15. Lovette
Chapter 15
Lovette
“ Y ou should be getting regular massages like this, you know. Therapy for the tissue if it bothers you so much.”
“I’m fine.”
I sighed deeply, probing at the scar between the two areas of his forearm with my fingertips. “You are many things, Gaius Caledon. Fine is not one of them.” He grunted, but when I looked up, his eyes had slipped halfway closed. “Are you going to argue with me all night? We both know you need this.”
His face went through several fascinating changes through the span of several breaths. Finally, he sighed. “Do your worst, healer.”
His capitulation was music to my ears. “You sure? You’ve quite recently seen my worst.” I knew I’d done nothing wrong today… but I hated who I became sometimes out of necessity.
I got up to get a bottle of heavy ointment that Greta had sent over with my father, his empathetic gaze following me. She’d prepared a lotion with a new Elixir of Healing mixed into it. My cousin was an alchemist and had fully embraced her calling at d’Arcan. The little box she’d sent with Father contained no fewer than a dozen little vials, all magical in their own way, all a boon for us to have.
After warming the balm between my hands, I massaged it into the skin all around the joint, using one hand to balance his forearm while rubbing small circles over the scar with the fingertips of the other.
His fingertips flexed and relaxed as I worked over the strong muscles on the underside of his forearm. I was amused watching the mechanics work as they should. “Nerves and reflexes all seem in order.”
“Mmm.” His eyes blinked heavily, the relaxation evident in his slower breathing.
I failed to stifle the smile his response gave me, the corners of my mouth lifting gently as he sank further into his seat as I worked.
I reached for his ankle once the balm had all been absorbed on his arm. He shifted his foot away from my grasp. “Does your arm feel better?”
He frowned. “Yes.”
“Then let me also do your leg.” Gaius heaved a sigh, as I pulled his calf over my knees. I simply glared back. His discontent quickly turned into a low rumbling groan of happiness as I worked the ointment into the knotted flesh. He was a melted puddle of a man, eyes closed and mouth slack, when I finally finished and returned his foot to the floor.
“Why do you fight it so when you know it will help? We’ve been through this.” I chuckled, shaking my head.
“Because I don’t deserve relief,” he said after a moment.
“Ridiculous. You are not required to pay penance for the rest of your days in the form of discomfort, Gaius.”
“You sure, Little Dove?” I was pinned by the misery in his stare. “I’ve done things I can never atone for. Seems a constant reminder is the least of what I deserve.”
I scoffed. “This again? Get over yourself, General.”
“Pardon me?” He scowled again, looking at me as though he didn’t recognize me.
“You heard me. Your former behavior and past crimes don’t make you special, Gaius. I would wager every solider here—plus all the ones stationed at the military outpost and the men at the work camp for saint’s sake—have a similar story. Your self-imposed misery does nothing but keep you from healing in every way.”
“You have no idea?—”
“Sure I do. I’ve heard my father’s stories, my mother’s, my siblings’. Those of every injured stone kin to come through my infirmary or the meetinghouse needing to share their tales over supper. Do you think me pure? Without any stains of past deeds? You were there when I killed those guards.”
“They were threatening you?—”
“And you . You were there earlier today when I …” My blood ran hot, the ache of the bond in my chest tightening and giving a dull throb. “Whatever it is you think you’ve done, you must forgive yourself. If needs must, list everything out on paper so I can see it all clearly and make my own choice.”
“And if I can’t? If I can’t forgive nor forget?”
“Then you are doomed to be nothing more than a miserable old man, stuck in the past for all of eternity. Is that what you want? When you can be so much more? When you are so much more? You deserve better than that. I do, too, as your mate. I truly thought we’d moved past much of this.”
“In one thing, we agree, Lovette. You deserve better.” He bit the words out, as if my statement had confirmed what he’d already told me. A chasm began to open between us again, and I couldn’t stand the idea of having to either close or cross it once more.
“Then be more , Gaius.” Frustrated, I got to my feet and started packing up the supplies. I was not interested in rehashing this, yet again, not after what we’d already been through together.
“I do not know how, Little Dove.” The quiet tone of his voice, the resignation in it and the sadness made me stop. It made my heart ache and my breath catch.
