Chapter 21 #2
“And you make me laugh. I’ll never forget that feeling of dancing with you at the ball. I’d not laughed in so long. I’m not very good at it.”
He touched my face with the backs of his fingers. “You’re good at everything, and I won’t hear any different.”
I shook my head and reached up to cover his hand with my own—my hurt one, still bandaged, still tender. For the rest of my life, I would see my scarred hand and remember the fae tree, and how he’d shouted up at me as we climbed, refusing to let me give up.
“I’m not good at this,” I said desperately.
“Neither am I.” He sat back on his heels with a smile. “What a splendid match we are.”
“A monster,” I whispered, “and a menace.”
“A menace I most certainly am, but you are not a monster.”
“You thought I was when I killed Luthaes.” I looked up at him, steeling myself against the memory. “I saw your face after I bludgeoned him.”
“Well, I’d just nearly been killed, and yes, it startled me, but—”
My heart sank. I started to move away. “You see?”
“But,” he continued quickly, turning me back to him, “he deserved it. And you saved me. I just don’t have a strong stomach, I’m afraid.
” He smiled, his expression as tender as a spring morning.
“Although it’s gotten stronger, these last few weeks.
So much of me has grown stronger, and that’s all because of you. ”
I laughed sadly. “Because you’ve had to adapt to survive around me.”
“No—godsdamn it, Mara. It’s because everything about you makes me want to be better than I am.
” He cupped my face in his hands, then shifted to his knees and drew me up along with him.
“You make me want to work harder, fight harder, love harder than I ever have before. You’re so full of goodness that you lift up everyone around you simply by existing. ”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“What is? Love?”
I nodded miserably into the cradle of his hands, working so hard to stifle my rising sadness that my whole body ached.
“Isn’t it fitting, then,” he said gently, “in this world of horrors, to push back against all that danger with some of our own?”
That strange, perfect logic was my undoing. I leaned into him and pressed my forehead against his. His skin was so warm and smooth that I could barely resist nuzzling him.
“I can’t lose anything else,” I whispered.
“And I can’t promise you won’t lose me to something neither of us can control,” he said back to me, his voice quiet and grave, only a slight tremble belying his outward calm. “But what I can promise you is that however many days are left to me, I will love you for all of them.”
For a moment, all I could do was look at him—his eyes, so close to mine, green and fierce and earnest; the lone blond curl kissing the corner of his glasses.
Just outside the door, the snowstorm raged on, and any day—tomorrow, next week, next year—could bring the end.
For us, for everyone. But in this house, the air was warm and quiet, the fire crackled steadily, and we were safe.
For at least this night, we were safe, and as I beheld the gorgeous, brilliant, infuriating man before me, the last stubborn barrier inside me gave way.
“Gareth,” I whispered with a little sob, and then I leaned in and kissed him—softly, inelegantly, trying and failing to gather some semblance of composure. Tears rolled silently down my cheeks and onto his fingers, and after a moment I had to pull back from him and catch my breath.
As I rested my head against his shoulder, he stroked my hair in its messy bun, tenderly smoothing back the loose, tangled strands.
He kissed the skin behind my ear, then worked his way down my neck—softly, carefully—until I’d fully melted into his embrace.
He cupped the back of my head with one hand and held my waist with the other, and I leaned back and let him explore.
His kisses were long and slow, luxurious, unhurried, so light and sweet against my skin that each new caress left me more desperate for the next one.
He kissed the hollow of my throat, his breath hot against my collarbone.
He brushed his lips against my cheeks and the corners of my mouth, then gently pulled my lower lip between his teeth.
The tender little bite made me cry out softly and raised goose bumps all down my body, which delighted him.
He hummed a low, satisfied sound and worked his way down my neck with softer and softer kisses while deftly undoing the ties of my coat.
I slid my hands into his hair and wound my fingers through it, holding him to me, and when he could go no farther, he said roughly against my skin, “Mara, the idea of unraveling you slowly, taking you apart piece by piece, drives me wild. I’ve dreamt of nothing else for weeks, but… ”
I bowed my head over his and murmured into his hair, “But you want me now.”
He pressed a kiss to the exposed skin right above my collar. His hands tightened around me. “Yes,” he said. “Gods, yes.”
