Saving the Immortal

Chapter Thirty-Three: Ready

He emerged from the bathing chamber that evening looking, I confess, considerably more distracting than any husband had any right to be.

His hair hung loose and still damp, dark against his bare shoulders, and whatever exhaustion the day's homecoming had carried seemed to have washed away entirely with the road dust, leaving behind something altogether too handsome for my composure to properly withstand. He crossed the room toward the wardrobe with an unhurried ease, entirely unaware — or perhaps entirely aware, given the particular knowing quality that had settled into his expression — of precisely what effect his appearance was having upon me.

I had decided, somewhere over the course of that long day, that I was ready.

Bess's words had lingered with me since our conversation, and the terror of his absence, the desperate relief of his return, had settled something within me that fear alone had never quite managed to loosen before. I wanted him. I had wanted him, I suspected, for rather longer than I had properly admitted to myself.

"You are staring," he said, glancing toward me with the faintest smile.

"I am not," I said, entirely unconvincingly.

"I believe," he said, pulling a fresh shirt from the wardrobe with deliberate slowness, "I might go out for a while yet. There is a matter at the stables I ought to check on, given my absence."

I blinked at him.

"Now," I said. "You wish to inspect the stables now."

"It seemed a reasonable hour," he said, entirely too innocently, though the corner of his mouth had begun to twitch in a manner that suggested he knew exactly what game he was playing.

"Ruselon."

"Yes?" he said, still holding the shirt, not yet putting it on, watching me now with open amusement.

"You returned from war mere hours ago," I said, crossing the room toward him with considerably more purpose than I had allowed myself in weeks. "And you intend to spend this evening with a horse rather than your own wife."

"The stables are rather important," he said solemnly.

"Put down the shirt," I said.

"I was simply going to dress," he said, though he made no move to actually do so, watching me approach with dark eyes that had gone considerably warmer than his teasing tone suggested.

"I do not want you dressed," I said, and watched, with some satisfaction, his eyebrows rise properly at that.

"Ivy," he said, his voice dropping into something lower now, the teasing lightness giving way to genuine attention. "Are you certain—"

I answered him by grabbing the front of his loose shirt and pulling him down to me, kissing him with an intention that left no further room for doubt.

He made a low sound against my mouth, the shirt forgotten entirely, dropping to the floor between us as his hands found my waist and drew me flush against him.

"I am entirely certain," I said, breathless, pulling back only far enough to speak. "I have been certain for rather longer than I have admitted, and I have no intention of waiting a moment longer."

"Then the stables can wait," he said, something warm and delighted flickering behind his eyes now.

"The stables," I said, "can wait indefinitely."

He kissed me again, deeper this time, walking me backward toward the bed with the particular unhurried confidence I had come to associate with everything he did, his hands sliding beneath the loose fabric of my robe with a warmth that made my breath catch entirely.

"You are certain," he murmured again, against my jaw now, his voice rough with restraint even as his hands continued their slow, deliberate exploration. "I will not press you—"

"Ruselon," I said, pulling back to look at him properly, my hands framing his face. "I have spent weeks fearing I would lose you before I ever had the chance to know this. I am not afraid any longer. I want this. I want you."

Something in his expression shifted completely at that — the teasing warmth deepening into something far more intent, far more focused entirely on me.

"Then let me show you," he said quietly, "precisely how thoroughly I intend to make up for every night we did not have."

He laid me back against the pillows with a gentleness that belied the evident hunger in his eyes, and what followed unfolded slowly, unhurried despite the weeks of longing behind it — his mouth finding mine again and again, his hands mapping every place that made my breath catch, the whole of him focused entirely on me with an attention that left no doubt whatsoever how completely he meant every word he had ever spoken about wanting to keep me safe, keep me cherished, keep me his.

The fire burned low beside us.

The stables, I thought distantly, somewhere near the edges of coherent thought, would simply have to wait until morning.