Chapter 8 #4
Even in the moonlight, I caught the flush creeping across her cheeks. She turned away, hiding behind the rim of her cup, but not before I caught the small smile playing at her lips.
My hands needed occupation before they did something reckless—like reaching across the space between us to trace the curve of her jaw. I grabbed the basket. "Roast boar from yesterday's hunt. The cheese and bread are Zuhra's doing."
Jordan's laugh rippled through the darkness, intimate as a touch. "She's been wonderful to me. They all have."
I unwrapped the provisions, arranging them with more care than necessary.
Meat here, cheese there, bread and fruit filling the spaces between.
Each placement felt deliberate, meaningful—like we were constructing something fragile and precious from these humble offerings.
Behind us, the falls thundered their ancient song, wrapping us in a cocoon of sound that made the rest of the world feel impossibly distant.
The truth struck me as I tore off a piece of bread—not for myself, but for her. My fingers froze mid-motion.
I was feeding her.
In the old ways, this was courtship. The careful selection of the choicest portions. The offering of sustenance from one's own hands. The primal satisfaction of providing, of nourishing. It was instinct written into my bones, the foundation of every bond worth keeping.
And I'd been doing it for days. Ensuring her plate overflowed at every communal meal. Manufacturing excuses to share food, to watch her lips close around what I'd given her.
My hand wavered as I passed her the bread, our fingers colliding in a spark of contact. Did she understand? Could she read the meaning in these gestures, this language older than words?
"This looks incredible," Jordan murmured, accepting the offering. She bit into the bread and her eyes drifted shut, a soft sound of pleasure escaping her throat. "God, that's divine. The cheese is unbelievable."
I couldn't look away. "Zuhra's been refining that recipe for years. Goat milk and herbs from the high meadows."
We fell into an easy rhythm, passing food back and forth like a dance we'd practiced a thousand times. When Jordan tasted the boar, the appreciative sound she made sent heat pooling low in my belly and tested every shred of my self-control.
"I noticed everyone hauling in grain sacks today," she said eventually, reaching for dried apple. "Winter preparations?"
I seized on the safer topic like a lifeline. "Building up the stores. Winter doesn't ask permission in these mountains—it takes what it wants."
"That's why the hunting has intensified?"
"Exactly. We smoke and salt the meat, pack the cellars with root vegetables, preserve everything that can be preserved.
" I gestured vaguely toward the village.
"The next few months, everyone contributes.
When the snow comes, it doesn't just fall—it conquers.
The mountain passes disappear. The roads to Franklin become treacherous—sometimes impassable for weeks at a stretch. "
Jordan went still, her fingers absently shredding bread into smaller and smaller pieces. "That sounds incredibly isolating, being cut off like that."
"It's our reality," I said, though the word 'isolating' landed like a stone in my chest. "But we have each other.
Through the winter, the whole village becomes one extended family.
We gather for festivals, share stories around the fire.
There's music, laughter." I paused, searching for the right words.
"It's not the loneliness you might imagine. "
"It sounds beautiful, actually." Her voice had gone soft, almost wistful.
"Everyone depending on each other, working together.
" She met my eyes, and something in her gaze made my breath catch.
"So different from the hospital. Everyone racing against the clock, drowning in stress.
Surrounded by people but utterly alone."
"Do you miss it?" The question slipped out unbidden, though part of me dreaded the answer.
She took her time responding, wine cup cradled between her palms. The silence expanded, but it felt full rather than empty.
"Parts of it. The work itself—helping people, making a tangible difference.
That matters." She shook her head slowly.
"But the relentless pace, the bureaucratic games, the crushing pressure.
.. Being here has reminded me what it feels like to actually breathe.
To be part of something that makes sense. "
"Simpler doesn't mean easier," I said, offering her more boar.
"No," she agreed, accepting it. Our fingers lingered together this time, neither of us rushing to break contact. "But it feels authentic. Connected to what actually matters in life."
The words clawed their way up my throat before I could cage them. I set down my cup, pulse hammering. "You could stay."
Jordan's eyes flew to mine. "What?"
"Here. In the village." The dam had broken, and there was no stopping the flood now. "Morg is brilliant—she's saved more lives than I can count—but her hands shake on cold mornings. Her eyes aren't what they were. We need to think beyond tomorrow."
"Ruka, I—"
"Every winter, we hold our breath." The words tumbled faster, urgency sharpening each one.
"The young ones, the elders—they're vulnerable to human diseases in ways we don't fully understand.
A fever that would make you miserable could kill a child here.
Every cough, every flush of skin..." I leaned forward, unable to stop myself.
"We need someone with your training. Your instincts.
Someone who sees my people as people, not curiosities. "
She stared at me, moonlight painting her features in silver and shadow. "You're asking me to abandon everything I've built."
"I'm asking you to build something new." My voice dropped, gentler now.
"I've watched you here, Jordan. Really watched you.
When you're teaching the children about hygiene, when you're laughing with the weavers, when you're elbow-deep in the garden dirt—that's when you shine.
Not when you talk about the hospital, about your life back there. "
"That's not fair," she breathed, but the protest held no heat. Only something raw and frightened.
"Maybe not." I reached across the blanket, my hand hovering near hers—close enough to feel her warmth, far enough to give her space. "But tell me I'm wrong."
The waterfall's distant roar filled the silence between us. Jordan's gaze dropped to our hands—mine scarred and massive, hers small and precise—suspended in the charged air like a promise waiting to be made or broken.
"Is that the only reason?" Her words were barely audible. "Because the village needs a doctor?"
