Chapter 20
When I arrived at Ivyhill, I felt as if months had passed since I’d last set foot in the house, though it had been only three days. The moment I stepped into the entrance hall, the tight knots in my chest unraveled. I listened to the afternoon sounds I knew so well: the autumn breeze rustling across the golden lawn, the distant whickering of the horses being worked in their paddocks, the faint clatter of tea being set in the dining room.
This was where I belonged. Not Rosewarren, not the Citadel, not Wardwell. Here. Ivyhill.
Gilroy came out of the dining room just as I started across the entrance hall. At the sight of me, his stern countenance melted into one of stark relief. He set down his tray and hurried toward me, hesitated, then screwed up his face in defiance and pulled me into a fierce hug.
This was not the sort of thing Gilroy ever did, but I was glad for it. His stocky body was warm, his suit immaculately pressed. I held on to him, dizzy with my own relief. He, at least, had not been taken.
“My lady, it’s good to see your face,” he said gruffly. He pulled away and cleared his throat, tugging sharply on his waistcoat. “We’ve heard some of the news from Lord Gideon, but…with you and Lady Imogen gone…”
He fell silent, clearly overwhelmed. The more emotional Gilroy became, the more his bushy black eyebrows turned down, as if a fearsome frown would help him remain unflappable when nothing else could.
“I’m well, and so are Gemma and Mara, whom we’ve just seen up at the priory. Gemma will be here shortly. She had some things to attend to.” Or would she disappear to Wardwell? I didn’t think so, despite all her grand ideas. Talan would come here if he needed help, and so here Gemma would stay.
The thought brought me a fierce, almost smug satisfaction. I should have been ashamed of the feeling, but I was too tired for further shame, my body still aching from Yvaine’s attack and my heart heavy. I took Gilroy’s white-gloved hands in mine.
“Tell me, Gilroy,” I said. “You’ve heard of what’s happened. Are you…” I swallowed. I would not think of Gareth, I could not, not now, not until I’d taken stock of my home. “Are you all here and safe?”
“No one’s been taken from Ivyhill,” came the answer from behind me. Father was descending the stairs. I noticed with relief that he looked clean and groomed; he wore a fresh suit. He looked sober, even solemn. He came to the bottom of the stairs and couldn’t quite meet my eyes. I wonder if he’d seen me embrace Gilroy, and when I tried to remember the last time I’d embraced him , I realized with a twinge of dismay that I couldn’t. I fought against the guilty feeling; if we no longer embraced as we once had, if indeed we hardly saw each other, it was his fault, not mine.
“As soon as I heard what had happened,” Father went on quietly, “I took a count of everyone. All our staff, all our tenants, all their staff. Ivyhill hasn’t been touched.”
A wave of relief swept through me. “And Derryndell?” The nearest town.
Father’s expression darkened. “Four were taken from Derryndell. Two children, a young woman, a man of seventy. None of them Anointed. The woman is a low-magic oracle with a fortune-telling shop in the center of town. Neither children nor the man possess any magic at all.”
My heart sank. So this time was different. This time, the Anointed weren’t the only targets.
“What does it mean, my lady?” Gilroy said, his voice grave.
They were both looking at me, eager for an answer. I’d just been to the Citadel and Rosewarren; surely I came with news.
But all I could do was tell them a half truth. “I don’t know.”
What I didn’t tell them was what we’d learned from Nerys—that there was a place called both Mhorghast and Moonhollow. A city where the sun never shone, ruled by He Who Is All, where Olden beings held revels and tormented humans. What had Nerys said? And humans…there they become the animals they truly are. Pathetic dregs of weak-minded gods.
Imagining what that could mean, picturing Gareth trapped in such a horror, my knees nearly buckled under me. Father must have seen my distress before I managed to mask my expression; he moved toward me, then hesitated. I couldn’t look at him, couldn’t bear his disappointment, his shame, all his feelings that had been mine to tend to for far too long. And I worried that if he looked into my eyes for too long, he would read things I didn’t want him to see—Philippa’s face, and Mara’s, cruel and cold as she regarded the harpy in her chains.
Instead I asked Gilroy to have tea sent up to my rooms and then left them both for the grounds. I would walk for what remained of the daylight and hope that the air of Ivyhill would scrub my mind clean.
