Death lay on his side, one arm slack between them, his hair pushed off his brow yet absurdly tidied in sleep. The fire tampered down to a red seam and the scent of last night still clung to the air, warm and human and undeniable.
Her stomach turned.
No. The word came without sound. It rose like sickness.
She slid out from the sheet and stood. The room blurred. She found her dress by touch and dragged it over herself, fingers clumsy at the laces. Her shoulder throbbed where the bandage tugged. She did not put her boots on right away; she did not want the sound. She wanted the door. She wanted air.
The stair complained under her weight, startling the low hush of embers and swept sawdust. The innkeeper’s wife glanced up from a bucket, eyes quick, then down again, mercy in the look of a woman who had seen too much to ask. Outside, the morning shone a paper gray. Mist hung from the eaves. The street had not yet woken to its own noise. She sat on the inn steps to pull on her boots and had to stop halfway, bracing her forearm against her knee, fighting the urge to retch.
What have you done?
She forced the laces tight, stood too fast, steadied on the doorframe, then walked. Anywhere. Away from the inn with its clean, lemoned sheets and the imprint of his body on a mattress that now knew her shape.
A boy swept a doorway with more zeal than success. A woman tipped wash water into the gutter and nodded once at Ilys without curiosity. Smoke bled from a handful of chimneys, urging the day ahead.. Her feet took her toward the small square. A shrine leaned there, half-collapsed, its stone saint weathered to a softened face. Someone had tucked a sprig of rosemary into a crack. She stood in front of it and tried to have a thought that was not a feeling.
I cannot do this.
Last night unspooled in hard flashes. She shut it out with both hands as if the mind were a door.
The nausea rose again, bright and daft. She swallowed it. She crossed the square to the pump and worked the handle until water came in a clean rush. She cupped her palms and threw it into her face. The shock refused to steady. She drank from her hands anyway, chin dripping, breath juddering like a lame wheel.
He is dying.The thought came uninvited and sat down with its arms folded.He is dying and you just taught yourself the shape of his mouth.
A dog trotted past with a crust in its teeth. Somewhere a smith struck iron. She walked again, out of the square and along a lane where back gardens surrendered winter cabbages and tired rosemary to the fog. Her shoulder began to ache in earnest. The gash pulsed in time with her steps.Good,she thought, small and vicious.Feel that. Remember what you are for.
