23. Saige #2
After a simple supper of stale bread and cheese, I set up my bedroll a few feet away from Archer’s and settle in for the night. I lie on my back, with my blanket pulled up to my chin. I can see the stars shimmering beyond the canopy, in the gaps of the leaves.
“Archer,” I say quietly into the dark.
I’m met with a grunt that sounds like an irritated, what?
“Look up.”
“I’m sleeping.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I’m trying to,” he growls.
“The stars are out,” I tell him. “Bright enough to see even through the trees.”
“Go to sleep, bookbinder.”
I sigh to myself and burrow further into my blanket. One of these days I’ll get him to look up.
Night deepens around us, and with it, the formidable chill sweeps in.
I can taste the mist in the air, and I’m rigid on my bedroll, trying with every fiber of my being not to shiver, not to make a sound.
It’s fucking freezing. Without the campfire to dull the bite in the air, the cold settles in my bones and numbs my extremities.
Grim is off hunting, so I can’t bribe him with the last of my rations to keep me warm.
I don’t know how long I stay like that, or if I doze in and out of sleep. All I know is that the cold is painful and my body is in a state of seizure.
“For fuck’s sake.” Archer’s voice breaks through the silence, and I hear the rustling of his bedroll—his blanket he’d already given to me. There’s a swish of material and a flurry of movement beside me.
“What are you doing?” I ask into the dark.
“Shutting you up.” A warm arm falls across me, dragging me across my bedroll.
“I wasn’t saying anything,” I reply weakly as he slides beneath the blankets and hauls me against a heated wall of bare skin and hard muscle.
“No?” His arm tightens around me, and I nearly moan with relief as the warmth radiating from him seeps into my frozen body. “Does your stubbornness know no bounds? I thought you were going to crack a tooth… If you take off those outer layers, you’ll warm up faster.”
I can’t help myself. “Are you flirting with me, General?”
A rough laugh follows, skittering along my bones. “If I were flirting with you, you’d be on your back with your knees around your head already.”
I bolt upright, unsure for a second who the boldly spoken man beside me is. “Was that… another joke?”
“I’ve never been more serious in my life,” he deadpans.
Shaking my head in disbelief, I peel off the extra shirt and cloak and am quickly yanked back down into the blankets, swallowed once more by delicious comfort. Damn him, he’s right. Heat encompasses me, only a thin layer of material between me and his naked chest.
“What changed?” I murmur.
“Nothing.” And then a moment later he says, “I figured I owed you one for saving my life today.”
“And that’s all?”
“That’s all.”
I swallow the lump forming in my throat. “You didn’t want to be touched, and now…”
“I’m the one doing the touching, I know.”
“Archer…”
“Goodnight Grayson.” Archer says my name firmly, but gently, ending the conversation, but perhaps just for now. There’s a quiet steadfastness that wasn’t there before, as though having me in his arms somehow gives him strength.
The Black Flame holds me against him, surrounding me with his intoxicating scent and his addictive heat, his body molding to mine, the perfect fit.
My teeth stop chattering, but he doesn’t let go.
If anything, he draws me closer. His breath tickles the nape of my neck, and I can feel the steady drum of his heartbeat against my back.
We melt into one another, and though with our bargain I’m not free, I can’t remember a time where I’ve ever felt this safe.
Soft morning light spills through the canopy in beams, dotting the forest floor with golden patches of sun. It’s peaceful, and warm, and the uneasiness that usually presses down on me as I wake is less somehow. I slept, I realize groggily. Truly slept. For the first time since Leo died.
An arm tightens around me, and that same glorious sunlight illuminates the profile of the Azkari holding me.
His hardened features are gentler in sleep, his body language so different from the guarded warrior I have come to know.
Still sleeping, he shifts, rolling onto his side and throwing a thick thigh over my hip, bringing me close so I’m flush against him.
A little gasp escapes my lips, heat blooming in my cheeks, and between my legs as I feel the unmistakable outline of his erection against my abdomen. Huge and hard, hot and heavy… it takes all my willpower not to wriggle up the length of him so it’s in the right place, right where I need it.
The tension in my body must rouse him, because Archer breathes deeply, his cock pressing into my stomach, and then he’s blinking slowly. The emerald hue of his eyes is softer when he wakes, like moonlit moss.
I wait for the panic, the irritation, maybe even the embarrassment to set in. Perhaps he’s still half asleep because he strokes my jaw with his thumb, and gazes at me instead, murmuring something in a foreign language.
My heart is hammering, and with my hand resting over his chest, I can feel that his is as well. I want to kiss him. I want his mouth on mine, demanding everything, and I want to grind against the erection still pressing into me until I unravel.
Archer’s gaze darkens, his lips parting as though he can read every thought in my desire-addled mind, as though those thoughts are his too—
A twig snaps, and a shadow looms large across us.
A deep timber drawls from our feet, “Am I interrupting something?”
With a gasp, I bolt upright, blood roaring in my ears, heart pounding.
Beside me, Archer sits up more slowly, the blankets sliding down his chiseled body.
He doesn’t take his heated eyes off me, doesn’t bothered to look in the direction of the sudden stranger, as he responds between gritted teeth, “Yes, you are, brother.”