“That depends on many things.”
When we reached the rows of army tents, he steered us away from them towards the wagons lined up on one side of the road. Some were like ours with tarpaulins stretched over bows, but most were transport wagons with tall slats and only some had coverings.
With his usual grace, he climbed into one of the covered wagons and then turned to me. He gestured for me to hand him my quilt. Then he reached down, helping me step up to the driver’s seat.
There was nothing inside but his folded army blanket. I stood in the center of the wagon while he tied the flaps closed on the tarpaulin in both the front and the back.
“What is this?” I asked him.
“Our tent tonight,” Reed answered, herding me to one end and then spreading his blanket and my quilt down on the bed of the wagon. “You should undress for sleep,” he said, kneeling down to lift the quilt from the blanket. He removed his hooded jerkin and tunic, his belts and their swords, and then his boots. Finally, only in his breeches, he slowly removed the leather strap from his head and then climbed beneath the quilt.
The skin where his eye should have been did not distract me. I accepted it as part of his face. But Reed’s bare chest, inked shoulders, and slim hips had me transfixed, and I was embarrassed to realize I was standing and watching him, utterly motionless, seeing the way the faint light of a washed-out sunset that filtered in through the smallest gap in one of the tarp’s closed flaps played with the angles of his face.
Trying not to see if he was watching, I removed my dress, shift, socks, and shoes. I climbed beneath the quilt next to him and stretched my body out. I wondered how quickly he would take notice of my nudity. Then, choosing not to turn my head towardshim, looking up at the stretch of material above us, I said, “So luxurious. Almost like being inside a house.”
“I wish I could show you my house.”
“Your house?”
“In Vyggia. It’s on a cliff. Well, not much of a cliff as there is a footpath to the shore, but it overlooks the sea, the stones on the shoreline, and the salt shallows on that island.”
“That island?”
Vyggia is a scattering of land on the sea. The main island has our only real city, and that is where our leaders marshal. Everything else is the salt shallows and the houses of the salt folk that work them.”
“Who lives in your house now?”
“No one. I pay a neighbor to keep it for me.”
I wanted to ask more, but I sensed he may not want to speak of the house or why he was not residing in it. There was a soft silence between us after that. I was not uncomfortable, and I did not believe he was either. The wagon had more room than the tent did, so our bodies were not pressed alongside each other. I began to wonder if my plan of seduction was foolish, seeing as he had yet to put one of his artful hands on my belly or breasts. As the night descended, I stared up at the wagon’s covering, tarpaulin stretched over the wooden bows. It was an older piece of material, worn and thin. Nearby campfires of soldiers cast dim ripples of light over us, making it seem like we rested in the heart of a small, golden star.
“You removed your shift tonight,” Reed said.
My eyes still trained on the flickers above and around us, I answered, “Perhaps I am warm.”
“We may be on the southern borders of Perpatane, but it is nearing the dead of winter. You’ll forgive me when I say I doubt that.”
“Is it winter already?” I asked, trying to keep laughter from my voice. My mind was split in two. We were on the edge of something. Adelaide might be freed from Skow and her husband, or we might all be caught and charged with some crime. I might never see Reed againafter the days ahead, whatever took place. But that night, my skin alive, nearly skittish beneath the quilt, I only wanted him. I only wanted coupling, sex, satisfaction. I wanted to be what he had impugned all along. I wanted to be that woman he had painted me as.
Seductress.
80
NOW: PLEASE
Before I could continue, could prod him, tease him into this, I felt the quilt lift up and be pulled away from my body.
Reed had rolled to his side and propped his head up on one hand. With his other, he was pushing the quilt down to our knees. “Better, one thousand times better, than any imagination on my part.”
“I once said you seem like a man with a talented imagination.”
“Nothingcould compare to this,” was his response, and though his voice had that ever-present near flippancy, it was as if he clung to it, as if he was losing his grip on that detachment of his.
I closed my eyes. Though I wanted to shrivel under his gaze, I also wanted to be as bare as possible. I could only guess at what he might think of my arms. They had always been slender and muscled, but in the last few winters the flesh on them had rearranged and become dough-like and soft. I reminded myself that they were strong, capable, fine arms, covered in Micah’s handiwork. My breasts had always been generous and full, but they had become somewhat smaller with age, losing some of their curve. My belly was round, dimpled by my navel. My hips and thighs had been full since late inmy girlhood, lending me the shape of a pear. Magda had once remarked on it, saying pears were a sacred fruit to Mother Earth. In recent winters, the skin on my knees had become dry and looked wrinkled.
My mind was full of these things. But I could only lie there and let him look.
Finally, he removed his hand from the quilt and placed it over my belly. “Do you want my hands or my mouth?”
