Chapter 34 Sharing a Fire #2
“You should have,” she said fiercely. “If you had a path to safety, you should have.”
“I couldn’t leave you,” he admitted, and then, realizing what he’d said, hastily added: “or my men. We’ll find a way forward. My father may yet change his mind.”
“Niel,” she murmured, but she sounded sad, her voice distant. Ayla turned away from him, towards the fire, the wine cup clutched in both hands as she stared dismally at the flames.
“We can last months yet. My father’s Aronthian allies want me alive. And I’ve a few tricks left. But I didn’t like the feeling of having lied to you, so. Now you know the truth.”
“Could you make a deal?” Ayla whispered. “They offered the castle for mercy. And you could trade me back to Ditmar, and—”
Niel felt his whole body tighten and go cold.
“No. Never. Do not even suggest such things.”
She bit her lip, and there was a moment of silence again, this one uncomfortable and laced with a sorrow he suspected they could both feel creeping towards them.
“We can last months yet,” Niel said hoarsely.
“Then perhaps it is a problem best left for tomorrow,” Ayla suggested, her voice sounding nearly as strained as his own. “No sense in mourning an end before it has reached us.”
“Yes.”
Another long moment of silence, in which he tried desperately not to stare at her.
“Would you share a blanket with me? My back is cold,” Ayla said.
He opened his mouth to tell her that she didn’t have to share, she was welcome to have a blanket entirely to her own if she needed one.
Then he realized that was a supremely idiotic thing to tell her, when she’d just offered him a measure of closeness he desperately yearned for.
Setting his wine on the edge of the hearth, he fetched one off the bed and offered it to Ayla.
She arranged it around her shoulders, then offered him the other end.
He took it, and found they were sitting side by side now, arms so close every small movement risked the two of them bumping against each other.
Surely Ayla hadn’t meant this, when she’d asked him to share a blanket.
But the lady sipped her wine and stared at the fire, looking unbothered.
Her eyes flicked his way, as if she’d noticed he was staring at her.
And of course she had; he was practically on top of her.
“Are you warm?” Niel asked abruptly.
“Much better, thank you.”
Her lips curled slightly at the edge, soft and sweet and giving him a smile that was a little amused, like a cat watching a mouse it had trapped. He couldn’t look away from those lips.
“Can I…” he started to ask, without thinking, and then realized he was about to do something idiotic. He shut his mouth and cleared his throat, looking away from her.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
He was married. Well, not all-the-way married, and he was never going to be, and he couldn’t care less about Hildegund.
But Ayla… Ayla had just escaped a marriage.
She’d said she didn’t want another one. Not that it was marriage on Niel’s mind, but just because she seemed to enjoy his company these days didn’t mean she wanted…
“What?” Ayla pushed. “You were going to ask something.”
“It was foolish,” he said quietly.
“Then be foolish.”
He couldn’t ask her to kiss him. She might not want to. And then everything would go odd between them. She was still his captive, in a sense, even if everything between them had shifted. What if she didn’t feel she could say no?
“Is kissing nice?” Niel asked hoarsely.
Ayla blinked at him, then lifted an eyebrow.
“It depends entirely on who you are kissing.”
“Ah,” he said, because he feared he was not capable of saying much more than that. Ayla stared at him for a long moment, and he braced himself for her to ask have you really never kissed anyone, which was not a question he particularly wanted to answer.
“Would you like to kiss me?” she asked instead, at last, and she still sounded a little amused, though not in a cruel way. He looked at her bleakly, his heart going so fast it was at risk of failing him altogether.
“I cannot tell if that is an invitation, or just a question,” Niel muttered, feeling suddenly as though it was getting quite hot in front of the fire.
She tilted her chin up towards him, eyelids half-lowered, and did not answer.
Niel stared, and tried to put a coherent thought together. The power of words left his body entirely. She had not answered. But the way she was looking at him, was that—was he supposed to—he didn’t want to guess wrong, but…
Moving as slowly as he could, so that she could turn away from him, Niel leaned down towards her.
Ayla didn’t move. He paused when their lips had nearly touched, sure she was going to turn away.
The hand he had on the blanket tightened into a fist. She smelled like roses, and her breath was warm and soft against his lips.
And then Niel’s mouth brushed tenderly against hers.
His eyes fluttered shut, and his lips parted slightly.
There was a stirring low in his body, and his heart thundered triumphantly.
For a moment he forgot about their reality, trapped in the castle with an army outside.
Nothing mattered but this, her, here and now.
Ayla’s hand pressed to his chest, her fingers splaying over his heart. He drew back a hairsbreadth, thinking she was pushing him away. But her lips followed him, and so he stopped trying to retreat.
For a moment they stayed like that, mouths pressed tight, and Niel couldn’t hear himself think. He wasn’t aware of anything but Ayla, and, dimly, the way his whole body was going hard and hot, his heart pulsing.
She moved her lips slowly against his, and then he was entirely lost to the world.
Niel clumsily echoed her movements, tasting the wine on her lips.
He uncurled his hand from the blanket, letting it fall off his shoulders.
Unthinking, he reached for her with one arm, found her waist, and pulled her close, until her body pressed up against his.
Ayla’s tongue skimmed his lip and Niel’s breath caught sharply.
She tilted her head, and the kiss deepened.
He caught her lower lip between his for a moment, his lips hungrily learning the contours of her own.
He felt her body arch against his, her breasts pressing to his chest. He was rock-hard now, fighting the urge to explore her body with his hands.
They were both awkwardly turned towards each other, seated in the furs before the fire but pressing tight.
Ayla’s other hand buried into his hair, cupping the back of his head.
Niel clamped down on a groan that nearly escaped him, and Ayla laughed silently into him.
“Well?” Ayla whispered, pulling back slightly so that he could still feel her breath on his skin. “Is kissing nice?”
“Yes,” Niel rasped, still tangled in with her. He could feel the pressure in his cock as it pressed against his trousers.
She laughed louder, but not unkindly, and straightened.
Reluctantly, he let her go. He felt he could have kept kissing her for quite a long time.
But then Ayla turned to a more comfortable position and leaned against him, her body no longer contorted.
She rested her head on his shoulder. Barely daring to breathe, Niel wrapped an arm back around her, his hands splayed on the narrowing on her waist.
“Did you think it was nice?” he asked quietly.
She lifted her head from his shoulder, and pressed a small, soft kiss to the edge of his jaw, and Niel felt like light had stabbed through his heart and pinned him to her like an arrow.
She rested her head back against his shoulder, and he tried to think over the pounding of his heart in his ears.
Her hands were on her lap, and he could see a faint tremble in them.
“Was that a yes, Ayla?” he whispered. “Please, do not make me guess.”
Ayla laughed silently, her shoulders shaking.
“It was a yes,” she said. “Now stop overthinking and hold me, please, if you do not mind.”
He tightened his arm around her waist, and rested his head against her own, and let the fire bathe over them both.