“My head is clear, if that’s what you’re asking. I’m sore.” Something shifted in his expression and she hurried to add, “From riding. I’ll have to use the liniment again, but I’ll be ready to go as soon as I clean up.”
He nodded and then poured hot water into two mugs. He got up and handed one to her. “I washed your jacket. It’s only slightly damp. The shirt next to it is one of mine. It will be too big, but it’s clean.”
She looked over at his neatly folded shirt and her coat laid out on a rock beside the fire. The coat looked better than it had when they set out from Toam. She thought he might have brushed it. He’d folded her breeches too and stuffed a thickpair of woolen socks into her boots. The socks weren’t hers. She didn’t own a pair of socks that fine.
The sight of her things all lined up like that made her throat tighten. She swallowed a sip of tea to force the feeling away.
She wasn’t used to people doing things for her. Her mother had taken good care of her when she was young, but after Jarn their positions reversed. They were a team. Her mother was still a healer. She had the garden and her chickens, but Rowan had taken over the bulk of the work to keep the household running. Rowan was the one who dealt with the other people in Toam and made sure they had shelter and enough money and food to survive. She made sure the laundry was done and the wood was cut and the roof patched and their stores dry. It was strange, having someone watch out for her for a change.
“Thank you.” She gathered up her courage and forced herself to look him in the eye again. “Last night, I was…”
She swallowed, trying to figure out how to finish that. Shattered? Aching? Unhinged?
“Not in your right mind,” he finished for her, taking a seat on a fallen log beside the fire. “Like I told you, it happens sometimes.”
She doubted that. She couldn’t imagine Casrian doing the same thing for one of the men on his patrol.
Her hands tightened around the mug. “I couldn’t think about anything except for getting the blood off of me. Thank you for…for helping me get past that.”
He looked at her for a heartbeat, his expression unreadable. “You don’t need to thank me for what happened.”
“I didn’t…” She winced, then forced herself to continue. She needed to know. “I didn’t force you into anything you didn’t want to do, did I?”
“You did not. God, Rowan, I—” He broke off and looked away. Something raw crossed his face before he controlled it.“No,” he said firmly. “You didn’t force me into anything I didn’t want.” He met her gaze again. “Do you have regrets?”
“None,” she said immediately and sincerely. “It felt wonderful.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
He didn’t sound glad.
She stared down at the tea in her cup. Casrian seemed miles away this morning and she didn’t like that. She couldn’t help but feel like she’d done or said something wrong.
She’d never had a lover before so she didn’t know all the rules. In Toam, you could sleep with whoever you wanted so long as you didn’t poach. But she knew in Sulen it was different. People in Sulen treated sex outside of marriage like a dirty secret. Maybe that was the way things were in the city. Maybe she was breaking rules by talking about it at all. Her lack of manners. Gavin had never talked to her again after she’d rejected him. Maybe that was it.
Or maybe Casrian was frustrated for another reason…
She looked up and was caught by how beautiful he looked sitting there in a patch of sunlight, all golden and shiny.
“I can make you come if you want,” she offered.
He’d just taken a sip of his tea and he choked on it. When he caught his breath, he didn’t say anything, just stared at her, so she continued on. “I would have made you come last night, but you didn’t seem to want that. But I could do it now. It’s only fair. I do have manners, even if you think I don’t.”
“Rowan…” He trailed off and then shook his head. “You don’t owe me anything.”
“George says that when men don’t come, they?—”
“Please don’t finish that sentence. I don’t want to know what George thinks about…that.” His eyes narrowed. “Why would you even—? You know what? No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I’ve never lain with George, if that’s what you’re wondering. I’ve just heard him say that men get cranky if they don’t come often enough. Something about seed swelling in their balls.”
Casrian’s expression hardened. “I’m going to murder George for even thinking about his balls in your presence. He never should have said something like that to you.”
“To be fair to George, he said it to Rina at the tavern. I just happened to be standing next to her.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“He was paying her for her time.”
