His eyes found her immediately. They dropped to her hand on the table, to the bowl, to the orange she'd touched. He didn't say anything about it. He unbuckled the first strap of his armor, then the second, fingers finding the leather by memory, not sight, because his eyes hadn't left her.
"Take your clothes off."
Mab blinked. "What?"
"I have been in the saddle for three days."
He pulled the chest piece over his head and set it on the floor beside the door. The pauldrons followed. Then the bracers, one wrist at a time, leather creaking as the buckles released.
"Before that I spent four days sacking a holding, killing a lord, and trying not to terrify two children who had every reason to be terrified. Before that I spent three months planning how to do it without losing any of my men."
He straightened, and without the armor he was somehow larger, just body now, the full scope of his shoulders and chestand arms visible under the sweat-darkened tunic. He pulled that off too.
"I am home," he said. "In my room. With my woman. And what I want is to hold you with nothing between us." He sat on the edge of the bed and unlaced his boots, pulling them off one at a time. "So take your clothes off, Mab."
"What about supper?" she asked stupidly.
"We will not miss supper."
He reached toward her and snagged the edge of her apron. She let him pull her forward. One step, then another, until she stood between his knees and the heat from the hearth pressed against her back and the heat from his body pressed against her front and there was nowhere in the room that was not warm.
"How was Kira?" he asked as his fingers found the apron ties at the small of her back. He unknotted them and drew the apron over her head.
"She was... not as scary as I thought she'd be."
"Then she likes you." His fingers found the hem of her dress and gathered it. "Arms up."
Mab raised her arms. He pulled the roughspun over her head in one motion, and the cold air touched her skin for exactly as long as it took him to pull her forward against his chest.
"She wants me to come back in the morning," Mab said into his collarbone.
The sound he made was low and warm against the top of her head. "Then she likes you very much."
He reached down and hooked his thumbs into the waistband of her smallclothes, drawing them down over her hips. Mab stepped out of them and stood bare between his knees.
His hands settled on her hips. Slid around to her backside. Spread wide, fingers pressing into the soft flesh there, and pulled her in until her belly was flush against his chest and her breastswere pressed to his collarbones and there was no part of her front that was not touching some part of him.
Then he exhaled.
His forehead dropped to the curve of her neck. His hands stayed where they were, wide and heavy and warm, holding the whole weight of her against him as if she were the fixed point and he was the thing that needed steadying.
Mab stood very still. She felt the tension go out of him in stages. Shoulders first, then the rigid line of his spine, then the iron-tight grip of his fingers softening. She put her hands on his head. His hair was gritty with road dust and tangled where the braid had come apart, and she worked her fingers into it without thinking, the same way she'd done at the pool. He made a sound, a vibration she felt in her sternum.
She had hidden this body her whole life.
Not just hidden it. Apologized for it. Kept her arms pressed to her sides so she took up less room in a chair. Eaten standing, eaten fast, eaten with her back to the wall so nobody could see how much was on her plate. Worn the loosest thing she owned and still felt the fabric clinging to every curve like an accusation.
And here was Varek. Seven feet of scarred, dust-covered, orc raider, and what he wanted at the end of all of it was to press his face into her neck and hold her backside with both hands and breathe.
Not the version of her in silk. Not a thinner version or a quieter version or a version that took up less space in the room. This one. The one who smelled of turnip peel and lentil dust and bay leaf and lye soap.
"I have been in meetings," he said into her hair, "for six hours."
"You sound aggrieved."
"I am aggrieved." His hand tightened on her hip. "I rode through those gates with you against my chest and then I had toput you down and walk into a room full of people who wanted to talk about grain stores."
Mab bit back a smile. "How are the grain stores?"