***
It didn’t.
That night, I couldn’t sleep, my mind fevered, my body restless. Moonhollow. Mhorghast. Yvaine. Nerys. Philippa. The shapes forming in the Three-Eyed Crown’s shadows, pulled into being by Heldine’s spellwork and Gemma’s glamours: an egg, a goblet, a key, a black lake under a full moon. Ryder’s hands, Ryder’s mouth, Ryder’s body and warmth and strength, his voice cracking against my neck as he moved in me. A whirl of images, memories, questions. I stretched my arm across my bed and closed my eyes, trying to imagine Ryder’s weight next to me, the slash of his beard in the sputtering candlelight, the deep rhythm of his breathing as he slept and dreamed.
Osmund jumped up onto the bed with a chirruping meow, interpreting my outstretched arm as an invitation. I lifted him onto my stomach, let him purr and knead for a good half hour, then decided I’d go mad if I stayed in bed a moment longer. I kissed his head between his silken black ears, left him staring at me grumpily from the pillows, and went downstairs to the library in my dressing gown. If I couldn’t sleep, I would work. Our family’s archives were among the best in the country. Gareth was far from the only scholar to regularly visit our collections. I would read everything I could about the gods. I would search the reference catalog for any mention of significant goblets, keys, eggs. I would make a list of every lake in Gallinor, in Aidurra, in Vauzanne, and make note of any folktales, legends, and customs born on their shores. I was no scholar, but I could read, and I could use a reference catalog. I could do something .
But Gemma was already there, Una curled up at her feet. She sat at a candlelit table in the library’s heart, books and maps spread out around her. A silver kettle of fresh coffee steamed at her elbow. She was barefoot and distracted, chewing on her pen. The book she was reading was bigger than her entire torso. She was rapt, squinting at it. She drew the candelabra closer, then scribbled something on the piece of paper at her elbow.
My heart ached to see her there. She hadn’t gone to Wardwell, as I’d suspected she wouldn’t, but she hadn’t come to tell me that herself. I’m home, Farrin. I’m safe. I thought you’d want to know. And you’re right. Whatever Philippa may be able to teach us? I don’t want it.
I should have never even considered that she would leave home in such a way. I stayed in the shadows for a moment, watching her, all the words I wanted to say held tight behind my teeth. I could sit with her, read along with her. We could take notes together, maybe even begin to whisper our questions and fears aloud. What did it mean, to be a demigod? We believed Philippa, didn’t we? Could we teach ourselves without involving her at all? Explore our powers together with Mara and let Philippa rot up at her precious Wardwell?
But I knew that wouldn’t happen. Instead I’d snap at Gemma, say something nasty about Philippa, bristle at anything and everything. I’d disrupt Gemma’s peace simply by being there; all my seething thoughts would seep out and infect her. And she already had so much to bear—Talan, her panic, her pain—without me around to make it worse.
Una was watching me with her great dark eyes, though she hadn’t yet lifted her head. I sent her silent thanks for her discretion and left them. I wandered the quiet house like a specter might haunt her place of death—untethered, agitated.
Morning came, and with it at least one decision, a pinprick of light in a roiling black storm. I couldn’t wait five more days to see him again. No, I needed him now.
I needed Ryder.
***
I used the lagoon’s hidden greenway and emerged shivering and wet in the forest of Ravenswood, cursing my past self for not planning ahead. I could have left fresh clothes tucked away in a thicket somewhere for just such an occasion. I could have done that; I should be dry and calm. I could have, I should be.
The words rattled through my head as if pulled on a noisy chain. A chain as noisy and cruel as those that had bound Nerys in her chamber? Or those that perhaps held Gareth in whatever prison he now found himself in?
I shook myself, wrestling for calm I knew would not come, and marched on through the forest for an hour, then two. The sky rumbled. It was only midmorning, yet everything was dark. Black clouds roiled overhead, tinged with green. Distant lightning flashed. The air was acrid and stark, as if shot through with the ice of angry magic. Some foul energy prickled at me, raising the hair on my arms. I felt as though I were being watched, like the storm cloaked a hundred seeking eyes. My exhaustion was making me imagine things; a storm was simply a storm, I told myself, even knowing it was a lie. Nothing was simply itself in these northern lands, with the Mist spreading ever outward.
