Chapter 38
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
NORA
Rain pounded. She chewed her lip. Airik hadn’t returned—he shouldn’t have been more than a few steps behind her. Nora pulled the collar of her shirt over her head again, hoping the fabric would provide some shield so she could find him.
Just as she crawled out from beneath her bedroll, something strong pushed her back.
Airik scowled down at her, bag protecting his head. He shoved a cloth-covered bucket beneath the makeshift shelter, blocking her.
“You’re back!” she beamed, sitting forward to make room for him.
He remained standing, water sliding off the sides of the bag in sheets.
Her smile faded. “Aren’t you going to get under?”
“No. It doesn’t hurt me.”
Even if the acid rain didn’t hurt him, he was still shivering in the cold. “Airik, please. I promise I won’t tell anyone.”
His frown deepened, hesitating.
Water seeped into the shelter around the edges of the bedroll. She winced as it dripped onto her exposed arm.
Growling, Airik ripped off his harness and set his sword against the tree.
He climbed into the shelter and slid behind her, his long legs on either side of her.
Now his back was to the tree, with Nora between his legs.
She held her breath, an attempt to control the chills flaring with the stings on her arms and face.
Heat ebbed and flowed across her back as he moved. He tapped something in the bedroll, and it unfolded to double its width, better sheltering them.
She sat straight, away from him. All this time, their remaining bedroll could’ve accommodated them both, but he hadn’t wanted it.
Pain, he’d told her. They’d punish him with a brand meant to inflict pain that could kill him.
Her throat constricted, imagining the type of torture inflicted on a soldier already used to it.
“Sit back,” he said, widening his legs. His feet were bare, his toenails black. He’d run back without his boots or knife.
Nora remained still, her muscles already cramping in the tight, curled position.
Airik dumped some of the fresh water from the bucket over his legs. “I’m clean now. It won’t hurt.”
“I’m okay sitting like this.”
His breath came hard, causing her loosened hair to brush her cheeks. He repeated something under his breath, so softly she could barely hear, until his breathing calmed.
She tried to do the same, but failed. Focusing on him had the exact opposite effect she wanted—to push down the desire he stirred in her chest.
“Are you afraid?” he asked quietly. “Of me? That I will hurt you if you move into me?” His words were hesitant. Somehow this man was convinced that his touch could corrode steel.
“Of course not. You’d never hurt me.”
I’m afraid of what will happen to us—to you—if I come any closer.
Two strong hands gripped her hips, swiftly pulling back until she slammed into his hard body. “I’ve said…” His hot breath filled the sensitive shell of her ear. “That I don’t like to ask things twice.”
With his pants still wet and her not wearing a stitch beneath his long shirt—having lost her most recent pair of panties in the river the day before—she felt the outline of everything. So she knew, with excruciating detail of his hard length against her ass, that she was not alone in her hunger.
Oh fuck, she thought, dropping her head against her knees.
He grabbed the towel and wet it again. “I’ll clean you.”
Nora spun back to him. “You can’t touch me.”
He wrapped his fingers around her wrist and drew her arm straight out. “You forget that for now, you are mine.” His large chest pressed against her back, the rumble of his voice reaching deep within her. “This soft skin—it is mine. I won’t let it hurt.”
There was no use fighting both him and her heart. “Okay,” she finally said.
He huffed. “Good girl.”
A whimper escaped her. She bit her lip, wanting to cry as her wet and ready pussy begged for him. She prayed he couldn’t smell arousal.
Airik trickled water over her arms, wringing the cloth until she was soaked. He wiped her exposed skin with a delicate touch, slow and careful, as if she were a priceless artifact he’d spent his whole life searching for.
She wanted to tell him he didn’t need to be so gentle. That he could touch her harder if he wanted. That she could take it like the good girl he thought she was.
He encircled her with his arms, spreading her fingers and wiping each one. With each finger, his breathing seemed to quicken. When he reached the final finger, he stopped, still holding her. With the rain’s burn banished and every sensation replaced by Airik’s heat, Nora wished to see his face.
The sound of rain faded. As soon as it stopped, Airik flung the bedroll aside. Yet even with the vast expanse of the world laid bare to them, there still didn’t seem to be enough air.
He held still for so long that Nora turned to see if he was all right.
“No,” he said, holding her still. “I’m not done.”
“Okay,” she said, agreeing to his unspoken request to let him keep touching her. She settled back against him.
