Page 39 of She, Wolf, Him.

His palm rests at my waist. He doesn't pull. I move over him for the weight of his attention and the heat of him under me. I take him in hand again and guide him to me.

The first press hurts. I stop.

Gaspard goes still beneath me. His hold tightens once at my waist, then eases.

I wait until the pain thins. I lower myself farther, choosing the pace inch by inch, until I hold all of him. The fullness is strange, almost too much. Then I move. The first slow drag is better, the next better still.

His eyes close. He says my name with no caution left in it.

I brace beside his shoulder and set the rhythm that suits me. The narrow bed knocks softly against the wall. He catches my hips when I lose the motion, holding me steady until I find it again. Each lift draws him nearly out. Each return presses deeper. I watch his control fray.

He reaches between us. I catch his wrist and bring the touch back where I need it. The pleasure comes faster now, sharpened by the drag of him inside me. I bend and kiss him so the next sound I make goes into his mouth.

My pace falters. I sink all the way down, my body tightening around him. The sound he makes is rough against my lips. His hips lift once beneath mine. Then he follows, his face turned into my neck, my name warm against my skin.

For a while neither of us tries to move.

"Stay a while," he says, into my hair. Barely a request.

"A while," I agree.

"The village will know," he says, not moving. "About this. They count smoke, and who's seen where."

"They won't know," I say. "I came in the dark and I'll go in it."

"That's not what I asked," he says, but lets it go.

The bed gives another protesting creak.

"The King provides poorly," I murmur.

"The King has never seen this bed."

I laugh, and his answer is more breath than sound against my hair. I lie down beside him in the little space left and discover there's no way to do it without fitting myself close.

The lamp gutters out. The fire sinks lower.

Gaspard sleeps on his back, his face turned to the room, one arm fallen toward the floor where the rifle waits beside the bed. The other rests over my waist. In sleep, the watchfulness leaves him. I study the thin scar along his right cheek, nearly hidden by stubble, and the old white rakes crossing his upper arm.

An animal did that, I think. Teeth or claws, close enough to leave him marked after the wound closed. He goes into the high woods for his bread and calls fear a detail of the work. Tomorrow, or the day after, he'll go again.

Fear for him lies beside my tenderness. I can't separate them. I trace the highest white rake and stop before I wake him.

No guilt comes. I don't go searching for it.

What frightens me is the quiet. Hunger is familiar. So is being useful. I don't know what to do in a bed where nothing is being asked of me. His breathing stays even, his arm loose around me. I fit my cheek more closely to his chest and listen.

Grey light gathers at the shutter. The village will begin soon with pails and kindling, the widow with her fire. I stay until the room's shapes return one by one and the cold on the floorboards reaches the bed.

Then I rise.

I wash at his basin and dress by the failing fire. Shift, stockings, petticoat, skirt. I knot the bodice myself this time and step back into my clogs.

When I lift my shawl from the stool, Gaspard speaks behind me.

"I'll walk you."

Sleep roughens his voice. He has pushed himself onto one elbow, hair fallen over his forehead, the sheet low at his waist.