21. Twenty-One
Twenty-One
Bed was a generous term for what the innkeeper had sold them for the night.
A lumpy straw mattress sat on a low platform on one side of the cramped attic room.
The roof slanted over the bed, a single pane of glass providing a view of the night sky.
Bryn was right. The night was warm. Callan knelt on the mattress and wrenched the ancient hook latch, opening the window a crack.
The angle of the glass allowed fresh air into the room while still keeping out the rain.
Drops pattered against the windowpane in a peaceful rhythm.
Turning around, Callan sat on the edge of the bed and surveyed the room.
Though the space was sparsely decorated and almost too small for him to stand at his full height, it had an unexpected amenity: a wooden soaking tub.
For a few more coins, the innkeeper’s daughter had begrudgingly hauled several buckets of steaming water up from the kitchen along with a bar of wildflower soap.
Nova lounged in the tub, gingerly cleaning herself with a cloth, seemingly giddy at the luxury of a hot bath after so many nights sleeping wild beneath a shower of cold spring rain.
Callan could easily watch her bathe for eternity but decided to make himself useful instead.
The mattress served as a welcome outlet for his pent-up aggression after the near brawl in the tavern.
Lumps of straw were no match for his fists as he pounded the mattress of rough burlap, shaping it into something suitable for Nova to sleep on.
When his breath grew ragged, he stopped and examined his knuckles.
Reddened and angry, the skin stung as he flexed his fingers, stretching it tight.
For an instant, he imagined how it would have felt to strike the drunk.
Soft flesh giving way to bone beneath. The solid thud of a fist against his smirking face.
Calm down, love.
Nova’s voice prodded at the edge of his mind, pulling him from his violent thoughts.
He rose to stand beside the bed, ducking his head to avoid the slanted ceiling.
Chest rising and falling with quick breaths, he turned to face her and scrubbed a hand over the lower half of his face.
Her fine brows pinched with worry, she extended her hand in the space between them, beckoning him to her side.
Callan crossed to the tub and knelt beside it, resting his elbows on the edge.
Nova took his right hand and dipped it beneath the water.
He sucked in a breath through his clenched teeth.
The bathwater was still hot and stung the tiny abrasions on his knuckles.
Gently, Nova cleaned his hand with the cloth, the sweet scent of wildflower soap soothing his nerves.
When she finished with his right hand, she moved on to his left.
Bit by bit, Callan’s anger faded as she cared for him.
When she’d finished washing his raw knuckles and his breathing had slowed to a measured rhythm, she spoke.
“What troubles you?”
“That prick in the tavern.” His heartbeat surged again at the memory, and he inhaled a deep breath to keep it under control.
“He was an ass,” Nova agreed, “but surely you’ve faced worse baiting without reaching for your blade.”
“It’s this place.” Callan’s eyes went to the ceiling, his hands gesturing at the room. At the great, wild landscape stretching out in every direction beyond the crooked walls of The Wilted Bloom.
“I don’t understand,” she murmured.
“There’s something here.” Callan exhaled sharply, reining in his emotions and focusing his thoughts. “In the air. It pulls at our baser instincts. Compels us to fight—” His eyes darted around the room again before catching on her.
The delicate crease between her brows. Her fair cheeks pinked from the steaming bathwater. Breasts soft and ripe, like fruit begging to be taken into his mouth. Savored.
“And to fuck,” he finished.
Nova’s steel gaze darkened at his words, her pulse quickening at her throat.
“Is that why Riven took Bryn to the stables?”
“No,” Callan huffed a laugh. “Riven took Bryn to the stables because she wanted to. They’re Wyldlings. They don’t feel it.”
Nova gripped the open collar of his shirt and tugged gently.
“But you feel it,” Callan said, reaching behind his neck and pulling the garment over his head, then casting it aside.
“All these nights.” Nova nodded in slow understanding, as if he’d revealed the answer to an insufferable riddle. “Sleeping beside you without feeling you inside me. It’s been unbearable.”