Airik pushed her braid to the side, his fingers grazing the back of her neck.
Surely he had to have known her shirt would’ve protected the skin there.
Still, she dropped her head, baring more of herself.
He wiped her shoulders and neck with the cloth, working slowly but not slowly enough to make it last as long as she needed.
Much too soon, he finished.
There was a quiet splash as he dropped the cloth into the bucket. Her skin tingled. Not from pain but from wanting so intensely that it hurt.
Airik moved suddenly. Nora thought he was going to let her go, but before she could process what was happening, he’d wrapped an arm around her, his hand under her breast, clenching the fabric of her shirt.
A point of pressure flared at her hairline, by the scar behind her ear—his fingertip. She hung her head lower, letting him trace it and then the length of her spine down to her shoulder blades.
There was a rustle as he shifted, and a second later, the ends of his hair brushed her shoulders, his breath rapid and hot against her skin. The tip of his nose lightly touched her nape. He breathed in—slow, deep, and deliberate in intent.
Heart stuttering with panic, she turned to him.
She’d never wanted anything as much as she wanted him in that moment.
More than any bargain to amend past mistakes or the desire to slip into sadness so completely that she’d cease to exist. Here, with him, she thought it was possible to forget—for just a moment—the weight that crushed her, which had muddled into something so abstract that she couldn’t remember why she felt it or for what.
“You’re touching me,” she heard herself say.
“I am,” he said, a little like a question, eyes almost shut in a dreamy trance.
She thought he’d bend and take her lips with his. Driven by the same instinct that made her want to lick the water droplets from his skin, quenching a singular thirst that devastated her.
Instead, his eyes went wide, and he instantly released her. “You don’t want this—my touch.” He held his hand away from her, as if it had suddenly grown thorns. “I know that it has been made only to hurt—”
Unable to think beyond the loss of his touch, she caught his hand and laid it back on her braid. “It’s just my hair.” She brushed her cheek against his hand. “And I want this very much.”
Airik’s eyes blazed, peering at her from beneath long dark lashes. He swallowed, and his strong throat bobbed, disturbing a water droplet. She watched as it slid down his throat.
“I am…” A slow, almost-smile curled on his lips. Stunted, she thought, by whatever life and creed had left scars on his body. “Happy to hear your mouth make those words.”
She felt a tug as he forced his fingers through sections of her braid, entwining them together. “What else…do you want? Tell me. Whatever it is, I won’t tell you no.”
She blinked, stunned by his perfectly formed, if strangely accented words.
“What do you want, Nora?” he asked again, licking another stray drop from his lips.
The question was wholly foreign to her. But Airik, more familiar to her than any human had ever been, asked her plainly.
Without thinking, she nudged the tip of her nose against the smooth skin of his face, following the ridge of his scar.
I want to kiss you so much I think I might cry.
Airik’s breath came out sharply at the end of her thought.
Her hands flew to her mouth, realizing her mistake. Mortified, she turned to him, hoping he hadn’t understood. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud. I’m sorry—”
“Say it again,” he said. In the darkness, his eyes glowed brighter and brighter. Though he couldn’t possibly have known the word or what he was asking for, he watched her mouth as if he did.
Her cheeks went hot as he shifted closer so that his head hung over hers. “I do not want to ask twice,” he said, voice low.
The days had been long. Her muscles ached. And her hunger for something other than vacuum-packaged food and bland nutrition paste was eclipsed only by her need for him.
Unable to resist him a second longer, she shut her eyes and said, “I want to kiss you.”
He made a deep hum, acknowledging her. Then, he didn’t make another sound or move.
Feeling faint, Nora tried to push away to get more air. But he caught her braid, stopping her.
Using her hair like a leash, he pulled down, forcing her face up to him. “Kiss me.”
She swallowed the flutter in her belly. “Kissing means I have to touch you more. On your face.”
His brows drew together, considering her words, as if pained. “Then touch me more. I said before—anywhere you want. Even my face. If it’s you…it’s okay.” A whisper of a tremble threaded his voice as he spoke the next words. “Whatever a kiss is, Nora, please…do it to me.”
How could she ever resist him when he asked like that?
At his command, her lips parted. Every thought in her mind—the Veynari, their horrible brands, and whatever they would do to her—vanished.
There was nothing but Airik. She closed her eyes and pressed her lips to his.