“You do too, you foolish man.” I exhaled a long breath, staring into his eyes. “You have been, each day I’ve sat here with you and sorted jewels. Every time you’ve thought of someone else over your revenge.”
He shook his head. “I don’t. I’m not good like you, Lovette.”
“Good and bad are just?—”
“I don’t know how to be what you need .” His hasty interruption tapered into a deep sigh. “You are everything I lack, and it just comes naturally. I do not understand why the fates have smiled on me so, despite how I begged and tried to wheedle my way into such a blessing.” He grimaced then, as though tasting something bad. “Especially because I tried to do that.”
“What is it you need, Gaius?” I asked, unable to keep the words from spilling over my lips, even if they would damn me to living in a state of endless longing or regret.
He shook his head. “Just you. You are my peace, Little Dove. Your presence, your touch brings me more calm than I can ever remember having.”
“It takes away the edge of anxiety perhaps, but my gift doesn’t relieve pain. What’s the point in it if it doesn’t do that?” Frustrated by the storm of emotions swirling within me, I tugged at my shirt as I sat heavily in the chair and looked away.
His eyebrows drew together, and he leaned forward, putting his hands on either side of my face and forcing me to look into his eyes.
“The pain I can handle, Lovette. It is an annoyance, nothing more. The disquiet that has invaded my soul since I took that damnable post with the council is a constant gnawing ache driving me to madness. That doesn’t even count all the years before, the anger that festered and the misguided hatred over things that, you’re right, I should have learned how to move past. Moments of peace without any of that, a chance to catch my breath and get some clarity on my own mind are priceless. Your presence is a blessing .” He slanted his mouth over mine, the kiss straightforward but potent. His hands left my face and slid around my body. I sank into his warmth as his arms tightened around me, and a lump of emotion clogged my throat. “Do not discount your value or the power of your gift.” The words rumbled against my ear.
My chest glowed with the praise, the acknowledgement. I had always viewed my gift as incomplete, like the universe had forgotten to give me the other half of it. Guilt was always there when I’d be helping a patient, someone wounded and hurting, and the best I could do was to remove the anxiety of the situation instead of relieving the actual source of their pain.
Gaius’s words soothed the parts of me that always ached to do more in those situations. They reminded me that sometimes the best aspects of our gifts, of ourselves, are the ones we think are missing.
“Thank you.”
“Mmm,” he grumbled again, tugging at the ends of my hair with his fingertips. Pulling some of the curls out straight, he then let them bounce up again. His chair scraped the floor as he scooted as close to me as possible, his arms winding around my middle, his face tucked into the curve of my neck.
I shivered as his mouth began to lay light kisses along my skin, the bond expanding under my ribs, feeling like unfiltered sunlight trying to escape the confines of my body. “Gaius.”
His broad, warm palms took the measure of me in a slow, methodical way, mapping every inch of my torso and back before lowering to my thighs. His touch was firm and intentional as he replicated the massage I’d given him. One at a time, he drew my feet into his lap, working his strong thumbs into my instep, cracking the tense joints in my toes. I arched my back into the chair, unsure whether I was enjoying the sensations or not.
“You are tense, Little Dove.”
“Always,” I answered, sighing as he moved on to my ankles and calves.
“I wouldn’t have thought so,” he said. “Before.”
“Before?” I nearly moaned as he released the stress from the muscle along the back of my thigh.
“Before I realized how much you carry around. For you, your family. Me. If I’m to let go of my past, you need to learn to let go of your need to think about everyone before yourself.”
I made a noise of agreement, but my thoughts were already melted, especially because his wicked fingers had pulled me to the very edge of my seat. My feet touched the back of his chair, my rear barely hanging on to the edge of my seat.
“Lovette.”
“Mmm?”
“I’m going to take you to my bed. If you object to this, speak your piece. Otherwise, I’m going to claim you as my mate, once and for all. You will be mine, and I will be yours, until the fates see fit to call us to the great beyond. If you don’t want that, now is the time to say so.” There were shadows in his eyes. Fear that I was going to say no, even still.
I found I could no longer breathe. “Yes, Gaius. I want that.”
“Praise the saints and devils alike, and let them all forgive me for being selfish when it comes to you,” he sighed as he scooped me up.
