Chapter Eighty-Five. Re.
Eighty-Five
Reunion.
Merc stays beside me while I have my bath, stroking the warm, dripping cloth over my hair, over my freckled shoulders, over my arms, and eventually, my tears ease.
With the crying passed, I lean against the side of the basin, and rest my cheek on the curved lip.
On the inside, I continue to weep, but I keep that to myself.
I just feel so powerless.
“Would you like me to wash your hair?” he asks me.
When I nod with gratitude, he retrieves a bar of fragrant soap from a small dish. It’s what he smells of, and he puts aside the cloth and lathers up his hands.
“Tip back for me,” he says. “So that all is wet.”
I’m grateful for the job, and focus my thoughts on getting my head all the way under the water. As the level goes over my face, I hold my breath and look up through the wavy pool of warmth at the black-haired man who looms over me.
If I saw the shape of him like this and did not know him, I’d swear he’d been sent to kill me. Instead, I have a sense of security and safety. He’s already proven all that he’s willing to do for me.
And I’ve done the same for him.
Thus we have fought for this peaceable moment right here, our reward this short time of communion which is so much more precious to me than any kind of material payment.
When I emerge from the depths, I come up chin-first, my breasts breaching the surface thereafter. His eyes go to them, and the stark hunger in his scarred face shifts the energy in my body away from the strange despair that’s gripped me … toward something that is so much more preferable.
“Just look at you,” he says in low voice. “Woman … you are a beauty in any light.”
As I flush, I sit forward and brace my hands under my seat to hold myself as very nearly float.
There’s a fragrant explosion as he passes his palm over my hair a couple of times and then he’s massaging the soap into my scalp and down the lengths.
Suds form and propagate around me, tickling my nipples as they play hide-and-seek with Merc’s hot stare.
“So we leave on the morrow and head north,” he says.
It’s hard for me to connect to his words when his voice has gone to that deep, low place that thrills me. But the translation filters through all the sexual charge.
“Ah, yes.” I clear my throat. “Please.”
“And when we get to Prosperitus, what then?”
“I shall have to speak with the King.”
Merc’s laughter is a balm to my nerves. “Good thing you ask for nothing much at all, woman.”
“Well, I do believe in starting modestly.” As our banter evaporates in the warm, humid air, I exhale with exhaustion. “If I can get to a Queen who refuses all audiences, surely I can find my way to a ruler who actually rules.”
“And what would you be speaking to him about?” When I don’t immediately answer, Merc says, “Would it be the demons, then, yes?”
“Yes.”
“So that’s why we came to the warrior Kingdom. You want to protect that village of fools who’d sooner have killed you from something that stalks them in the dark. And now that you’re here, you see that there’s only shadows of the past in this castle, and no one who’s willing to help.”
“Something like that.”
“Fair enough.” He nods down at the water. “Another dip then, shall we.”
I indulge his command, dropping below the surface once more.
When I reappear, he fills a separate bowl with clear water from the tap and rinses the soap out at the crown of my head over and over again—and after he puts the porcelain aside, he gathers my hair up and twists it into a knot on the top of my head.
“I think we can get to Prosperitus in a day.” He sits back a bit. “Provided we leave early.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes. All of our things were delivered by a very nice servant, and after I checked to make sure the contents of my pack were in hand, I consulted the map for want of anything else to look at. There’s a northerly route that’s far enough inland it avoids that mountain range we fought through altogether.
It does cut close to the Fulcrum, but it’ll get us to well past your village in the daylight—not that I am suggesting we stop there, mind you. ”
“Best we do not, yes.” I look at the suds that swirl about me on the surface of the warm water, obscuring and revealing my body by turns. “And if we can arrive at Prosperitus by nightfall that is … for the better.”
But fates, why do I think the King will see me? A woman traveler, with nothing to offer him?
Maybe Julion can help me, though.
“Then we leave at sunrise,” Merc says. “I was told to ring the bell if I needed anything and I’ll have our horses brought around. Wherever … around is.”
“At sunrise, yes.”
His smile tilts one half of his mouth up. And yet his eyes begin to glow with a very different intent than that of conversation.
“Shall we do the rest of you then?” he asks huskily.
I can only nod as I suddenly don’t trust my voice.
