Page 31

She pulled his mouth down to hers and kissed him while he moved inside her, slow and deep. The kiss matched the rhythm, long, open, tasting each other without urgency, without the desperation that had driven everything before. This was something else. This was the quiet after the storm, and the quiet was devastating.

He felt her body start to change around him. A tightening. A tremor. Her breathing shortened, her hips moved in small, searching circles, and he recognised it. She was climbing, but slowly, without knowing the way, her body reaching for something it had never known.

He withdrew. She made a sound of loss that tore at him.

He thrust into her in one smooth motion. She was open now in a way she had not been before. Her body received him fully, easily, the resistance gone, and the heat of her after her release was a thing he had no language for. He moved and she moved with him, her hips rising to meet his, finding a rhythm that was theirs,

"I'll drive every word he put in you out," he said against her ear. "Starting tonight."

His rhythm grew urgent. Her fingers dug into his forearms. Her heat tightened around him, still sensitive, still pulsing, gripping him with every stroke.

"Say my name." His voice was ragged. "Say it so the dead man knows who's inside you now."

"Kit." It came out broken. "Kit."

She broke again. Harder this time, her whole body seizing, her nails raking down his arms, her mouth open on a soundless cry that shook through her in waves. He felt every pulse of her around him, the impossible grip and release, and this time he let himself go. Three thrusts, deep and hard, and he came with his face buried in her neck and a groan wrenched from his chest. His arms shook. His legs nearly gave. He pressed against her one more time, then collapsed with barely enough strength to keep from crushing her.

They breathed together in the dark. His heart hammering through his skin.

He did not let go. She was the first to speak, her voice hoarse.

"Is this what you meant? The danger?"

He pushed himself up on his elbows. She looked away, the flush returning.

"Have you learned your lesson?" he said.

Two nods. "Yes. I should disobey you more often."

He laughed, his body shaking, releasing more than tension. "I would expect nothing less from you."

He kissed her forehead. Then her nose. Then the corner of her mouth. Then he straightened her skirts, fixed her bodice, and buttoned his trousers. He helped her stand on solid ground.

"I can climb—"

"Not a chance in hell."

He slung her over his shoulder. She made a sound of outrage, her fists thumping his back. He gripped her thighs with one arm and climbed the ladder with the other, and when he set her down in the cellar, she was flushed and breathless and trying very hard to look indignant.

"That was undignified."

"You'll survive."

She straightened her hair. Smoothed her bodice. Looked at him with an expression that was trying to be stern and failing badly.

"You still haven't told me what you were doing in the tunnel."

"Securing the passage."

"The one that leads out past the orchard?"

"Yes."

"Why now?"

He met her eyes. Held them.

"Because people are coming. And I need you safe before they do."