Chapter 18 #2
He nodded, a hint of a smile tugging at his mouth. “Hot spring. There should be one around here near the ridge.”
We found it tucked into a cradle of stone, steam rising from glass-clear water. Ferns crowded the rim, beaded with dew. The surface broke and re-formed in lazy circles where the heat lapped the morning air. It looked like a secret someone had left for us to find.
Varek studied me, then the water, then me again. “We should keep going,” he said, and then added, almost sheepish, “but to be honest, the two of us look like a disaster.”
I laughed. It felt good to be able to. “That’s a very nice way to say I smell like I wrestled a wolf, a cougar, and a rainstorm in the same night.”
“You won against all of them, at least,” he said simply, grinning.
We lingered at the edge, unwilling to break the spell of it, then Varek slung off his pack and set it on a flat stone. “Twenty minutes,” he said. “Maybe thirty.”
“Forty-five,” I bargained.
He gave me a look that said I was pushing it and then softened. “Fine. Forty-five, little wolf.”
Steam curled around us, warm on my face. My skin prickled with the memory of his hands on me. When Varek reached for the buttons on my shirt, I moved to stop him.
“Let me,” he said softly, and I let my arms fall away.
His hands were warm and careful, unhurried.
He worked button by button, each small click oddly intimate in the quiet.
He peeled the flannel from my shoulders with a gentleness that made my breath catch in my throat, then eased the shirt aside.
His gaze traced where he’d bitten me. He kissed the mark once, and the world narrowed to the soft press of his mouth and the steady thrum of heat beneath my skin.
“You’re all healed,” he murmured.
“Soon you will be too,” I said.
His fingers found the waistband of my jeans, waiting.
I nodded. He slid them down, careful not to scrape fresh cuts and scrapes, and I stepped free.
The air was cool on my legs, with the warm steam curling around my body.
He stripped out of his torn shirt in turn, the fabric catching on a cut along his ribs, and I moved without thinking, easing it over his head.
My fingers followed the line of the wound, light as breath.
“You should have let me fight with you,” I said.
His hand covered mine.
“I told you not to,” he said quietly.
I undid his belt and pushed his jeans down, slowly, letting my palms learn his beautiful body once again. He leaned into my touch like a man easing into the light after too long in the dark.
When we were both naked, we slid into the water together. It swallowed us up to the ribs, hot and soft, lifting the ache from my bones. The shock of it made us both hiss. Then we laughed a little as we settled into the warm pool.
He drew me in first, arms around my waist, hands spanning the small of my back. I floated into him, my legs brushing his, my cheek finding his shoulder. The spring whispered against my skin. The heat went deep, untying things I hadn’t known were knotted.
“Better?” he asked, mouth near my ear.
“Almost,” I said.
He tipped my chin up with two fingers, and I saw the softness in his eyes before the heat, the way they always went gentle right before he set me on fire. He kissed me then, and I melted into it. The world fell away.
I tasted smoke and the salt from the jerky we’d had this morning. His hands traced the line of my back beneath the surface, gentle and comfortable. I pressed closer, feeling the slow slide of skin on skin, the way the spring mapped our bodies in warmth.
“You make me forget we’re in the middle of a war,” I whispered against his mouth.
He kissed my cheek, the corner of my jaw, the hollow beneath my ear. “Only long enough to remember why,” he said.
“Why?”
He smiled that small, private smile I had only seen when we were like this. “Because there needs to be time for us to live.”
I pulled back enough to study him, steam wreathing his face, damp hair falling across his brow. “You’re ridiculous,” I said.
“And you’re beautiful.” He brushed his thumb along my lower lip, amused and tender at once.
Heat rose to my face that had nothing to do with the spring. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”
“Just you, little wolf.”
The quiet settled around us. He kissed me again and I let myself float into it, slow and sweet, water lapping at our shoulders.
I shifted so I could straddle his lap and the water rocked us, ripples pushing against stone.
He went very still, hands gripping my hips, eyes searching my face as if the answer to a question he hadn’t asked yet lived there.
I swallowed. My heart beat too hard and felt good doing it.
“Varek,” I said.
“Yes?”
“Let’s stay a while longer.”
“Okay.”