Finally, I reached the stables where I’d trained with Ryder, just as fat, cold drops of rain began to fall. I held my breath, searching the yard, the surrounding trees. My muscles ached; my heart ached. Was he here? Was he up at the house? Had he gone to a village somewhere in the Mistlands?
Then a flicker of movement caught my eye, and I saw him. He was leading two horses into the stables, perhaps after having worked them in the yard. They followed him eagerly, like ducklings trotting after their mother, and once they were inside, Ryder began shutting the stables’ doors and windows, closing out the storm. At the final door, he shot a look up at the clouds, then began to shut himself into the stable. So, he would not be going back up to the house. I was glad; I didn’t want to set foot in that place.
I found my courage and hurried over to him before he could fasten the door. He saw me slipping through the gate and waited for me, then closed the stable door once I was inside, where everything was warm and strewn with clean hay, the air sweet with oats and horses. I turned to him, my mind racing as I tried to figure out how best to explain myself. I couldn’t sleep last night. I’m so angry at everything—the world, my parents, myself—that I can’t concentrate on anything but that.
I’ve missed you.
Before I could speak, his arms came around me, and I melted into his embrace.
“I’ve missed you,” he said, his voice deep and rumbling.
I smiled against his chest, dizzy with gratitude. “After only two days?”
“In fact, I started missing you the moment we parted.” He put his hand in my hair, then let out a soft, irritated grunt. “Farrin, you’re icy cold. Come here, love.”
He took my hand gently, and I followed him without question down a quiet hallway, past tidy rooms of stored tack and stacked sacks of feed. At the end of it stood a small room with a stove, a chair, a chest of drawers, a bed. A metal rod with clothes hung upon it spanned the room on one side. There was a faded blue rug on the floor and a messy stack of books on a small bedside table of polished walnut.
I froze on the threshold, tears pricking my eyes as I took in the room. It was the humblest, coziest, sweetest space I’d ever seen, and a fist of sadness squeezed my heart as I realized what it meant.
“Did you come here when you were younger?” I whispered. “To get out of the house?”
“I did,” he answered simply. “Father never liked the smell of horses, so I knew he wouldn’t come here. Trina had— has —her own room at the other end.”
He practically growled the word has . Then he brought me clothes: a soft flannel shirt, linen trousers, a pair of thick woolen socks. He stood there frowning at them, then at me. “These will be far too big for you, of course.”
I took them gratefully, held them to my chest. “They’re perfect.”
Our eyes met, and I felt suddenly bashful of my tangled hair and muddy clothes. But Ryder’s expression held no judgment, his gaze so soft that my cheeks burned to behold him. He came to me with a towel, kissed my forehead, and said quietly, “Take your time. I’ll be just down the hall.” He closed the door behind him.
In the quiet, the stove crackling softly, I peeled off my sodden clothes and hung them as best I could by the fire, grateful that this room held no mirrors. If it had, I wasn’t sure I could have done so much as take off my boots. The clothes Ryder had given me were soft and clean, and they smelled like him. I stood for a moment and closed my eyes, feeling enveloped in him through his clothes—his touch, his scent, the warmth of him. I combed the snarls out of my wet hair and weaved it into a loose braid, listening to the thunder rumbling quietly, the steady rain driving against the roof. The storm was fully here, and I was glad. The sound of it was strangely comforting, like the familiar industrious hum of Ivyhill. I took a steadying breath, opened the door, and padded down the hallway in my sock feet.
I found him in one of the tack rooms, folding the horses’ blankets. Of course he hadn’t been able to just sit still and wait for me. He looked up at my approach and froze, then set down the blanket he was holding and sat on a nearby bench with a sharp exhale, something like a laugh. He dragged a hand through his dark hair, which he wore loose to his shoulders.
“I wasn’t at all prepared for that,” he said with a rueful smile. His blue eyes shone in the lamplight. “You look so beautiful right now that I think you should forego ever wearing your fine dresses again and instead simply raid my wardrobe. From now on, it’s trousers and flannel work shirts for you, my beauty, and huge socks especially.”
With his delighted gaze upon me, I felt warm down to my toes, and newly bold. I turned around as Gemma might to model one of Kerrish’s new gowns. “It’s the newest style. Clothes so big you’re practically swimming in them.”