My legs locked around his waist as he stood with me in his arms. It was a stilted walk to the bed, but he got us there without incident. Leaning over, he pressed me into the mattress as he nipped at my mouth, teasing me with kisses that were neither long enough nor deep enough for my liking.
“What if I had said no?” I whispered, making sure there was a teasing tone to my words, a soft lift to my smile.
“I am not above begging,” he smirked, fingertips grazing the sensitive tips of my breasts as they traveled the length of my torso. “I might not deserve you, Little Dove, but I sure as hell want you. I'm too far gone to let go of you now. I would have gotten on my knees every single day for the rest of eternity and pleaded with each and every deity individually, as long as it meant I got to keep you.” He kissed me again, stealing my very breath with the passion he infused into those words.
“Good thing I was never going to say anything but yes, then,” I panted. “I spared both your knees and your pride.”
He coughed a rough laugh. “You left your scent in my sheets,” he complained, but there was no fire to his accusations. “I couldn’t sleep with your smell all around me. I had to stone sleep or go without rest.”
His hands pushed my skirts put to my waist and pulled my undergarments down my thighs. I unlocked my ankles so he could remove them completely and sat up, reaching for the lashings on his trousers. “I’m not apologizing. And I still haven’t gotten a turn.”
He pushed my hands away gently. “And you still aren’t getting one, Little Dove. I wouldn’t last a moment. I’m already only existing on the thinnest thread of control where you’re concerned.”
I cared about nothing the moment his heated skin was on mine. His mouth removed any lingering thought as it worked mine with pure need. There was nothing but desire there, an ache that echoed behind my ribs as a hot, hollow throb. Clothing littered the floor, the bedding crumpled beneath my back as he ran his hand up the length of my thigh.
“I don’t know if I can?—”
“I’m not making requests or demands, Gaius. I need you. However you’re ready to give of yourself, I’ll take it.” He shuddered, pressing his thumb against my folds and finding me already wet. He circled my clit as his hot length notched against me. “No going back.” My tone was light, but the last thing I wanted was for him to change his mind or regret or resent this down the line.
“Never. You will be my peace for eternity, Little Dove. And I will do my best to be yours.” He grunted as he surged forward, my body accepting him readily but not without a pinching, stretching sensation that made me moan. “Lovette?” he asked, panting into the curve of my neck.
“I’m fine.” To prove it, I canted my hips upward, forcing him deeper. He swore an incoherent word, his breath hot against my skin.
As he slowly began to move, the mate bond expanded inside my chest like a star preparing to explode. I clawed at his chest with my fingernails, leaving behind faint red streaks over the place I imagined his bond would be. He flattened my hand under his, pressing my palm against the beat of his heart as he increased his tempo. Everywhere his skin met mine left behind a sharp tingle as an ache began to grow deep in my gut. Need and satisfaction warred, the bond growing impossibly large as my pleasure followed right behind.
My hips lifted to meet his thrusts, his one hand holding mine over his heart and the other squeezing my thigh where it rested against his hip.
“Lovette, I cannot—” His head fell back, the ends of his long hair brushing against my ankle, his throat bared to me. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, the moan he let out as his rhythm became erratic pushing me over the edge.
My own wordless cry seemed to assuage his worry. My body clenched around his as the bond expanded so far it had to have gone beyond the bounds of my flesh. Gaius surged forward one final time, collapsing over the top of me in a flurry of kisses pressed to my face, my chest, my shoulders.
“Mine,” he declared, our hands trapped between us.
His pulse raced under my hand, the beat the same frantic one as mine. All at once, the heat and pressure of the bond disappeared, leaving behind what felt like a thread between us. It gave a gentle pull as Gaius carried me to the bathroom and lavished me with a thorough wash under the spray of the shower.
After, as we lay in his bed together under the sheets, my head propped on his chest and his arms around me, a chill crept through me. It was a rude interruption to the warm, peaceful bubble I was in.
“We have to tell everyone soon,” I whispered. No matter how sure I was that it would all be fine, a creeping doubt that there would be objections to our coupling dampened my joy.
Our relationship had only been ours to this point. There was speculation, sure, but we’d had a tiny, insulated world inside this hut for ourselves. And that was over now. There was no going back.
Gaius sighed, the depth of it echoing the worry I carried. He kissed my temple. “I know, Little Dove. We will. Soon.”