He pulled me closer. I wrapped my arms around his neck, threading my fingers into his damp hair, and kissed him back trying to give him all the words I didn’t know how to say.
He responded like a man who had been given a rare, precious, fragile thing, like I could shatter if he squeezed a bit too hard.
The steam rose, warm against my shoulders.
His hands slid up my sides, then down again in slow strokes that were more comfort than claiming, and I let myself rest there, in that strange, generous peace.
It wasn’t the frantic relief of surviving.
It wasn’t the desperate need to prove we were still here.
It was gentler. It was the space between fear and the next step, a moment set apart.
It was truly special.
He kissed the corner of my mouth and then my cheek, then pressed his forehead to mine. We stayed like that, breathing the same air, sharing the same secret silence, until my pulse finally fell into a rhythm that matched his.
Varek didn’t move away. The steam wrapped around us, the water rising to our shoulders, and everything beyond this little circle of heat blurred into mist. He kissed me again, slowly and gently, until breathing felt like something we did only because our bodies remembered how.
The sound of the spring filled the space between our words. His thumb traced small circles at the nape of my neck; my hands settled against his chest where his heartbeat thudded strong and steady beneath my palms.
“I could stay like this forever,” I whispered.
He smiled against my mouth. “Then stay. Just for now.”
The world narrowed to the soft slide of skin, the warmth of the water, the quiet rhythm of his breath.
I let the rest of the world fall away. The mountain, the war, the cages.
For the first time since I could remember, I wasn’t running or fighting or afraid.
I was just here—in the circle of his arms, alive, and truly safe.
He moved just a bit, making the water ripple around us, and gently turned me so my back was to his chest. One arm slid around my waist, the other wrapped over my chest, his hand cupping my shoulder, holding me against him.
I felt his lips press into the damp hair at my temple.
My body went soft, pliant, melting into the heat of his embrace.
“You’re trembling,” he murmured. His thumb stroked my side.
“A little,” I admitted.
“Good,” he said, and there was a smile in his tone.
He kissed my neck, just below my ear, a soft, warm press of his lips that sent a shiver straight through me. His hand squeezed my shoulder and his arms wrapped around me pulled a bit closer, tighter.
His erection pressed against the cleft of my ass, the tip reaching the small of my lower back. He was so hard, and I closed my eyes, losing a piece of me to pure desire.
“Tell me you feel me,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes,” I whispered. “I feel you.”
I could feel the blush rising from my chest to my cheeks, a slow, inexorable burn.
He chuckled, and then moved my hair to the side, exposing my throat. His lips pressed against my bared skin, and I shivered, warmth cascading through me like a summer rain.
“Tell me what you need, little wolf,” he murmured, and I couldn’t help the little gasp that escaped me.
I was silent for a long moment, my heart thudding against my ribs.
“I need…” I started, my voice barely a whisper.
I needed him, but the words stuck in the back of my throat. I just needed a little bit of normal for a short while, for him and me to come together and forget about the rest of the world for as long as necessary and not a second more.
“Tell me.” His voice was a low command that vibrated through his chest and into my back.
“You. I need you, Varek. I need to feel you inside me,” I admitted, the words feeling both wicked and right. “Please, Varek.”
He shifted, his hand sliding from my hip down the front of my thigh. His touch was slow, tracing the sensitive skin until I was trembling with anticipation. “You’re sure?”
I could only nod, my breath hitching in my chest as his fingers drifted higher, closer to the heat pooling between my legs.
I bit my lip, trying to stifle a whimper as his thumb brushed against the inside of my thigh.
For a moment, his fingers just slid along my skin there, teasing me, taunting me, and all at once, it went straight to my head.
“Then let me tell you how this is going to go, my sweet little wolf. I’m going to take you, but not before you beg for me. I want to hear where you need my cock, where you want to take my knot, and how hard you need to come before I fill you with my seed and breed this beautiful body.”
My mind reeled at his words. A wave of heat washed over me, making my core clench in anticipation.
I leaned my head back against his shoulder, my body arching into his touch, silently begging for more. He chuckled, a low, rumbling sound that caused the water to ripple all around us.
“But not yet,” he whispered, his breath hot against my neck and I shivered.