Chapter Five #2
“Wait.”
He stops at once.
I curl my fingers around him.
His eyes close.
Oh, that is lovely.
I move my hand once, learning the weight and heat of him. He braces both palms on the bed beside my hips.
“Good?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Harder?”
His eyes open. “A little.”
I give him a little.
Baldr laughs, then drops his forehead to mine with a rough sound.
“Terrible woman.”
“You started it.”
I kiss him. He pushes the trousers away and comes over me again, bare from head to foot.
He settles between my legs. The hard length of him presses against me, and the size is less funny from here.
“You know it’s the last day of my—”
“I saw the cloths.” Easy, mouth at my jaw. “I can count. Asta’s not the only one.”
“And you don’t—”
“I don’t care, Sól. Not even a little.” He lifts his head so I can see he means it. “Unless you do.”
I should feel weird about this. I keep waiting to. I don’t.
Baldr watches my face.
“I want this,” I tell him.
“Slowly.”
“At first.”
His mouth curves. “At first.”
He guides himself into me.
Slowly, because he promised. I hold his shoulders and breathe while my body stretches around him. He stops before I ask.
“All right?”
“Yes.” I move my hips. “More.”
He gives me another inch.
I reconsider several decisions.
“Still all right?”
“Yes.”
“Certain?”
“Baldr.”
“Yes?”
“If you ask again, I’m going to push you off.”
He looks down at the distance between me and the floor. “Dangerous.”
I start laughing.
He kisses me through it and presses the rest of the way inside.
The laugh ends on a gasp.
We stay still for a few breaths. His arms shake beside me. Baldr, who can carry me across a yard with one arm, is holding himself back hard enough to shake.
I touch his face. “You can move.”
He draws out and comes back slowly.
That works.
I tell him.
The next stroke is deeper. My nails drag down his back. He lowers himself onto one elbow, slides the other hand beneath my hip, and finds a rhythm that keeps striking the place his fingers found earlier.
I can’t think of anything useful.
Fortunately, he doesn’t need instructions anymore.
I wrap both legs around him. He kisses me until our breathing gets too rough for it, then presses his forehead against mine. The bed gives one alarming creak.
We both stop.
I look toward the headboard.
Baldr looks too.
“The wood is rotten.”
I laugh so hard he slips halfway out of me.
“You said that about the bench.”
“It was true then.”
“You broke it.”
“The bench failed.”
“Under your bottom.”
“You were seven. Your memory is unreliable.”
I push at his chest.
He rolls onto his back and takes me with him.
Now I’m sitting over him, still laughing, with his hands warm on my hips and his cock inside me.
This is better.
I brace my palms on his chest and move.
Baldr’s head falls back against the pillow.
Oh, yes. Much better.
His hands guide me without taking over. I set the pace, slow until I work out the angle, then faster when his thumb finds me again.
“Sól.”
My name comes out rough.
I lean down and kiss him. His hips lift beneath mine. The bed creaks again, and neither of us stops this time.
Pleasure gathers low and tight. I sit upright to keep the pressure where I need it. Baldr watches me, both eyes fixed on my face.
He says my name. I come around him with his in my mouth.
He catches the back of my neck and pulls me down for a kiss. Then he rolls us again, thrusts twice, and pulls free. Heat spills across my stomach as he groans into my shoulder.
For a while, neither of us moves.
Baldr is heavy across half of me. One of my legs is trapped beneath his. My hair is in both our mouths.
I can’t stop smiling. I don’t try to.
“Did we break the bed?” I ask.
He lifts his head and looks at the frame. “No.”
“Are you sure?”
“It’s still under us.”
“A strong sign.”
He kisses the end of my nose, then gets up.
The loss of his warmth is immediate. I object, but he’s already crossing to the washstand. Naked. I watch him go with the attention this deserves.
Baldr wets a cloth and returns.
“You’re staring.”
“You keep walking around without clothes.”
“In your room.”
“That makes it more distracting.”
He cleans my stomach, then himself. No awkwardness. No sudden distance. He gives me a drink of water, takes one after me, and climbs back into bed.
I settle against his side. His arm comes around my shoulders, and I put one leg over his.
The room looks the same. My dress is on the floor. The two buttons from my basket are still beneath the table. The unicorn sits against the pillows with her horn bent sideways from Baldr’s shoulder.
He still feels like Baldr.
I like that.
“Are you all right?” he asks.
“Very.”
“Nothing hurts?”
I consider my legs. “Tomorrow may be difficult.”
His chest moves beneath my cheek when he laughs. “We’ll be sitting most of the day.”
“Good.”
I close my eyes.
Then open them.
“Why will we be sitting most of the day?”
Baldr goes quiet.
I lift my head. “Baldr.”
“We leave for Myrkvier at sunrise.”
I sit up. The blanket falls to my waist. “Tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“Tomorrow tomorrow?”
“There is only one.”
“You knew this in the yard.”
“I did.”
“You walked me all the way here to tell me.”
“That was the plan.”
I look at the dress on the floor, then at him.
“You got distracted.”
“So did you.”
“You were shirtless.”
“You kept the shirt.”
I find it hanging over the chair and point. “It’s right there.”
“You tried.”
He is smiling. I push his shoulder.
He catches my hand and kisses my palm. “Asta knows. The wagons are loaded. Your bags go down before breakfast.”
“Asta knows?”
“She gave the steward a list.”
“Of course she did.”
“Three lists.”
“That sounds right.”
I lie down again. Baldr pulls the blanket over us and tucks it around my shoulder.
“Do you want me to go?” he asks.
I put my head back on his chest. “No.”
His arm tightens around me.
“Stay.”
“I will.”
The fire makes a small sound in the hearth. Baldr’s fingers move through the ends of my hair. Tomorrow there will be mountains, three days of road, and one insufferable brother waiting at the other end.
Tonight I have Baldr warm beneath me and seven steps to his room that neither of us needs to take.
At sunrise, Asta is going to look at my face and know everything.
I should decide how much to tell her.
All of it, probably.
Poor Asta.