Chapter Nineteen #2
“Nae, lass,” he murmured as he eased her arms away from her body.
Heat rushed into her cheeks, and she lifted her eyes to his, suddenly uncertain what she would see in his eyes.
Whatever she had expected, it was not the expression that met her. He regarded her with such quiet admiration that her self-consciousness began to melt away. She had never been looked upon with such tenderness, and she found that she did not wish to hide from him after all.
He bent his head and pressed his lips against the skin he had uncovered, his lips resting first upon her shoulder before traveling no farther than the curve of her collarbone. Each kiss was unhurried, until the shyness that had momentarily tightened her chest gave way to a rising exhilaration.
––––––––
He moved closer again, his hand rising up between them to surround her breast. His hand was large and firm upon her, cupping and lifting her breast until it filled his hand.
His thumb grazed over her nipple and Avery marveled at the wonder of this, so much uproar in that previously unused part of her body.
When he lowered his head and his mouth joined his hand at her breast, Avery died a little death. Her breathing spasmed, a sound escaped, sounding to her ears much like a purr.
His lips traced a slow path down the slope of her breast until his mouth closed around her nipple.
The sensation was so unexpected that her breath caught, and she lifted her hands, her fingers tightening instinctively in his hair.
His tongue swirled gently, teasing the sensitive peak until it hardened beneath his touch, and just as she began to adjust to the warmth of his mouth, his teeth grazed her skin.
A sharp gasp escaped her, her back arching involuntarily as pleasure and surprise tangled together.
His grip on her tightened, one hand splayed across her back while the other cradled her breast, holding her steady as he explored her with deliberate care.
The scrape of his teeth sent a jolt through her, sharp and sweet, and she found herself pressing closer, her body seeking more of the sensation even as her mind struggled to keep pace.
His breath moved across her skin, humid and hot, the sharpness of his jaw and the rasp of his stubble raking a slow, perfectly unhurried path over her breast. Each graze left a vibrating trail that seemed to travel not outward, but in, lighting up nerves she’d never known could hunger this way.
He lingered there, tasting her, tongue flicking and lips tugging with playful, deliberate provocation, and only when her body trembled with anticipation did he move to repeat the same careful worship on the opposite side.
The rest of her had gone boneless, her legs threatening to crumple, and when they did, he caught her by the waist and lifted her easily, as though she weighed nothing.
She made a choked sound—not from fear, but from the vulnerable delight of being handled so gently and yet so confidently, as if her body was a wild thing he alone could coax into trust. He sat her on the edge of the table and pressed himself between her knees, the expanse of his body swallowing the boundary of her own.
The feel of him against her—hard, wanting, and utterly intent—sent a shock through her core that was not fright, but a kind of wild awe.
He kissed her again, this time not with the greedy urgency of before, but with a slow, deep intent that pulled her under.
She could feel his hands on either side of her face, his thumbs stroking her jaw in time with the movement of his lips.
When she shuddered, he responded not in conquest, but with a drawing in, holding her so close she thought he might break her apart only to gather her up again.
She wanted, desperately, to keep him there, to hold this sudden, white-hot sense of belonging, to banish all the cold years behind her in the heat of his presence.
It was as if he read her thoughts. His hands drifted lower, tracing the path down her ribs to her hips, and then to her thighs, leaving behind a trail of goosebumps.
She realized, dizzily, that she had no experience for any of this—all reference points were from books, from half-remembered movies, from the abstract knowledge that people did these things and somehow survived the shattering vulnerability of it.
Morggán paused at length, his stormy gaze locking with hers.
And then, with deliberate intent, he reached first for his sword belt, his fingers working the buckle with the unhurried ease of a man who had done it ten thousand times.
The leather slid free and he set it aside.
Then he crossed his arms and gathered the gambeson at its hem, drawing it up and over his head.
The tunic followed. She watched all of this. She could not have looked away.
She had seen him wounded, had seen him diminished by pain and fever, his body a problem to be solved.
She had not seen him like this—whole and wanting, the firelight pooling in the hollows of his collarbones, tracing the long muscles of his abdomen, illuminating the silver threads of old scars that crossed his ribs like a map of every close call he had survived.
He was extraordinary. The word arrived in her mind with the blunt force of fact.
Her hands moved without instruction from her.
Her palms found the warmth of his chest, and she felt the breath leave him at her touch—felt the deep, involuntary stillness of a man trying to hold himself together.
Beneath her fingers his heartbeat was rapid and insistent.
She spread her hands wider, wanting more of him, wanting to learn him by touch.
At the same time, he nudged his boots off, one by one, and reached for the ties of his breeches, all the while watching her—no, studying her, as if trying to memorize this moment that would never be repeated.
He undressed without the reticence or hesitation he must have seen in her, as if the act itself was neither performance nor invitation but simply the next irrevocable step in what they’d already begun.
His shirt gone, his sword and belt set aside, he slipped the breeches and underwear over his hips, exposing skin as pale as his chest was tan, and marked by yet another constellation of old wounds, each scar a story she didn’t know.
And below that, the part of him she had no experience with, hard and urgent in a way that sent a cold thread of nervousness through the heat he’d created in her.
Her eyes moved there once and then away, her throat tightening.
There was nothing shy or veiled about the way he stood before her; the vulnerability in him was not in his nakedness, but in the way his eyes searched hers for some sign of refusal, of fear, or even regret.
There was none. Avery watched—hungry, curious, unafraid.
He stepped toward her again, and as he did, she realized she had never seen a man so physically certain, so perfectly at home in his own body, and yet so patient with hers.
His hands returned to her, again at her waist, and this time, with both of them nearly bare, the briefest contact sparked a line of fire down her spine.
She felt his breath, warm and uneven, stirring against her lips; she smelled the smoky tang of woodfire and the mineral sharpness of sweat and skin.
He paused there, so close their bodies all but touched, waiting for her to close the gap.
She did, leaning into him, the press of her breasts against his chest making her shudder in delight.
He shivered as well, his whole body tightening beneath her touch.
The sensation of his skin under her palms—the heat, the solidness, the reality of it—was overwhelming.
She pressed her mouth to the place where his neck met his shoulder, and felt his pulse hammering there, wild and unsteady.
His mouth found hers again, and this time the kiss was deeper, more urgent.
His tongue tangled with hers, exploring with a hunger that matched her own.
She answered him without hesitation, her hands sliding over the broad expanse of his shoulders, feeling the play of muscle beneath her fingertips.
The heat of him seeped into her, chasing away the last of her shyness, leaving only the raw, aching need to be closer.
She could feel the hard length of him pressing between her legs, even through the layers of cloth that separated them, and the sensation sent a jolt of awareness through her that was both thrilling and terrifying.
They continued for what felt like both a heartbeat and forever, exploring each other with awkwardness, tenderness, and then growing sureness, until he made a low, ragged sound in the back of his throat, and then his hands stilled.
He lifted her down from the counter’s edge and set her on her feet before him.
She felt the loss of his warmth immediately, but he did not go far—only dropped to one knee at her feet, unhurried, and began working at the laces of her short boots with the same focused attention he gave everything.
He drew each one off and set it aside. His hands moved slowly up her legs and he rose, his fingers arriving at her waist next, thumbs hooking the fabric at her belly, pulling at the ties and drawing down her pants with a deliberateness that made her knees unsteady.
Her hose and underwear followed, and he bent to remove them from one leg and the other.
When he rose, he took her face in both hands and kissed her once, softly, before finding her mouth again and walking her back, unhurried, until the cot met the backs of her legs.