Chapter 18
“You’re quiet. Everything okay?” Otho asked as he ushered me into the inn, his hand resting on my lower back.
“Yes,” I replied forcing a smile on my face. I was glad he didn’t have the empathy magic needed to call my bluff.
Our room was dark, and Otho lit the bedside lamp before sitting on the bed. I bit my lip. I knew what would come next, and I was ready for it . . . but also nervous.
“Come here,” he whispered, beckoning me forward.
Like I had earlier that day, I stood between his legs, his hands wrapping around my back. The silence was heavy between us, both of us too nervous to say the words that would propel this forward.
Otho’s resolved crumbled first, his gaze drinking me in as his fingers vibrated where they circled my waist. “I . . . er . . . Have you had enough space?”
I sucked my lower lip into my mouth. Otho and I hadn’t crossed this line. We almost had but then . . . I gulped, shoving thoughts of Leif away. “I . . . I think so.” My hands shook as I rested them on his shoulders. “I’m . . . scared.”
“I didn’t look that day . . . in the keep.”
He didn’t have to elaborate. “I know,” I breathed.
“I didn’t want . . .”
The room filled with a heavy silence as I brushed my thumbs over the muscles in his shoulders. “I’m . . . I’m ready.”
Otho sighed with relief, pulling me closer until I was sitting on his knee. “We can stop anytime you want, I promise.”
I nodded my consent, and he didn’t hesitate, his fingers diving beneath my hem to tug my shirt over my head.
“This looked amazing on you, by the way,” he hissed as his eyes trailed down my front. He was quick to add my brassiere to the growing pile of clothes, a groan leaving his lips as he took me in, brushing a single finger over my tattoo. A shiver went through me. “You’re so beautiful.”
I didn’t know how to reply to that, so I reached for his shirt, peeling it from his body like he had mine.
Otho shirtless was a sight to behold, and I gasped as I took him in.
He was well-muscled from his military training, and his arms and torso were crisscrossed with scars.
I traced the one on his peck which divided the tattoo there.
Though I’d seen him without a shirt once before, things felt different now.
“Are all these from training?”
He shook his head. “Some are from my brother. Some of them from arrows when rescuing a beautiful spy from the trap I sent her into.”
I groaned, remembering the day I’d first seen him shirtless. This was different, however, as now I really had time to study him and to trace the tattoos.
“Some are from Cal and Friar.”
I arched my eyebrow.
“We played rough as kids.”
I nodded, my hands trailing down to his waistband. But he stopped them, covering my hands with his own. “I believe it’s my turn.”
Even though this was far from my first time, my nerves still spiked as his hands drifted to the laces on my breeches and his tongue flicked at one of my exposed nipples. I sucked my bottom lip into my mouth.
Otho paused his motions, his thumb pressing down on my chin to force my teeth to release my lip. “Stop. You’re beautiful to me, no matter what.”
I nodded, trying to force the nerves from my mind, but it was difficult.
I wanted this. I wanted him.
He pushed my breeches down my legs, and I stepped out of them. But before I could get my bearings, he guided me forward, until I was straddling him on the bed. Goose flesh prickled across my skin.
His lips once again found my breast as his fingers brushed the area between my legs. Although he’d already touched me there, it felt like a lifetime ago, my nerves coming alive at his touch.
I wanted him to push into me, to bring me to pleasure as he had on the cot in Friar’s workroom, but he paused his motions, his arm lifting me off his lap.
I was confused for a moment, until he shifted so he was propped against the headboard, pulling me back into his lap.
“I want to take my time with you,” he breathed. “And this will be more comfortable.”
His hand pressed on the back of my head, forcing my lips back to his. His tongue pressed at the seam of my lips and I granted him access. Distracted by the feeling of his tongue on my teeth, I didn’t realize what his hands were doing until he pressed one finger into my heat, causing me to gasp.
“Mmm . . . that’s my Runa,” he hissed.
He pumped the finger slowly, then used his thumb to press on my clit. Despite my initial nervousness, I reminded myself to relax as I chased my pleasure.
“You like that, don’t you?” Otho didn’t wait for a reply before dipping his head back to my nipple, his fingers increasing their pace.
The combination of the stimuli had me fast approaching my orgasm and I groaned as I tipped over the edge, loving the way my inner walls gripped his fingers.
My breathing came in gasps as I leaned against Otho to recover. After several moments, I reached my hand between us, brushing the outline of his cock through his breeches.
I’d forgotten he was still partially clothed.
“I think it’s time to take these off.” My voice was breathy and something in my core ached for him. I knew there was something I was supposed to remember, but before I could grasp the thought, it was gone.
Otho lifted me enough so he could unlace his breeches and push them down his legs. My gaze caught on his cock, which jutted up between us. I reached forward, wrapping my hand around it.
