Chapter 29
Talvie
The cottage is quiet when I return, the warmth a welcome contrast to the chill clinging to my cloak. A soft fire crackles in the hearth, and Lark looks up from the worn armchair with a crooked smile.
“You survived another shift.” His voice wraps around me like a blanket as he rises to greet me.
“Barely.” I hang up my cloak with a dramatic sigh. “I may have slightly mixed up an order of plum cordial and pickled eel. Again.”
His laugh—sharp and golden—echoes through the room. “Please tell me someone actually drank it this time.”
“Oh, they drank it. Daria nearly banished me to dish duty forever.”
His arms open even as he tosses his head back on a laugh. I’m helpless against the allure of one of his hugs, sinking into the embrace while his fading chuckles rumble against my cheek.
“You’re a menace.”
“I’m a mess,” I correct.
“Nope, an adorable menace, that’s you.” Muscles shift under his tunic, and I look up into eyes glowing with a fondness that always steals the breath from my lungs. “You know, I think you do it on purpose just so you can entertain me.”
“Of course. How else would I earn your sympathy?”
He tilts his head, still smiling. “You never need to earn anything from me. Though next time, make sure your mess includes something I can fix later. We still have seven mouths to feed.”
“Ah yes. My deepest apologies for failing to break anything today.” I groan one more time. “At least the customer was a friend of Ludo’s and was convinced it was a prank. They laughed, swore revenge, and ordered another.”
Lark always makes me feel better with a ready laugh. He sees beyond my messes and ramblings and never makes me feel stupid or small. It’s easy to be myself with him, when he gets me like no one else.
We sink onto the sofa together, closer than is strictly necessary for the space. My thigh presses against his, tingling with the contact.
“Speaking of mouths to feed, where is everyone?”
“They’re all in town,” he says after a beat. “Setting up the stage. Probably terrorizing half the market.”
“All of them? Even Eevi?”
He nods seriously. “I was informed that she has strong opinions about poster placement, and her presence was required. I, however, was deemed wholly unnecessary.”
Nervous energy flutters through me now that I realize we’re alone. Really alone.
“I love when your cheeks turn pink,” he murmurs.
“Cold outside.” That’s not why I shiver at his touch.
His hand finds mine. Fingers trace my knuckles with idle tenderness, lingering like he’s memorizing the shape of me. The gentleness, the quiet… It's all so tender I almost miss the hunger curling beneath it. But it’s there. The warmth between us sparks.
My skin buzzes, heat blooming in my belly. He’s always sweet, but this is more. The way his thumb pauses at the base of mine, the way he looks at me—inviting, wanting, asking me to be his. And maybe I want that, too.
I bring my other hand across to run up his arm, then slide across his chest. He’s not wearing his hat, so I twist to face him so I can run my fingers up his face and trace the soft edges of his ears all the way to the tips.
He shivers, but doesn’t pull away. I do it again, practically in his lap now.
“I like touching you.”
“Then touch me more,” he says, voice low and gravelly. “You have my permission to touch me anytime you like, kulta.”
My heart lurches.
“I thought I was your ihana,” I whisper.
“You are so much more than lovely,” Lark replies, the words brushing heat over my skin as he pulls me the rest of the way to him. “You’re precious. You have no idea how much. How I’ve wanted you.”
“You want me?”
His dimple appears, lazy and seductive. “I promise I never needed that much practice kissing. Especially not with you.”
My fingers skim the side of his face, and he leans into the touch like it means something. Like I mean something.
The kiss comes softly at first. Then he draws me closer, and I follow without question, threading fingers through his hair, sinking into the taste of him. Warmth pools low as he shifts, guiding me gently back against the cushions, his hands careful and reverent.
With a shrill squeal, Hugo darts from his pocket, scrabbles across the couch cushion and leaps for the safety of the floor. Tiny claws click-clack in a race for safer ground as he abandons us.
“Sorry, buddy!” Lark yells after him with a laugh before turning his devastating dimples back to me. “Forgot he was there.”
I can only laugh with him, helpless against that smile.
The next kiss is slower, deeper. Like he means to map my soul through the press of lips and tongue. Like he’s savoring me. My hands tangle at his nape, pulling him closer, needing him like air.
His lips move to my jaw, to the column of my throat. He pauses, giving me space to stop him if I want. I don’t.
“You’re sure?” he asks, his voice hoarse.
“I’ve never been more. Take me to bed, Lark.”