Every instinct screamed at me to retreat. To hide behind duty and practicality. To protect myself from the terrifying vulnerability of truth.
But I'd never been a coward.
"No." The word emerged rough, scraped raw from somewhere deep in my chest. "I've grown accustomed to your face."
Her eyes snapped up, wide and searching.
"When you leave..." I had to stop, force air past the sudden tightness. "There will be a Jordan-shaped hole in my days. In my mornings. In the silence before sleep." My voice dropped to barely a whisper. "I will miss you in ways I don't have words for. In ways that aren't wise or practical."
I lifted my hand slowly, telegraphing every movement, giving her every opportunity to pull away. When she didn't—when she simply watched me with those luminous green eyes—I cupped her cheek. Her skin was impossibly soft beneath my calloused palm, warm and alive and real.
For a heartbeat, we simply existed in that perfect moment—her leaning into my touch like a flower seeking sunlight, my thumb tracing the delicate curve of her cheekbone, the world narrowing until nothing existed but the two of us and the thundering of my heart.
Then I leaned forward and kissed her.
Soft. Tentative. A question whispered against her lips rather than a demand. She tasted like starlight and wine and every beautiful thing I'd ever denied myself. Her mouth fit perfectly between my tusks as though fate itself had carved us to match, two puzzle pieces finally sliding home.
But Jordan—brilliant, fierce, impossible Jordan—had other ideas.
Her fingers fisted in my shirt with surprising strength, pulling me closer, and she kissed me back with a hunger that stole the breath from my lungs and replaced it with liquid fire.
The tentative sweetness transformed into something molten and urgent, a wildfire catching in dry grass.
I angled my head, deepening the kiss, and the small sound she made—half gasp, half moan, wholly devastating—ignited something primal and possessive in my chest.
I couldn't get enough. My hand slid from her cheek to her waist, fingers spanning her ribcage, and I pulled her across the blanket until she tumbled into my lap with a breathless laugh that I swallowed with another kiss, then another, each one deeper than the last.
Her fingers threaded into my hair, nails scraping lightly against my scalp in a way that sent shivers cascading down my spine.
I groaned into her mouth, the sound rumbling up from somewhere primal.
Every nerve ending felt electrified and hypersensitive.
Every place our bodies touched burned with delicious heat.
This was everything I'd denied myself during countless sleepless nights. Everything I'd convinced myself I couldn't have, shouldn't want. And now that I was tasting her, feeling her pressed against me, I knew with bone-deep certainty that I'd been a fool to think I could ever let her go.
Jordan shifted closer, her movements deliberate and achingly purposeful, and I wrapped my arm around her back, anchoring her to me like she might disappear if I loosened my grip.
The kiss deepened, grew more desperate, more consuming.
When her lips parted and our tongues met in a dance as old as time, pleasure shot through me like lightning splitting a summer sky.
She moved again, repositioning with an intent that made my breath catch, until she was straddling my lap.
The world tilted on its axis, gravity reversing, stars realigning.
The soft weight of her settled against me, her curves pressed to my chest, and my body responded with an urgency that bordered on painful—my cock hardening, straining against my pants with a need so fierce it made my vision blur at the edges.
There was no hiding my reaction. Not with her positioned like this, every shift of her hips a sweet torture. She had to feel exactly what she was doing to me, the effect she had on my body, my control, my very sanity.
And gods help me, that knowledge only made me want her more.
I deepened the kiss, my tongue sliding against hers in a rhythm that spoke of darker promises—of all the ways I wanted to worship her, claim her, make her forget everything but my name. She moaned into my mouth, her hips rolling slightly, and that friction nearly unraveled me completely.
My hands found her hips, fingers digging into soft flesh as I pulled her harder against me. I kissed her like I was drowning and she was air itself. Every stroke of my tongue mapped her mouth, every tilt of her body against mine stoking the fire threatening to consume us both.
Then she broke away, gasping, her forehead dropping to rest against mine.
"Ruka," she breathed, and the sound carried both hunger and hesitation.
I held her close, arms wrapped around her trembling frame as our breathing slowly found its rhythm again. My heart still thundered, my body still ached with want, but I forced myself to stillness—to give her room while keeping her safe in my embrace.
"I should probably apologize," I murmured, my voice rough as gravel. "But I'd be lying. I've wanted to kiss you since the moment you stumbled into my village."
Her fingers curled into my shirt, holding tight.
"I'm attracted to you too." The words came out breathless, sending triumph surging through my veins.
"But Ruka... my life is in Franklin. I'm a doctor—I have patients who need me, responsibilities I can't walk away from.
I have to go back to the hospital tomorrow. "
Tomorrow. The word hit like a physical blow, though I'd known this moment would come. She was never mine to keep. The village, this night—we were just a brief, beautiful interruption in her real life.
"I know," I said, the truth tasting like ash. "Doesn't make me wish any less that things were different."
"Me too," she whispered, and the longing in those words echoed the fracture spreading through my chest.
Gently, I shifted her, turning her body so she sat sideways across my lap, tucked against me.
She melted into my chest without hesitation, her head settling into the curve of my shoulder as though it had been made for exactly that purpose.
I pulled her closer, arms tightening around her as if I could somehow hold back the dawn, and together we turned our gaze back to the waterfall.
Silence settled over us—not hollow, but heavy with unspoken truths.
The water continued its timeless cascade, silver ribbons catching moonlight as they plunged into darkness.
The moon traced its path across the heavens, uncaring of our fleeting moment, and still we sat, two souls caught between reality and impossibility, neither brave enough to say goodbye.