Chapter Sixteen #2
“You are…” he began, then stopped, his voice thick. He shook his head, as if words had failed him. He leaned forward and buried his face in the curve of her neck, inhaling deeply. “You smell like herbs and clarity.”
She laughed, a soft, breathy sound. “That’s the disinfectant soap.”
“No.” He kissed the pulse point under her ear. “It’s you.”
He stood then, lifting her with him as if she weighed nothing.
She wrapped her legs around his waist, her arms around his shoulders, clinging to him.
He carried her the few steps to the thick wool rug before the brazier and lowered them both down, coming to rest with her beneath him.
The woven wool was scratchy against her back, a vivid contrast to the heat of his body covering hers.
He braced himself on his elbows, looking down at her. The firelight gilded the sweat-sheened planes of his chest, danced in his eyes. “I have wanted this,” he said, his voice rough with it, “since you walked into my camp and told me what was killing my children.”
The admission was a gift. It laid bare the timeline of his want, running parallel to her work, never interfering, just waiting.
“I know,” she said. She cupped his cheek. “I noticed.”
He kissed her, a deep, drugging kiss that melted her bones.
Then he began to move down her body. He took his time.
The hollow of her throat received his kiss, followed by the swell of her breasts through her thin linen shift.
Pushing the fabric up to bare her, his mouth closed over one nipple.
She arched off the rug with a sharp cry, her hands fisting in his hair.
He laved her with his tongue, then drew the peak deep into the heat of his mouth, suckling gently until she was writhing beneath him, mindless with sensation.
He moved lower. His lips traced a path down her sternum, over her belly. He hooked his hands under her knees and pushed her legs apart, settling between them. He looked up the length of her body, his gaze meeting hers. Held it. Then he lowered his head.
The first touch of his mouth against her core was a revelation.
It was not tentative. It was confident, reverent.
He licked into her with a slow, thorough attention that had her crying out, her hips lifting off the rug.
A firm hand on her abdomen held her down, while his other stroked the inside of her thigh.
Soon, he learned her rhythm, the places that made her gasp, the particular pressure that made her see stars behind her closed eyelids.
Piece by piece, he took her apart with his mouth, until she was shaking, until her breaths were sobs, until the coil of pleasure in her belly was so tight she thought she might break.
“Rauth—” It was a plea, a warning.
He gave her no quarter. His tongue circled the aching centre of her need, then pressed flat against it. The world shattered.
The climax rolled through her in long, pulsing waves, wringing a raw, broken sound from her throat. He stayed with her through it, his mouth gentle now, soothing, until the last tremor subsided and she lay boneless beneath him, spent.
Moving back up her body, he kissed her belly, her ribs, the valley between her breasts.
Hard against her thigh, he was a hot, insistent weight.
She could feel the dampness of her own pleasure on his skin.
She reached between them, wrapping her hand around him.
He was velvet over steel, pulsing in her grip. A ragged groan tore from his chest.
“Look at me,” she said.
His eyes, heavy-lidded and dark with need, found hers.
She guided him to her entrance. “Now.”
He pushed inside her with one long, smooth thrust. There was a moment of exquisite, stretching fullness, a sharp inhale from them both, and then he was seated to the hilt. They were joined. Completely.
He held himself still, his body trembling with the effort. His forehead dropped to hers. “Lirra.”
She wrapped her legs high around his waist, taking him deeper. She rolled her hips, a slow, testing undulation. The friction was unbearable, perfect. “Move.”
He began to move. It was not a frantic pace.
It was a deep, rolling rhythm that stroked something inside her she hadn’t known existed.
Each thrust was measured, intentional, building a new kind of heat from the ashes of the last. She met him stroke for stroke, her nails scoring lightly down his back.
The only sounds were their ragged breathing, the soft slap of skin, the crackle of the fire.
He shifted his angle slightly, and the next thrust brushed a spot that made her cry out, her back bowing. A smug, male smile touched his lips. He did it again. And again. The pleasure built again, slower this time, deeper, a tide rising from her core.
“You feel…” he panted, driving into her, “you feel like coming home.”
The words undid her. They were not poetry.
They were truth. They were the final piece clicking into place.
Her climax took her by surprise, a powerful, rolling wave that clenched around him, pulling a guttural shout from his throat.
He followed her over, his rhythm breaking into short, sharp thrusts as he spilled himself inside her with a shudder that seemed to come from the very centre of him.
He collapsed beside her, pulling her with him so she lay half on his chest, their legs tangled. His heart hammered against her ear, a wild, frantic drum. Slowly, it eased. The sweat cooled on their skin. The fire murmured its own low, secret thoughts into the quiet.
He stroked her hair, his fingers tracing the shell of her ear. “The bed,” he said, his voice rough with exhaustion and satisfaction. “Is still yours. If you want it.”
She lifted her head. The firelight played over his face, softening the hard lines, highlighting the peace there. The deep, unguarded peace of a man who was no longer alone. “Our bed,” she corrected softly.
A breath left him, a sigh of profound relief. He pulled her closer, tucking her head under his chin. “Ours.”
She lay there, listening to the steady beat of his heart, feeling the solid reality of him beneath her. The workroom was quiet. The children were healing. The knowledge was in motion. The faction was waiting.
And she was staying.
She did not have to. The work did not require it.
Because she wanted to be.
The thought was simple. It was clean. It was the most terrifying and solid thing she had ever known.
She closed her eyes, breathed in the scent of him and smoke and her own skin, and let the choice settle into her bones.
It was not a decision made in crisis. It was a decision made in the quiet aftermath, in the warm dark, with his arms around her.
It was the choice that would shape every day that came after.
Outside, the deep silence of a Stonehollow night pressed against the longhouse walls. Inside, by the dying fire, two people held each other, and did not let go.