And then I did.
At first, he was gentle, his mouth taking mine chastely, lips barely parted. He was gentlemanly as he began, restrained, sweet and tamed. He showed me something in those first kisses. Perhaps, I was not his chosen wife, but care for me, he did. Whether or not it was love, my mind could not dwell on it. All I could think was that this dedicated consideration was the most precious thing I had ever felt. I nearly wept with the meaning of it, the sincerity.
And then he was not tame with me. He breathed roughly against my lips, like he was fighting with himself and was losing. That rough breath was my only warning and he took my lower lip in his teeth and sucked. And then, before I could recover from this, he kissed me deeply, his mouth parted over my own. And I was lost to him.
How much time passed before my hands were around his neck, I will never know. It was an age and it was a blink. I felt both grounded and like I was flying. I felt both at peace and in chaos. I do know that it took me time to salvage myself from the utter wreckage of him. He was a storm and I was willing driftwood, splintering against sea rock. I was undone and undone and undone. Every time I tried to breathe fully or begin to kiss him back, his relentlessness razed me. I was everything and I was nothing in his arms.
“Alric,” I panted against his mouth, trying to make my lungs work, when he himself needed air.
“Edith,” he whispered hoarsely back to me. His left hand came out from under the cloak, over my shoulder and cupped the back of my head. He drew his lost breath into his lungs. “Edith,” he said as he released it, his voice so peaceful after such ruination.
Our foreheads were touching again, mouths swelling from teeth and suckling.
I closed my eyes and whispered, “You have kissed me. Should I now kiss you?”
“I have prayed for your kiss, wife.”
I opened my eyes and separated our faces only enough to see his. “And I yours.”
He closed his eyes at my words and drew me back to him with his hand on my head.
Taking my hands from around his neck, I placed them on his sharp cheeks. Before he could open his eyes, I placed my mouth on his, repeating his story back to him, first reverent and cautious. I humbled myself in these kisses, offering him all of me, telling him the words I had recklessly written on my heart that I could not bear to speak. I gave him every kiss I had been made to withhold. I gave him the kiss he had earned after his apology at The Rush of Flowers. I gave him the kiss I could have given him on the bluff rock when he showed me the watchtower view. I gave him the kiss he deserved after his burst of protective rage at my being injured in the rock field. I gave him the kiss I had needed to give him after he held me in the saltwater, in the dark, the night of The Gleaming. I gave him every kiss I had ever wanted to leave on his mouth, as we had lain in bed, as he had tried his best to hold conversations with me, as he had poured me wine, as he had read me poetry. They came from my mouth, all of these withheld kisses, but not in a flood, in a steady stream of devotion.
And, because I yearned so, because my body had learned the beauty of his body, via touch, via glances, via dreams, because I had given myself pleasure at the thought of his callused hands and mostly because at that moment in time, in that minute of my life, I wanted to, I lowered my hands to his chest to thoroughly take him with my lips. They stayed there briefly, as a sign of my shifting. I gave him what he had not given me, some warning of what would come. I held my hands in place and opened my mouth wider, curious, asking. I slid my hands under his arms, over the coarse material of his tunic, clawing at his back through the tunic and undershirt, pulling him to me fully, no space between. My breasts were crushed against him, my hips hungry and my legs eager to be spread. My teeth now stung him. My tongue now was a balm to the sting. And, before I knew what I did, through my shift and skirts, I rocked my warm, wet sex against him.
“Take me home and make me your true wife,” I said against him after a vicious kiss.
“Edith,” he said. “Please.” His voice had a near broken quality to it.
I wanted us to break together and I kissed him again, vicious again.
“Edith, I am a private man,” he said, pulling away enough to see my face.
A haze of longing clouded any judgment left in me and I asked, “what?”
“I cannot pull away from you or I will disgrace myself. And I cannot surrender myself to anymore of your kisses. Just— Just stand here with me.”
The delay of my understanding caused me to bury my head in his neck. “I’m sorry.” His hard prick felt like it belonged with my sex, pressing into me. “I’m sorry,” I repeated. I removed my hands from his torso to rest on his chest.
“Never say you are sorry for touching me,” he whispered into my hair.
78. Groom
We stayed that way for several heartbeats, our thudding in time with each other. Then, as if enough miracles had not happened, he smiled. I could not see it. It was against my head. But I felt it. I had never seen this man smile, nothing but a relaxation of his lower face in circumstances where anyone else would have been smiling. But against my head, he smiled and I felt it and I, at last, remembered to thank my goddess.
He remained plagued by a hard prick and I, in an effort to be a good wife, offered him mundanity as succor. “Where were you today?”
He spoke into my hair. “Ruskar has broken their trade agreements with Tintar. I was in war councils. Do not repeat this. It is not yet public.”
“Are we— Are we to war?” I withdrew my face from him. “Will you conduct a restrained invasion on their island?” I could not, would not, lose this man to battle, not when I myself was destined for death so soon.
I would die first and I would die making him mine.
He shook his head. “The king and all his advisors have decided to wait. They give no reason for this. They closed their docks this morning and did not allow in any Tintarian vessels.”
“Perpatane,” I said.
He nodded. “That is what I too believe. They have been bought with gold.”