The sheer rasping want in his voice made me shudder in his arms. I closed my eyes, smiling a little, and whispered, “Then have me.”
Suddenly the fire that had been kindling between us blazed eagerly to life.
I brought him back to me with a sharp tug of his hair, and he laughed breathlessly against my mouth and kissed me with such hunger that I felt dizzy.
When he pulled me to my feet, I swayed a little, which for a moment embarrassed me.
I wasn’t used to clumsiness, had barely fumbled even a single step in my entire life.
But then Gareth caught me, and I felt the hard length of him against my thigh, and that was the last time I thought about anything beyond my aching need for him to touch me.
I tugged off my coat and let it fall to the floor.
He started unbuttoning his shirt, but he wasn’t fast enough.
I helped him, leaning into him, laughing a little against his cheek as he cursed breathlessly, something about the uselessness of buttons.
Together we slid off his shirt, and then I dragged my hands down his torso.
He shuddered at my touch and took a staggering step back toward the bed.
I followed him, tugging his undershirt out of his trousers.
“I don’t know what’s worse,” I said, “buttons or winter layers.”
“It’s all terrible,” he agreed, and then my fingers touched the warm bare skin of his abdomen, and he jerked against my touch and let out a groan that nearly brought me to my knees.
Before I lost all control of my shaking legs, I stepped back from him to peel off my trousers, my tights, my socks.
Once my legs were completely bare, he sank onto the edge of the bed and pulled me back to him.
“Look at you,” he whispered, his hands on my naked hips.
“Look at how exquisite you are.” He pulled me even closer, nuzzled beneath my tunic, nudged up my undershirt, and kissed the trembling skin below my navel.
His hands drifted down my legs and then back up, tracing the shape of my rose tattoo.
Just when I thought I would scream from impatience, he kissed my stomach once more, his breath shaky against my skin, and gently pushed open my trembling thighs to circle his thumb against the hottest, wettest part of me.
I cried out and arched my hips toward him, clutching at his shoulders to hold myself up.
“Gods, you’re…” His voice broke on the words.
“You’re perfect. You’re a vision, Mara. You’re more beautiful than the moon.
” With each sentence, he pressed a kiss against the crease of my thigh, and then he looked up at me.
His lips were swollen from our kisses, his cheeks were flushed, and his hair was already an absolute disaster.
I’d never wanted anything as desperately as I wanted him—more of him, all of him. Again and again.
“I think,” he said slowly, with a little grin, “that you might perhaps be ready for me. Possibly. Though confirming it might take more investigation.”
“You idiot,” I gasped out, bracing myself against him as he slid a finger inside me, then another. “If you don’t have your way with me in the next five seconds—”
“You’ll explode?” He laughed, holding my hips firmly in place as he worked me expertly with his fingers. “That is the general idea, darling.”
He started moving faster, deeper, fisting my tunic in his other hand to pull me even closer. When he found just the right spot inside me, my knees nearly gave out, and my breath hitched around a little sob.
“Gareth, please—”
“Agreed,” he said breathlessly, with a choked little laugh.
He rose shakily to his feet, fumbling at his belt as I tugged off my tunic and undershirt, and when he pulled me back toward him and my bare skin finally met his, I nearly lost myself right then and there.
I slid my arms around his neck and kissed him, opening my mouth to his tongue.
He moved back toward the bed until he hit the mattress, tore off his glasses and tossed them onto his forgotten clothes, then sank down upon the bed and pulled me on top of him.
I clung to him, my arms tight around his neck, and started moving slowly, sliding up and down against his hard length—not letting him enter just yet, tormenting both of us. Each time I moved, his arousal pressed against me in just the right spot and brought me a little closer to the edge.
“You,” he murmured against my breasts, “are going to kill me.”
I smiled and started to reply—to tease him, to make him all the more ravenous for me—but then he flicked his tongue across one of my nipples and took it in his mouth, sucking gently, and my mind went blank.
“Keep doing that,” I whispered, and then I reached down to take hold of him—hot, eager, hard as iron and soft as velvet—and slowly sank onto him. Once I’d settled fully against him, he stilled and clutched my hips hard.
“Just a moment,” he said, his voice muffled against me.