He laughed, his expression soft and dear. “The next royal ball should be interesting. Everyone will be tripping over their hems.” Then he leaned back against the wall and regarded me. “You came here, I think, because you missed me as much as I missed you. But there’s something else, isn’t there?”
Now I was the one to laugh ruefully. “There are many things. Too many. My mind is full of questions and doubts and…” I sighed, shook my head. “And anger . Anger at so many things I can’t begin to untangle them. It all sits right here.” I tapped my throat. “A burning, an ache I can’t dislodge. And when I’m with you…”
I hesitated, my courage faltering. I could say it, but I couldn’t look at him when I did. “When I’m with you, that ache is easier to bear.”
He was quiet for a moment, then said, “I understand that, both the anger and the relief. The peace that comes when I’m with you. All your anger, your mighty shields, and underneath you’re still soft as a kitten, Farrin.” I heard a smile in his voice. “You inspire me. Did you know that?”
I made myself look at him then, drinking in the sight of him. This bear of a man, sitting patiently before me with his diamond eyes and his dark beard, the folds of his plain gray shirt falling around his broad torso as finely as any royal silk.
“Would you like to talk about any of it?” he asked.
I shook my head, my mouth suddenly dry, my heart racing.
“What would you like to do, then?” His deep voice was velvet soft.
“I want to make love with you,” I said quickly, the words spilling out of me. “I want to…I want to see you. And I want you to see me, all of me. I want to feel…” I paused, flushing.
“You want to feel safe,” he finished quietly.
I nodded. “Yes, I want all of those things, I do, desperately, but…it will be difficult for me. So I’m telling you now, before I lose my words. I want this. I want you. All of you. But I don’t want to make the decisions—what to do next, how to move—because I’ll end up talking myself out of everything. So can you do that, please? Can you…” I hesitated, lifted my gaze to his. “Can you take charge of things completely? I think it will help me if you do.”
“Farrin.” He held out his arms to me. “Come here.”
I obeyed, grateful for even that small direction. I climbed into his lap and nestled against him, sighing happily when his arms slid around me. He held me there, stroking my back; I could feel his heart pounding against mine, the quickening of his breaths. Rain drummed against the roof, sheets of it pulsing in the wind.
Ryder pulled back and looked up at me, stroking my cheek with his thumb. “I can do all of that for you,” he said, “for us, but you must promise me something. If at any point you feel hesitation or discomfort and want to stop, you have to tell me. You know yourself. You know the difference between being brave and being needlessly self-punishing.”
I laughed a little, shaky in his lap. “I’m not sure that I do. But I will tell you. I promise. I might tell you too much.”
He shook his head, traced his fingers along my jawline. “There’s no such thing. I’ll stop whenever you want me to. We can stop right now if you want.”
“No,” I whispered, trembling at his touch. “Don’t stop.”
He nuzzled my cheek, kissed the hollow of my throat. I leaned into him, letting my eyes flutter shut as I reveled in the strength of his hands at my neck and hips, holding me to him. His lips blazed a slow, sweet path past the collar of my shirt. His shirt. Remembering that made me squirm, my hips shifting. He let out a sharp hiss.
“Do that again,” he said, very low.
I obeyed, rolling my hips against his. Even through our clothes, I could feel the hard heat of his desire between my legs. The slight pressure—hard against soft—sent a thrill of pleasure blooming through me. I let out a breathy laugh, bore down on him again and again, seeking more of that, more of him . His hands were on my hips, helping me move, determining our rhythm. He kissed my neck, my collarbones, nudged the shirt aside. It was so loose on me that it slipped easily off my shoulder, baring my skin. The shock of cold air made me shiver, but not for long.
“Hold on to me,” he whispered, and I slid my arms around his neck and let him carry me back down the hallway to his room. The light was soft, the air warm from the stove. He set me on my feet beside the bed and drew me up against him for a long, slow kiss. He cradled my head in his hands, and I stretched up to meet him, my skin prickling everywhere he touched me.
“I have an idea,” he murmured against my mouth. A kiss, and then another, my lips tingling from the soft scratch of his beard. When he pulled away, I swayed closer, bereft.
“But wait,” I protested. My words came out a little slurred; I was already drunk on his kisses, and I needed more of them. I curled my fingers into his shirt and tugged on it gently, whimpering a little.