He lifts me as if I weigh nothing, and carries me toward the bedroom. I barely register the creak of floorboards beneath his feet before he bumps the door shut and twists the lock with a soft click. My breath catches.
He bumps into the dresser with a grunt and stumbles toward the bed.
“No hurting yourself,” I tease. “I have plans for this gorgeous body of yours.”
“Oh, do you, now?”
He lays me down on the bed with such reverence it nearly undoes me. His gaze roams, hungry and gentle at the same time. I sit up and reach for my collar, then pause. Butterflies swamp my stomach. I’m suddenly hesitant.
“I’m rather pale and—”
“Perfect?” Lark finishes. “I happen to like the way you look.” His gaze deepens, as if he can see right through me. “And I’d still like you any other way you might look.”
My breath stutters.
The moment lies between us, practically begging me to admit my secret disguise. Then he dips his face with a sultry grin, kissing my neck while fingers fumble at buttons and laces between us. His hands are hot against my skin, melting me as they skim up my ribs.
“Oh, that’s…that…yes. More.”
I love that his breathing hitches when mine does, and that he has to take a moment to control himself when he has my blouse hanging open. He’s less gentle now as he tugs it out from under me, his eyes never leaving my body.
Fabric pools on the floor. His shirt follows. Then his trousers. His skin is warm against mine as he lies beside me, propped on one elbow. Looking. His eyes trace every curve of my body.
I’ve never been seen like this. Not just bare but…known.
“You are so drowning beautiful,” he whispers, his voice rough. “I don’t know why you agreed to help me or why you stayed, but I’m grateful for every moment you spend with me. They’re all gifts I’m not worthy of.”
“Now who’s selling themselves short?” I wish he could see himself the way I do. I trace firm abs with a featherlight touch, enjoying the way his skin dimples in response. “You know, at Court, it’s expected to give a gift before receiving one.”
I let my fingers trail down his torso to his base, enjoying the groan it draws out of him
“Then I’m very lax in my court protocol,” he teases, peppering small kisses along my shoulder. “Receiving all these gifts without giving. I’ll have to fix that.”
“It’s impossible, you know.” I meet his eyes, heart pounding. “How can both parties fulfill the expectation when one gift must always come first?”
“Easy. You’ll always come first.”
My stomach flip flops. There’s no world where Lark wouldn’t be unfailingly generous and giving.
No reason that wouldn’t be the case in bed, too.
I should have expected the way he’s setting me on fire with just his fingers and tongue, but he doesn’t make me feel like I need to play a game of reciprocation, though I may want to do that later.
Why, oh why, was I trying to live up to so many impossible standards all that time when someone like Lark exists, who never makes me feel lacking?
His kisses turn hotter, his hand gliding over my stomach, teasing warmth where I’m already aching. His hand slides lower.
I gasp, arching into his fingers as pleasure blooms at my core, sharp and sudden and all-encompassing.
He reads every sound I make, every catch in my breath, with practiced focus like he’s been studying my pleasure for ages, not moments.
Every touch is a question. And every time, my body answers yes, yes, storms yes.
I may have said that last one out loud.
His fingers trace slow, insistent circles that make my senses shatter. When he shifts to cover me, my hips rise to meet him, seeking more, wanting…
I reach for him, guiding him where I want him most. Needing him.
And he gives it. Firm. Steady. Slow at first.
He pauses to allow me time to adjust to how he fills me, waiting until I want to scream at him to move, already. It’s nothing but sweet, agonizing pleasure when he does.
He gives me everything, murmuring sweet nothings in that deep, reverent tone that could convince me I’m divine. I can’t stop touching.
Everywhere.
All at once.
My hands run from his hips, up the muscles of his back, over the curves of his shoulders, to the luxurious softness of his hair and ears. Back again. And again.
His pace is strong and purposeful, a promise with every flex of his hips. Promises I meet with mine, even if it can only be true in this. A promise our bodies make to each other when our hearts can never do the same, even though mine reaches for him in this bliss.
Soon, even those thoughts vanish beneath wave after wave of heat and pleasure, each building on the last. It crawls down my spine, cresting in every shade of white. And when I finally break apart in his arms, his name on my lips, it feels like surrender and triumph all at once.
He holds me through the aftershocks, both mine and his, his smile warm and a little smug. “That’s one way to deliver gifts at the same time.”
“You’re incorrigible.”
“I know.”
I hide my smile against his chest, breathing his spicy musk as my body languishes in lingering heat. We stay that way, breathing together, easy and perfect. If only it could stay this way.