I traced the line of his jaw and lifted his chin so I could see his eyes.
“Has the rogue librarian, master of sex and seducer of women, finally met his match?” I crooned.
“Absolutely,” he replied at once, fervently, “in every possible way.” His eyes, still locked on me, were dark with desire. I slid my arms back around his neck, my heart fluttering with anticipation, and started to move.
At first I was slow, deliberate, concentrating on memorizing every detail of this moment, of him, of us.
His kisses on my breasts, tender one moment and ravenous the next.
His hands on my thighs, the soft scrape of his teeth.
The maddening drag of pleasure every time I lifted myself up his length and then sank slowly back down, letting him fill me.
“Gods, you feel good,” he whispered hoarsely. “You feel like all the light that exists in the world, and none of the shadows.”
His trembling voice melted me. I curled my fingers into his hair, kissed the nearest smooth lock of it.
Then he slid one of his hands up to circle the back of my neck—insistent, questing, profoundly gentle—and that slight pressure left me completely undone.
This was not enough—not fast enough, not hard enough.
The ache between my legs was almost unbearable; I needed more.
I started moving faster, and immediately he tightened his grip on me, his fingers digging into me, helping me ride him.
His skin was slick under my palms and blazingly hot, and with each wet slap of my hips against his, I felt like I was going a little more mad.
His body ground against me in just the right spot, and gods, he was strong, tireless.
Soon I barely had to move; it was all him, pulling me down again and again, slamming our hips together.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and tucked my head against his, bearing down on him as much as I could, desperate for more.
I murmured it against his ear—more, more.
I was rising, everything inside me was rising, building toward completion.
I clenched around him, gasping, every inch of my body prickling, gathering, trembling.
My sense of rhythm had disappeared. I was helpless in his arms, my hips spasming against his.
“Yes, Mara,” he groaned against my neck, “that’s it, darling. Move on me. Let it come. I’m right behind you.”
I began to shake, and he held me even more tightly to him, not letting me ease up on the breathless, blinding pleasure breaking open inside me.
His thrusts grew erratic—sharper, harder.
He murmured over and over, each word rougher than the last, “Beautiful, you’re so beautiful, yes, Mara, yes, that’s it,” and when I finally came, the pleasure, the euphoric relief, was so overwhelming that I nearly blacked out.
I held on to him and cried out into his hair, gasping for breath, and not long after, he buried his face in my neck and finished inside me with a groan, my name on his lips—an incantation, a prayer.
He was right: he couldn’t promise I wouldn’t lose him, nor could I promise him the same.
But this—this passion between us, this instinctive understanding, the glory of finding happiness and clinging to it, no matter the danger—that was a promise we both could make. Unspoken and unbreakable.
We held each other for so long that my soaked skin cooled and I started to shiver, but even then I didn’t want to let go of him.
“Lie down with me, Mara,” he said at last, tenderly.
“Let me hold you.” Then he helped me off of his lap and guided me into bed beside him, and once we were settled and snug, I finally felt like it was safe enough to look at him—that he wouldn’t disappear, or be ripped away from me by some unnamed disaster waiting in the shadows.
I smoothed my thumb against his jaw. His stubble was coming in. I’d never seen it before. The last few days, I supposed, hadn’t allowed him the chance to shave. The sensation of it scraping against the pad of my thumb was unbearably sweet.
“What?” He smiled at me, soft and sleepy, his eyes shining as his gaze moved across my face. Then he turned his face to my palm and kissed it. “Gods, you’re an absolute love-mussed mess,” he murmured against my skin. “I’ve never seen anything so utterly beguiling in my entire life.”
“You and your clever tongue,” I whispered. “What can I say after that? After any of this?” I trailed my fingers softly through his hair, pressed a soft kiss to his lips, and lingered there, nuzzling my cheek against his.
“That, right there,” he said, drawing me gently against him. “That’s more than enough.”
He was deliciously warm, and he smelled of me, of us, of sex and sweat.
I nestled against his chest, feeling small and safe in his arms, quiet in heart and mind for the first time in as long as I could remember.
While the fire crackled on, I listened to the rise and fall of his breathing, basked in the caress of his fingers drawing lazy circles on my back—softly, softer, slowing—and let myself drift into sleep.