He smiled, tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, rewarded my pleading with a kiss. He drew my lower lip gently between his teeth, and I shuddered at the feeling, new to me and scorching.
“Do you trust me?” he asked me, his brow pressed to mine, and though months ago I’d have answered such a question with laughter, suspicion, hatred—now, when I leaned into his touch with my eyes half closed, I felt only certainty, a slow-blooming calm.
“I trust you,” I whispered, smiling up at him. He drew me against him, kissed my hair, my temples, and held me for a moment with a sort of fierceness, as if convincing himself that this was real, that I was real. And then he began.
Slowly, Ryder slid the shirt off my shoulders, as far as it would go without him undoing any buttons. The fabric gliding against my skin—the way the sleeves fell down my arms, trapping them gently against my torso—brought me an unexpected prickle of desire. And then Ryder fisted his hand in the voluminous fabric hanging off my back, tightening the shirt even further around my arms, and used it to tug me harder against him.
The shock of pleasure was incredible and made me cry out, a sound I couldn’t contain. Being trapped by him, his arms like hot iron around me, not knowing what he would do next—and yet knowing all the while that one word from me would end it, that every moment, every second, he was listening to me and reading me, that if I lost my voice he would help me find it—the unfamiliar duality was overwhelming. He was stronger, laughably so, and yet his every kiss, his every touch skimming down my arms felt reverent, like a prayer said with his body. He was the mountain, intractable and mighty, but I was the god who could undo him with a wave of my hand.
I let my eyes drift shut as he lowered his head to my bared shoulders. He kissed every exposed inch of skin, followed each kiss with a smooth, slow glide of his hand. A stroke, a caress, and then another, his fingers feather soft and teasing. And then he murmured hoarsely against the fabric pulled taut across my breasts, “Farrin, turn around.”
My stomach tightened at the sound of his voice; my knees went wobbly. I hesitated, looked up at him.
“Should I stop?” he whispered.
His eyes were soft, a tender blue. Marvelous, how those eyes could change, like daggers of ice when he was angry or sweet as bluebells when he was happy. I touched his face, traced the line of his dark brow.
“Don’t stop,” I told him, and then I turned around, facing the stove, and I held my breath, waiting for what I knew would come—what I dreaded, what I hoped for.
His hands settled first on my shoulders—huge and warm, like the weight of a favorite blanket. He kissed my braid, then my neck, and then he reached around me and found the buttons of my shirt. His shirt—every time I remembered that was like a new, thrilling discovery. I was wearing Ryder’s shirt, and now he was unbuttoning it, slowly, carefully. With each button, his fingers brushed against my breasts, then my navel, then the trembling skin below it. I closed my eyes, my body tightening under his touch. I swayed back into the heat of him; my body knew what it wanted, even with its pounding heart and fluttery nerves. He slid the sleeves off of my arms, let the fabric fall to the floor.
I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing myself to feel the air on my bared skin and not recoil from it. My mind began to race. What did my back look like? I certainly didn’t know. Was I still beautiful to him? The trousers he’d lent me were comically large; even with the waistband rolled over twice, I hardly dared to move for fear they would fall. Suddenly this seemed not endearing but childish. My feet were sweating in my borrowed socks. Tears pricked my eyes.
Then Ryder’s arms came around me once more, this time to find my hands. I’d balled them into nervous fists, and he gently unfolded them, twined my fingers with his for a moment, kissed the dip between my shoulder blades. He then released me and brought his hands to my shoulders, started gently kneading my tense muscles. The steady press of his thumbs, the soft drag of his fingers down my spine, was the best thing I’d ever felt. I reached back and grabbed on to his shirt, steadying myself.
He laughed quietly. “I thought you would like this. Gods.” His breath was hot on the tender skin behind my ear. “Your skin is unfairly soft. I could do nothing but touch your back for the rest of my life and be happy.”
I let out a soft puff of laughter, shivering anew with each caress of his hands. “Now you’re just flattering me.”
“No, I’m simply speaking the truth.” He circled his hands around my waist, his fingers spanning the trembling skin of my belly. He pressed his thumbs into the dip of my lower back, making slow circles, each one unspooling me. I felt limp under his touch and leaned my head back against his chest, not thinking of how that might expose me until I heard his indrawn breath.
