Chapter 10 #3
He sighs. “Fuck, Nyx. Like I’ve lost my mind.”
It's enough for me. I lift up on to my tiptoes and press my lips to his.
For a half second he goes very still, and then his hand slides to the back of my neck and he takes over entirely, tipping my head up and kissing me with a certainty that steals the breath from my lungs.
There's nothing tentative about it. Nothing exploratory.
He kisses me like he's been thinking about it all his life, and the realization of that moves through me like warm water.
I slide my hands up his chest, feeling the hard planes of him beneath the fabric, the solidness of a man built by years of hard living.
He's warm under my palms, warmer than I expected, and I press closer without meaning to, drawn in by the heat of him, by the smell of him, those warm forest notes that have started to feel like safety to me in a way I didn't anticipate and can't fully explain.
Like I was always going to end up here. Like the Trials, the swamp, the cemetery, all of it was leading to this stretch of forest and this man's mouth on mine.
He makes a low sound against my lips and shifts us, one hand dropping to my hip, and then I have my back against the bark of a tree and I gasp at the change in angle, the weight of him against me.
His stubble drags along my jaw as he drops his head, kissing down the side of my neck, and the scrape of it against the sensitive skin there sends a shiver all the way down my spine. My fingers curl into his shirt.
I want more. The wanting of it surprises me, how immediately and completely it takes over.
I turn my head, finding his mouth again, and kiss him deeper this time, my hands moving over his chest, tracing the shape of him, learning him. I feel him draw in a slow breath through his nose—controlled, deliberate, the breath of a man working to hold himself in check.
He hooks a hand behind my knee and draws my leg up, and when our bodies press together fully I feel how much he wants this, and the knowledge of it turns my thoughts to nothing useful for several seconds.
I press closer, curious and flushed all the way to my fingertips, and he lets out a sound from the back of his throat that is low and wanting and thoroughly undone, and it sinks directly into my bones.
His mouth drifts from my neck to my collarbone, his hand moving carefully over my braid, like even now he's being deliberate about what he touches.
When his hand moves to my chest and his palm presses warm against me through the fabric, stars burst behind my eyes and I moan softly against his mouth before I can stop myself.
His hands rub over the leather fabric, the friction making my nipples hard, and I suck in a shaky breath.
He goes still for just a moment, then kisses my lips again, his hand drifting lower, fingers tracing the hem of my skirt, sliding up beneath it to the waist of my trousers. When he hooks a single finger in the waistband and draws it down slightly, reality surfaces through the warmth of it.
I've never done anything like this.
And as much as I want this, want him, I don't want it here, against the side of a tree, in the open, for the first time.
"Sorry," I whisper, catching his wrist and stilling his hand. I'm breathing hard, my chest rising and falling like I've been running. "I'm not ready for—I haven't—"
"You have nothing to apologize for. Besides, this isn’t safe…
I shouldn’t have…" he says, and his voice is rough at the edges, his pupils dark and blown as he looks down at me, visibly working to steady himself.
There's no frustration in his face, nothing that looks like disappointment aimed at me, only the careful effort of a man pulling himself back from something he very much wanted to continue.
He doesn't step away. He doesn't leave me cold. He drops his forehead to my shoulder and breathes there for a moment, his hand moving from my hip to rest at my waist, settling there instead of claiming me.
"You are—" he starts, and doesn't finish. He presses a kiss to my shoulder instead, then straightens and presses another to my forehead, slow and deliberate.
I am still throbbing with want, my whole body sensitive and aching in a way that makes it very difficult to think clearly. I wonder, briefly, if I made a mistake.
I don't think I did. But I feel the loss of it keenly.
"Come on." Thorian scrubs a hand through his hair and looks at me with something that isn't quite a smile but is the closest he gets, though something still moves behind his eyes, something he's working through.
He sighs, leans down to collect the firewood, and loops his free arm around my shoulders.
"We should finish collecting the wood before nightfall. "
"Agreed," I say, taking a few pieces to carry myself. "We should."
And as we go, being practical and smart, I kind of wish I hadn’t been. I kind of wish I’d waited to see what he was going to do to me. After all, I don’t even know if tomorrow is guaranteed in the Trials.