She brought his hands to her chest, her head falling back as he palmed her breasts, brushing his thumbs over her nipples. Nova’s breath hitched, but Callan’s awareness narrowed to his reddened knuckles.
In an instant, he was transported back to the Wylds. A bloody scene in an abandoned temple. Surrounded by bodies. Lives ended by his hands. Trembling hands slick with blood.
Returning to himself, Callan pressed his eyes shut and wrapped his arms around Nova’s back, drawing her closer to him and resting his forehead against the space between her breasts. Her skin was warm and wet beneath his fingertips, the sensations grounding him back in the present moment.
Nova stroked his hair. “All is well,” she crooned. “You’re here. With me.”
“This godsdamned place,” he murmured against her soft skin. “It brings out the worst in me. I’m a monster. I’m—”
“You’re not,” she insisted, her words brimming with such conviction he nearly believed her.
He tipped his head to meet her gaze. “I wanted to harm him—would have harmed him—if you hadn’t stopped me.”
She cupped his face, her thumb gently tracing the swell of his bottom lip.
“In your arms is the only place in this world I know for certain I’m safe.”
Callan’s heart swelled, and his cock stirred.
He wanted so badly to see himself as she did.
He dipped his head and planted a trail of kisses along the tops of her breasts.
Interrupting his attentions, Nova rose out of the water to stand in the tub, bringing his face level with her abdomen.
He gripped her hips and ran his tongue along the surface of her skin, capturing a taste of the water rushing in rivulets down her torso before pressing a kiss above her navel.
Nova tangled her fingers in his hair close to his scalp. With a gentle tug, she tipped his face up to look at her.
“Stand up.” Her voice was soft but faintly commanding.
He was on his feet at once. She held her hand out in front of her, and he took it, steadying her as she stepped over the side.
Unsure what she intended to do, Callan waited expectantly, eyes gliding over her naked body, his arousal tenting the front of his breeches.
Nova inhaled a shaky breath, her nipples tightening, from her own desire or the breeze snaking its way through the window, he couldn’t be sure.
Nova lowered her eyes to the wooden stool to his side, and she gestured with her chin.
“I’d like you to dry me off now, love,” she said.
Callan twisted and took up the towel folded neatly on the stool.
Shaking out the fabric, he stepped in close to her and wrung the excess water from the ends of her dark hair.
He moved on to her shoulders and chest next, his movements gentle and unhurried as he made his way down the length of her body.
Crouching before her, he carefully dried her stomach, thighs, and calves, fighting to tamp down his desire with every appreciative hum and word of praise that passed her lips as he completed his task.
Satisfied he’d dried her thoroughly, Callan stood once more, wrapping the towel around Nova’s torso.
She rose onto the balls of her feet and planted a chaste kiss on the corner of his mouth before lowering herself.
Her stomach grazing his cock as it strained against his breeches.
Her lips curled in a coy smile; she knew exactly what she was doing to him.
Gods, he couldn’t decide whether he wanted her to stop or to keep going.
Brushing past him, she sat on the stool and took up a comb from the table.
She shook her head as she held it out to him, damp waves falling in a dark waterfall between her shoulder blades.
Taking her meaning, Callan accepted the comb and set to work.
Starting at the ends, he carefully combed the strands until they were smooth and no snags remained.
“Mmm,” she hummed. “You’re very good at that.” She leaned back against him, once again putting pressure on his erection.
Callan clenched his jaw and forced a shaky breath through his nose. He was practically leaking for her. If he completed all his tasks to her satisfaction, he thought, perhaps she’d finally let him come.
Preferably deep inside her pretty cunt.
Nova rose from the stool and turned to face him. She stripped off the towel and let it fall, pooling on the floor at her feet.
Starting at his shoulder, she trailed her fingers down his bicep and forearm to his wrist.
