“I’m awake,” he said roughly. In truth, he had not expected to sleep. The day sat heavily on him—the falsified ship gone nineteen hours into the black, the hollow-faced female now warm and medicated and sleeping under Cera’s watch, and the promise he had made against his every instinct, to let his mate walk knowingly into the fire. “It’s early, little one. Is something wrong? Is it the dreams already?”
“No.” She crossed the cave to the edge of the bed platform, close enough that he could feel her warmth and breathe in her sweet, delicate scent. “No dreams. I just… I didn’t want to wait until I was half-asleep and pretend I ended up here by accident.”
Every muscle in him went taut. “Polly?—”
“I’ve been thinking about this morning. And what you said.” She climbed up beside him and sat, hugging her knees to her chest, her eyes fixed on the distant glow from the entrance. “You said I was desirable.”
“You are.” His throat closed around the word. “I should not have said it. I apologize. It wasn’t fair to you.”
“I wanted you to say it.” She glanced at him, then away again, her cheeks going rosy. “That’s why I… I wore this gown. It’s the closest thing I have to a nightgown. I wanted to see if you meant it.”
He looked at her small body and her bare legs and her cloud of soft, dark hair, and the ache in his kotra was so sharp it felt like a blade.
“I meant it,” he said.
The blush deepened, and she pressed her lips together. “You never touch me. Not like that. I thought maybe it was because you were trying to be a gentleman, and that it was hard for you. Harder than I realized. So I tried. I tried to touch you, that one time, and you stopped me.”
The night she had reached for him, trusting and curious, and he had turned her away, his body shaking with the effort of it. He would never forget it.
“It was a hard thing to do,” he admitted. “Not because I didn’t want it. Because I did. Too much. And I didn’t want to frighten you.”
“I’ve never been scared of you,” she said softly. “Not since the first time we met and you crouched down next to me and you saw past the dirt and the terror and actually saw me.”
“I’m glad. I would never hurt you.”
“I know. Can… Can I ask you for something?” The words tumbled out in a rush, as though she’d rehearsed them. “And you don’t have to. It’s not… It’s not a big thing, but it’s still hard for me to say, so please don’t make me say it twice.”
“You can ask me for anything.”
“I want you to hold me. On purpose, while I’m awake. Because I want you to, and because you want to.”
The words went through him like fire through frozen ground.
He should have thought of all the reasons not to. He was aware of them, distantly—her fear, his size, the promise he made himself every night, the year of patient distance. But she had asked, because it was what she wanted. And he had told her he would give her anything, and he had never in his life broken his word.
“Come here,” he said.
She came. She lifted the edge of the furs and slid in against him, and this time she did not curl into a small little knot at his side. She turned into him, deliberately, and pressed the length of her small warm body along his, and he placed his arm around her and held her close.
He held her carefully, as though she were made of the thinnest crystal, one huge hand splayed across the whole of her back, the other cupping her head against the fur of his chest. He felt her heart racing and then, slowly, beat by beat, beginning to ease. He felt her breath go out of her in a long shudder. He felt her hands fist in the fur over his heart and hold on.
“Is this all right?” he murmured into her hair.
“Yes,” she whispered. “It’s perfect. It’s what I wanted.”
For a long time, they simply lay together in the dark, her body gradually softening against his, his body painfully aware of every place she touched him. Her skin, so silky and warm, made him want to bury his face in her and never move again. Her scent made his head swim. Her heartbeat, slow and steady beneath his palm, filled his ears.
Her hand had unclenched from his fur and begun to move. Slowly, shyly, she stroked him, her fingers tracing the lines ofmuscle in his chest. She explored him in a way she never had before, and the feel of her curiosity set his nerves on fire.
She slid her hand upwards, over his shoulder, up the corded muscle of his neck. He held himself very still as her fingers slipped into the fur at the nape of his neck. She gripped a handful of the longer strands there, tugged gently, experimentally, and he growled in spite of himself, a low, rough sound of pleasure.
She stilled. “Did that hurt?”
“No.” He cleared his throat. “Quite the opposite.”
She pulled again, and his body tightened, his arousal spiking sharply. He could hear the smile in her voice.
“I like the way you sound,” she said.
