She peeled out of his grasp so he wouldn’t see her tears. Few things made her feel more fragile than how easy it was to make her cry.
“Elloven. Look at me.”
Elloven shook her head. She felt stupider by the moment, which she was ruining. Four kisses. One could be explained away, but he was telling her not to, so why could she not let him?
Jesstin’s palm turned her face toward his. She forgot her embarrassment, entranced by the sheen in his eyes and the fresh moisture gathering under his lower lids. “I’m only sorry if it’s not what you wanted. I should have asked first.”
“It’s...” Elloven cleared the hoarseness from the back of her throat. “I’m... Don’t be sorry...” She couldn’t finish.
He offered her a soft, downturned smile. “I’ve never been happier to see anyone. And I’ve never, ever wanted to kiss anyone more.”
Elloven cried into his hands like a proper fool, but the strange thing was she didn’t feel like one, not with him. Even her embarrassment was an instinctive reaction, a reflex. She was still working through a lifetime of others punishing her for emotion, or discouraging her from expressing any. Even in their worst moments together, she’d never felt that from Jesstin.
A knock on the door startled them both. Elloven turned away to clean her face while Jesstin answered. A couple of moments later, he kicked the door closed and carried a sloshing basin to the hearth on the other side of the room.
“Are you calling me filthy?” Jesstin laughed and dipped his finger in the water to test it. He splashed some over his face and rubbed at the dirt.
“It was, ah, for your clothing, but yes, wash yourself first, before you sully the water with—” She stopped. There was no recovering from that.
Jesstin grinned to himself as he stripped away his soiled clothing. He caught Elloven watching, and she quickly spun away, more flustered than ever. She’d been so cool and composed during their flirtations in the Night Soul, but she couldn’t even finish her words now. Her discomposure was so powerful, she was certain the whole of the Infinitum could feel it with her.
“How’s the pain?” she asked over her shoulder.
“Much better after a rest. I thought the place had actually finished me off.”
“Your fresh clothing... Let me...” Elloven’s face was as hot as if she were sitting next to the fire. She gathered the fallen garb, dropping the shirt as she reached for the pants, then dropped that too. She collected it all and shuffled toward him, faced away, and released it without looking.
“You’re being awfully strange around me,” Jesstin said. From the corner of her eye, she caught a flash of bare chest as he dried himself. “Was it the kissing?”
“I’m not really sure,” Elloven replied, because it was everything, really, all the moments and the incidents and the closeness and the betrayals. And yes, the kisses, but she’d liked those and wanted more, despite her apprehension of saying so, which was at least in part due to the fear of rejection. “My mind hasn’t caught up to the fact you’re really here.”
The sound of fabric sliding over flesh filled the brief silence. “I told you I’d come.”
“You also said you would be here quickly, but you never explained how.” She’d thrown out the first of her many questions and felt lighter already. “I know you didn’t take the roads.”
“I’m decent. You can look.”
Elloven nearly lost her words again at the sight of him in the crisp cobalt blouse, freshly mended vest, and gray trousers. It was so unlike what he normally wore, and she’d guessed a size too small, but that was only more distracting. His clean, tan skin took on a golden hue in the warm light of the hearth. “You’re evading the question. You evaded it when I asked before.”
She was unprepared for his lopsided grin, same as she’d been the first time he’d turned it on her. It was surely the same one that worked on the women he paraded around at his tavern, and... probably with Lexsea as well.
“It’s a long story.” Jesstin finished buttoning his shirt. “This is your havre?”
“What?” she replied. He’d bewildered her with another sudden shift. She shouldn’t let him off the hook so easily, but more than anything else, even more than the truth, she wanted them not to be at odds. “It’s an inn, in the middle of a village that’s protected like the havres and cloisters are. All I know is it’s called Everspell. It’s popular, and it reminds me of Mythgarde a bit, the abundance of ill repute excluded.”
Jesstin’s smile grew broader and even warmer. “There’s always ill repute, Elloven, if you know where to look.”
Was she blushing? It certainly felt so. “Let me hang your clothes for you.” She moved to pick them up, but he caught her wrist in his fingers.
“We should talk about the night you... left.”
Her eyes followed the lump sliding down his throat.
So it was to be an entire evening of him taking her off her guard? Not this time, she decided. She had plenty to say about that night, but she didn’t have the heart to end their first evening together in quarrel. “How would you like to do something a little different instead?”
Jesstin’s hold on her relaxed. “You win. I’m intrigued.”
Elloven laughed under her breath. She was flirting. There was no other explanation for how incontestably tongue-tied she was in the heart of such strange exhilaration. “You’re a tavern man. I thought we might indulge in one of the Everspell establishments, for comparison’s sake.”