He moaned. “I’ve . . . I’ve dreamed of this day,” he said between gasps as I lazily moved my hand up and down his shaft. “Of us.”
I didn’t reply, focused on my task. I wanted him to feel as good as he made me feel.
His hand covered mine. “I want to be inside you.”
It was all I could do to bob my head, granting permission, as he grabbed my hips, lining himself up. I rested my hands on his shoulders to balance myself, breathing deeply to remind my body to relax, again. This was Otho—the man I loved.
“Are you ready?” he asked, his voice husky with arousal.
“Yes.” The word was barely a whisper.
He didn’t need any further encouragement as he pressed me down, our two bodies finally becoming one.
Otho paused, allowing me time to accommodate to his size, the only sound in the room being our shared breathing. His hand trailed lazily down my side, a silent reassurance.
“You feel . . . Hel . . . nothing I can say will accurately describe how I feel right now.” Otho’s words were disjointed as his fingers dug into my hips.
“Did I render the general speechless?” I ran my hand down the side of his face, shifting my hips forward enough to coax a moan from his throat.
“You know I’m always speechless in your presence,” he replied, using his grip on my hips to keep me pressed on him as I moved back and forth on his lap.
It didn’t take long for me to come a second time, and the moment I collapsed, panting, Otho took over, increasing the pace, gasps and moans emerging from his lips, one after another. Our eyes connected, his dark grey irises sending a jolt through me that I couldn’t explain.
That was all it took, and he tossed his head back, his legs shaking beneath me as he rode out his release. He pulled me to his chest, wrapping his arms around my back.
“Oh, Runa, my Runa.” The words sounded like a plea.
We stayed like that for a while, until he had gone soft inside me. He carefully shifted me off of his lap, walking to the bathing chamber to grab a towel to clean us both before climbing back into bed.
I moved into his arms, laying my head on his chest, a sense of peace drawing me into a dreamless sleep.
When I awoke, sunlight was pouring through the single window in the room. Otho’s chest rose and fell in even breaths beneath my ear.
It was the first time I’d ever seen him asleep.
Of course, we’d shared a tent during the journey, but he was always awake as I fell asleep, and gone from the tent before I awoke.
My eyes drifted to the tattoos on his pecks, the gentle swirls I’d always wondered about. Even knowing it would probably wake him, I reached a finger up and traced them lightly.
Sure enough, Otho’s breathing changed, and his chest shifted beneath my hands.
When I peered up, his gaze was fixated on me.
“What does this tattoo mean?” I asked.
He hummed. “Nothing really. I just thought—when I came of age—they would help hide some of my scars.”
I traced the prominent scar that cut right through it.
Otho scoffed, somehow hearing my thoughts. “I know; I neglected to think about the fact that I would accumulate more scars as a general.”
We both laughed at that.
Then, I felt his hands on my side. “Mine are nowhere near as beautiful as yours, though.”
I couldn’t stop the blush that spread across my cheeks. Prior to the night before, it had been almost a fortnight since I last thought about my tattoo—since the day Leif had asked me to use a potion to rid my skin of it.
Without thinking, I replied, “Well, when we find Collum you can ask her—”
My cousin.
I jolted up in bed, narrowly missing elbowing Otho in the face. The pace of my breathing increased.
There was a hand on my back, gently caressing my spine. “I don’t have any information about her—about what happened to her after the battle. But as I mentioned before, I’d seen her in the dream world. I’ll show you where next time we are there. With luck, she’ll be there, too.”
I swallowed hard. I didn’t know how to tell him that I hadn’t gone to the dream space since meeting him in the forest. Which, if what he said was true, meant no one was thinking of me enough to call me there.
I shoved that painful thought aside.
Needing a distraction from my pounding heart, I reached for the vial on the bedside table, dumping the final three berries into my hands.
Otho watched me consume them with skepticism in his gaze but said nothing.
The silence between us was awkward, and not knowing what else to do, I rose and dressed. Otho did the same.
He was the first to break the silence. “I know why you do it, and I understand. But the bond . . . it’s angry that you’re hurting yourself.”
My lips twisted. I knew how he felt, but as I’d already explained, there was no other option. Not to mention the fact that I didn’t make decisions based on a bond—
My stomach dropped.
I remembered the thought that had been hidden from me the night before—shrouded by my lust.
Leif had said that once those who were weighted had sex for the first time, the bond would change.
My hands shook, and my lungs constricted.
“Runa?” Otho’s voice sounded like it was coming through a long tunnel.
“We’re weighted, and now that we’ve had sex . . .” I finished the thought in my mind, the bond will change.
The answer drifted through my mind in a voice I would recognize anywhere.
“That it will.”