He comes back with the soft cloth and he soaps it up, before stroking the sudsy square down my back, my shoulders, my arms. And then he attends to my throat … and goes lower. At the first brush over my breast, I moan his name.
This is only the beginning. Soon, he is progressing even farther down.
As I split my thighs for him, I ease back until the tub catches me in a cradle. Merc is indeed very thorough, and soon the cloth is replaced by his hand, his fingers. The next thing I know, he rears up over the tub and we kiss until we’re both breathless—
The pleasure peaks for me and I jerk, splashing water out onto the floor and getting him wet.
But there’s no stopping the release. I cling to him, to his mouth, his strong shoulders, his hand as my thighs clap together.
And just before the energy starts to fade, I pop my eyes open and look to the ceiling.
The light show doesn’t repeat, and I know, though I cannot say how I know, that once expressed, it doesn’t come again.
A threshold being crossed. A journey made, and completed. And after it … a change in me that is permanent.
Merc eases back. “To the bed.”
“Yes…”
With strong, gentle hands, he helps me from the tub, guiding me up and over the rim. As I step out, I am naked before him and suddenly shy. For all the intimacy we’ve shared, it’s another thing to be standing like this—
“Sorrel…”
My name leaving his lips is a caress over all my flesh at once, and I’m shocked when he kneels before me. Running his hands up over my legs, he brushes his lips on my belly, on my hip, on my thigh. Gently, he urges my knees apart—and presses his mouth to the top of my sex.
I gasp and bend down. But not to stop him.
Merc goes lower, to my foot, and he puts my leg up so that my heel rests against the edge of the tub.
Then he leads with his mouth. And speaks the language of love to the very core of me. I’m shocked by the intimacy, and yet it seems so natural, especially as the pleasure peaks for me, the feel of his soft, wet mouth on my soft, wet flesh a match made in ecstasy.
The next thing I know, my knees buckle, and he catches me, stretching me out on the soft rug that covers the marble floor, joining me as he arches over my naked body. After I undo the buttons of his satin tunic, I pause at the bandage that has been applied to part of his chest.
“Are you well enough,” I ask roughly.
“It’ll take more than that to kill me. Much, much more.”
Trying to stay in the moment, I push my unease away and slide my hands up his back—
I stop as I get to a pattern of scars that mar his skin, and squeeze my eyes closed with piercing empathy. “Oh, Merc.”
“Do not think about it.”
“Who hurt you,” I whisper as I stare up into his eyes.
His expression darkens, but the anger is not directed to me. “It was a long time ago.”
Except it’s still with him, and not just in his flesh. My mind reels with all kinds of scenarios … betrayals, ambushes, attacks. Is this why he lives the life he does? Rootlessly going from aggression to aggression?
“Do you still fight them,” I ask. “Whoever it was.”
Those black and white eyes trace my face, and he strokes a strand of hair from my cheek. In a grim voice, he answers, “Every moment of every day and each night. Especially now.”
“I’m so sorry—”
“No more talking. We have this moment, let us not waste it.”
When he brings his lips down to my own, I move my hands to other places. And then his mouth, that talented mouth, is on my neck, on my collarbone, heading lower to my breasts. He is slow and deliberate with the way he pleasures me, his hands stroking my thighs and my hips, my core once again.
Our bodies move together, in perfect harmony, the satin pants he still has on offering no barrier at all, but rather an enticing slide to his hard angles. I’m the one who pulls down the waistband, and as I wrap my hand around his shaft, it’s like holding a brand.
“I need you,” he groans, coming up to my mouth again.
I guide him to me, and this time, the penetration is slow and easy. Smooth and hot. Deep and full.
He rides me with care, and I arch into him—just managing to catch my hands before they run up his back again.
I agree with him. We have such a short time, and I can’t waste it on things that are painful.
So I hold on to his hips instead, and suddenly, he’s moving faster and faster.
A crest of pleasure comes for me anew, and then he joins me in the release, his body locking into mine as his sex kicks inside me, filling me up.
“Sorrel…” he says in a voice that cracks with emotion.
As he finally comes to rest, I wrap my arms around as much of him as I can reach, and smile at the ceiling far above us. There are ways of telling someone you love them without speaking the actual words.
And the way my name left his mouth just now is one of them.