He slid his hands up my belly, cupped my breasts, circled his thumbs around my nipples. I arched into him and cried out softly. I reached back for his head, grabbed at his hair. I didn’t know what I wanted, but I knew I wanted him closer.
Gently, he released me and helped me stand upright. “No, not yet,” he said, a smile in his voice. “First it’s your turn.” I heard him move a little and felt the cold of his absence against my back. “You can turn around. I’m not looking.”
I hesitated, then obeyed. He was standing with his back to me, his arms at his sides. Even so, my skin prickled with goose bumps; he could turn around at any moment and see more of my body than whatever flashes of it I’d nervously glanced at over the years. But with the memory of his hands on me, the echo of his lips on my skin, that possibility didn’t seem so terrifying.
And yet my heart still thundered as I went to him and began unbuttoning his shirt, as he had unbuttoned mine. At first I felt a little silly doing it; I fumbled to find each button, much clumsier than he had been. But then I began to notice how rigidly he held himself, how his breath came quiet and quick, the heat of him radiating under my palms as if he were the sole source of warmth in this room, of light, of life. The state of him, all tense anticipation and quiet yearning, emboldened me; I found my courage and finished.
His shirt fell to the floor, and the sight of his naked back took my breath away. He was all muscle and taut skin, every line of his body one of beauty and power. But what shook me most of all was the faint web of scars crisscrossing his skin—silvery and thin, quite old. He could’ve easily gotten rid of such scars; the Basks could certainly afford the finest salves and the best healers in the north. But Ryder had kept them, and I thought I understood why.
“Your father’s work?” I said, quiet anger in my voice.
He nodded, fists at his sides.
“And you kept them so that every now and then he might see them and remember?”
He nodded again. “To remind him. And to remind myself.”
I stood on tiptoe and pressed a kiss to each scar. My touch seemed to calm him; his shoulders loosened and his fists unclenched. Tenderness such as I’d never known ached in my chest. I wrapped my arms fully around him, pressed my bare skin against his. His hands came up to seize mine. I felt his heartbeat under my fingers.
“I’m turning around now,” he said, and I nodded against his back, my heart pounding fast, and when we faced each other fully, a softness came over his face. His eyes shone. There was no other word for it: he was marveling at me.
“Farrin in the stove light,” he said, a smile playing at his lips. He shook his head. “You’re exquisite, love. If I were the savant and you the wilder, I’d write a thousand songs about you.”
That made me laugh, relieved and delighted and perilously near tears. “A thousand? That seems excessive.”
I began to cross my arms over myself without really thinking about it. I wasn’t used to being naked for longer than it took to bathe or dress, and though I still wore my trousers and socks, I might as well have been completely bare for how exposed I felt.
“No, Farrin.” He came to me and lowered my arms, firm but gentle. He turned my face up to his, kissed my cheeks, the corners of my mouth. “You trust me, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I whispered, letting my eyes fall closed, letting my arms hang loose. “Yes.”
“Then help me undress.”
I did, my fingers shaking, and when he stood completely naked before me, I burned at the sight of him: his obvious strength, the grace in even his smallest movements. I felt some of my nerves melt away. I knew that body, even though I hadn’t seen it properly until now. I knew the tenderness of his hands, the weight of his muscles, how it felt to be filled by him.
He let out a low groan and came to me, cradled my head in his hands, and kissed me deeply, his tongue opening my mouth, his hands sliding into my hair. I stretched as tall as I could, then slipped my arms around his neck. I felt his hard length between us, pressing against my stomach, and whimpered into his kiss.
“When you look at me like that,” he murmured against my lips, “it makes me forget all the bad, and I can think of only the good.”
I nuzzled his cheek. “When I look at you like what?”
“Like you want what I want.”
I shivered as his hands slid down my back. He tugged at my pants, fumbling at the knot I’d tied in the drawstring so they had a chance of staying on.
I laughed a little, reveling in his obvious, earnest desire. “And what do you want?”
“To love you, Farrin,” he whispered, dropping a kiss in my hair. “All I want is to love you.”
His words opened something in me—a door I hadn’t known was there, a door that had been locked all my life. To be safe in the arms of such a man, to be loved for everything I was, to feel the rightness of my angry, lonely heart meeting another. I held him fiercely to me. I wanted more of him but couldn’t find the right words to say so. “Ryder,” I begged, with only that single, gasped word.