“Is our bed ready?” she asked.
Callan whirled around. He’d smoothed out the lumps earlier, but stray bits of straw still poked through the burlap. He shook out a thick quilt and laid it over top before adding a second blanket and two down pillows. He faced Nova once again and held a hand out in invitation.
She approached him slowly, laid her palms on his bare chest, and shoved him down on the edge of the bed. Callan leaned back on his hands as she turned around, offering him a tempting view of her round ass before she settled herself in his lap.
The weight of her pressing against his swollen cock was almost too much to bear. In a desperate bid to maintain control of his body, he willed himself to think of land disputes, games of strategy—anything. He hadn’t felt this way since he was a young male, sharing someone’s bed for the first time.
Nova hooked her legs so they hung on either side of his own. Nudging at his knees, she coaxed his legs apart, the movement spreading her thighs wide as well. Nova leaned back against his chest. and Callan shuddered at the divine sensation of her skin pressed to his.
“Look at me, Callan.”
The soft command in her voice ignited something within him. He was all too eager to oblige her, lowering his chin to gaze at her beautiful body, his beard rasping against her cheek.
Nova reached back over her shoulder and gripped his chin firmly, tilting his head back up. At first, he thought it might be part of the game she was playing—instructing him to look at her, but not letting him see.
“Look at me, Callan,” she repeated.
It was then that Callan saw it: a mirror propped against the far wall.
The thing was ancient, fogged with age at the edges and coated in a thin layer of dust. Careful not to tip Nova off his lap, he adjusted his position on the bed, sitting up straighter, desperate to get a better view.
There she was, reflected in the glass. Legs splayed wide, her sex on display, wet and shining in the flicker of the candlelight.
His breath sped up, knuckles burning as he gripped the blanket at his sides.
Nova’s movements were slow and sure as she laid his palms flat just above her knees.
“Keep . . . your hands . . . here,” she instructed, sweeping them up her thighs until they rested at the crease of her hips. Trusting him to stay put, she released him and ran her fingers lightly along her inner thighs, sighing into his ear, her eyes locked on him in the mirror.
Callan couldn’t tear his gaze away from her reflection.
Her soft mouth, slightly parted. The blush rising in her cheeks, the color deepening to match the shade between her legs.
When, at last, she brought her fingers to her clit, his breath halted all together.
He curled his fingers, dimpling the soft flesh at her hips.
He stared at her in the mirror, mouth gone dry, marveling at how the most delicate touch of her fingertips sent her entire body tensing against his.
Overcome with hunger, he whimpered shamelessly in her ear.
He’d nearly forgotten he was physically there, not simply floating in a dream, when she guided his right hand from her hip to her cunt.
“Touch me, Callan.” The command in her voice remained, but the hint of a plea keened beneath the surface.
Callan did as he was told, his touch featherlight at first, mimicking the way she’d stroked herself.
Nova turned her face toward his, her back still flush with his chest, ghosting her lips over the corner of his mouth.
She rolled her hips into his hand, and Callan followed her lead, increasing the pressure on her clit.
When he glided his fingers lower, teasing around her entrance, Nova nodded enthusiastically, her cheek brushing against his.
Yes, yes, yes.
He buried his fingers inside her, the heel of his hand pressed to her clit, and her breath seized.
He lost himself in the rhythm of her body then.
The pace she set. He watched her in the mirror, grinding her ass in his lap.
The pressure built until he could no longer withstand it.
When her sex clenched around his fingers, he gave up control alongside her, the intensity of his release consuming him entirely as he spilled himself in his breeches.
The insistent thump of his heart brought him back to himself, the world slowly coming into focus. Nova had turned in his lap and straddled his thighs. It wasn’t until she pressed soft kisses to his cheeks that he realized they were wet with tears.
She pressed her lips to his temples and along his jaw, murmuring against his tingling skin.
“So good. You’re so good.”
And in that moment, he believed her.