He seemed to understand. He grabbed the fabric of my trousers in both hands and shoved them down past my hips. They slid down my legs to pool on the floor, and then his hands were on me, cupping my backside, pulling me close.
“Gods, you’re…” He buried his face in my neck, kissed me hard, sucked on my skin. “Beautiful Farrin. You’re exquisite, love. A sunrise in my arms.” He laughed ruefully. “Soon you’ll have me writing poetry in your honor.”
My whole body warmed at his words. I pressed myself toward him, let him gather me up against his body. The glide of skin on skin took my breath away; it hadn’t been like this with Gareth, nor in any of my scattered, clumsy fantasies. I felt like a mere bird in his hands, light as air but sheltered against all wind and storms, all enemies. My many worries were gone; the weight strapped to my shoulders had lifted.
He guided me toward the bed, which boasted a fine blue quilt, a blanket of gray cashmere, and two pillows stuffed with down. It was a bed in a room in a stable, but he was a Bask, after all. I sank luxuriously into the fine fabric and reached for him, ready to welcome him into my arms, but he wasn’t there. He knelt at the foot of the bed and peeled off my socks, the last bit of clothing I wore. My cheeks burned as he kissed the arches of my feet, the turns of my calves. I had no idea what I looked like from such an angle; a quick swoop of doubt winged its dark way through my heart.
“Ryder—” I began, ready to stop him, flushed from head to toe with embarrassment and wanting, so frustrated I could cry.
But then his hands slid up my legs, and he was kissing my thighs, parting them gently, and with my name on his lips, he sank down and put his mouth on me—right there between my legs, on the softest, hottest part of me.
I arched up against him with a gasp. My hands flew to his head, grabbed his hair. I’d never felt such a thing: his tongue stroking me, his lips lightly sucking on my skin. Ecstasy . That was the word. With his every touch, my pleasure crested higher and higher, white-hot and aching.
He paused to look up at me. The sight of him there, settled happily between my thighs, was its own kind of magic. My legs were jelly, my stomach tight and trembling. I laughed shakily, sinking back into the pillows.
“Should I stop?” he murmured against my skin.
“Gods, no,” I burst out, making us both laugh. Then he buried his head between my thighs again, and I was no longer laughing. I had no lover to compare him to—Gareth had not done such a thing, perhaps hadn’t known to do it or how to do it; we’d been so young—but Ryder’s skill was obvious even to me. He flicked his tongue lightly, sucked at my tender skin, kissed the damp crease of my thigh. I grabbed fistfuls of the quilt, twisting hard under his mouth. He reached up for my wrists and firmly pinned them to the bed, stilling me. The weight of him holding me down, the sureness of his kisses—I could hardly breathe, every inch of my body pulled tight. Then, with one more hard press of his tongue, I shattered.
Pleasure rushed through me in hot waves, each golden crash unwinding all the tension of my body. The world was soft and dark, pulling me into a delirious haze—until I felt Ryder moving up my body, his skin hot against mine. We were both sweating, both breathing hard. Everywhere he touched me was too much, a lightning bolt of sensation that bordered on pain, but I craved it even so and twisted against him, pleading with only my body, my breath. I felt him between my thighs, let my legs fall open to welcome him. He grabbed them, hooked them roughly around his hips.
“Like this,” he said, his voice hoarse, desperate. When he kissed me, I could taste myself on his tongue. “I want to feel your legs around me. Understand?”
I nodded, breathless, my blood roaring. To be handled by him with such certainty, such quick masculine strength, nearly made me come apart again. I teetered on the edge of pleasure, ravenous for it, murmuring nonsense, practically begging. Almost there, he was almost there . I let out a soft frustrated cry, shifted my hips underneath his.
He went still above me, his weight heavy and hot and fitting perfectly against me. He fisted one hand in my hair, gently pulled my head back to bare my neck, and nibbled lightly at my skin. So held by him, I couldn’t move, and I didn’t want to. I wanted to live forever in the sturdy nest of his arms, in the gorgeous freedom of this surrender.
“Should I stop?” he whispered. He lifted his head, and our gazes locked. My legs trembled around his hips.
I shook my head. “Don’t stop.”
And he obeyed.