Page 65 of A Song of Ash and Moonlight

He exhaled shakily. “You told me that you’ve kissed only two other people, that you’ve gone to bed with someone only once. And I know you’re upset. I know seeing Yvaine was hard for you. I don’t want you to…” He looked away, his jaw working. The heat of him was incredible; I found myself leaning into him like a cat into sunshine.

“Gods,” he rasped. “Farrin, I don’t want you to ask me for this just because you’re upset. I don’t want to dismiss your desires. You’re a grown woman, and you know what you want. But…” He looked back at me, a plea in those fierce blue eyes. “Whatever you ask of me, I’ll do it. But I can’t bear you realizing later that you regret asking in the first place. Tell me honestly: Is thistrulywhat you want?”

The rush of tenderness I felt upon witnessing his conflict, his earnest intensity, left me near tears. I reached for him, my hands trembling as I touched the rough expanse of his beard, the soft skin above it. “I want you to kiss me, Ryder Bask,” I whispered. “Kiss me, please. Like you did that day.” My heart pounded so hard I could feel it in every part of my body. “That, and…more, please.”

I flushed, the sound of my request echoing childishly in my ears, but Ryder only smiled at me and traced my bottom lip with his thumb. I shivered at the sensation and grabbed his jacket with both hands. He kissed my hair, nuzzling it gently.

“What doesmoremean to you?” he murmured, his mouth against my ear.

I closed my eyes, shook my head a little. He kissed my jaw, my neck, my gown’s plain stitched collar. I slid my hands up his arms, held him to me.

He paused in his kisses, then pulled back just enough that his lipshovered over my skin. “Farrin,” he said roughly. “You have to tell me what you want.Moreto me means…” He laughed again, a soft, gruff sound that sent chills down my whole front and tightened my nipples under my dress, a novel sensation that made my breath catch in my throat.

“Moremeans perhaps more than you’re ready for,” he went on. “And that’s perfectly fine, but I need to know. Tell me, or I can’t in good conscience kiss you any further.”

“I…” I made myself look up at him, meet his hot blue gaze. Gods, his eyes were like twin jewels, brilliant and gorgeous. “I want you to kiss me.” I glanced past him, my cheeks burning. “There, on the bed. And…” I bit my lip.

He groaned and touched his brow to mine once more. “And?” he whispered.

“And then I…I don’t know. I think I want you to touch me.” As I said the words, the heat at the core of me, between my legs, bloomed down my thighs. “I want you to touch me…” I shook my head against him. I laughed, breathless, aching all over. “You know where. Don’t make me say it.”

And he didn’t. Instead, he dropped soft kisses in my hair and gently, slowly, slid one of his hands down my back, around the curve of my waist, and down, down, over the flat plane of my belly, and down even farther, to press his fingers against me, just the slightest sweet pressure through the fabric of my gown.

The pleasure of even that small touch was glorious, sending a rush of blazing heat through my entire body. I cried out and clutched his arm, my head spinning.

“Here?” he whispered, voice and breath and lips against the hollow of my throat. “Is this where you want me to touch you?”

I nodded frantically, found my words. “Yes, there,” I gasped out, and the next moment he had swept me up into his arms. Four longstrides, to lock the door and take me to the bed, and then he was lowering me down onto it—the pillows below me and Ryder above, his body hovering over mine for a moment before he carefully settled beside me. I turned into him, seeking him with clumsy ardor, and his arms came around me, strong and warm, and he was kissing me just as he had that day in the stable before I’d stopped him—hot, hungry kisses, deep and devouring, as if he were a starving man and I were a feast laid out before him. I was inexpert at kissing, nervous and inelegant, perhaps a little too eager, but as soon as those worries entered my mind, Ryder’s kisses drove them out.

He left no inch of me untouched: the soft skin just behind my ears, the line of my jaw, even the turns of my wrists. Just as soon as I thought nothing could feel better than this—his mouth on mine, his kisses on my nape, under my hair—he would move, try something different, something tender and wild and wholly new. He began undoing the buttons at my collar.

“Is this all right?” he whispered.

I could only nod, pressing up against his body, my own an inferno of instinct and need. He worked slowly, lavishing kisses upon each new bit of skin he unveiled before moving on to the next. His teeth lightly grazed my collarbones, and when he reached the button that revealed the first slight swell of my breasts, he let out a low groan, his breath hot on my skin, his hands shaking a little as they cupped my waist. I reached down and placed my hands over his before he could unbutton anything further.

He stilled at once and came back up to find me, breathing as hard as I was. Soft kisses on my chin, across my cheeks, so tender that I had to hold him there against me for a moment and smile into his hair.

“Should I stop?” he asked. “Is this too much?”

“No, please don’t. I just…” I glanced down at my opened bodice, the stretch of bare pale skin, and felt a thrill that wasn’t entirely terror,nor was it entirely desire. It was something confused and in between, and I tried not to feel embarrassed as I explained. “No more of that, please. I…I don’t want to be naked. Not right now.”

He nodded, swallowed hard. “Of course.” He kissed me, sweet and slow, then found a long tress of golden-brown hair that had come loose from my braid and buried his face in it, breathing in deep. “Is it still all right if I touch you?” he asked, after a moment.

“If you don’t, I’ll change my mind about not wanting to punch you,” I said at once, and he laughed into my hair and said, “All right, love. We’ll start slowly. Tell me the moment you want me to stop.”

He held himself over me, drawing me up toward his body with languorous kisses, lazy, unhurried, each of which left me feeling drunk and buzzing all the way down to my toes. And then he gently pushed his thigh between my legs, and I latched on to him with a gasp, something ancient and primal within me telling me to move against him. I circled my hips slowly, a little nervously, and each press of his muscled thigh against my core brought a deep thrum of pleasure that left me swooning, panting beneath him on the bed.

“That’s it,” he said, bending down to kiss my throat. I keened quietly at the touch of his lips, arched up against him. He found my hands clutching desperately at his shoulders, gently unfolded my fingers, and pressed my arms into the pillows, pinning me tenderly beneath him.

The sensation of being trapped by him—the sweet care with which he held his body over mine—made me gasp into his hair as he sucked gently on my neck with lips and tongue. At each point of contact—his hands holding mine, his mouth on my skin, his thigh between my legs—I blazed hotter than any fire.

When he shifted, releasing my hands to drag his fingers down my body, I cried out in protest without meaning to. He paused; he lifted his hands off of me.

“Should I stop?” he asked, his brow furrowing with concern even as I felt the heat of his desire pressing urgently against my thigh.

I could have kissed him; Ididkiss him, turning up my face to his in silent invitation. “No, don’t stop,” I murmured against his cheek. “Just…I like it when you’re on top of me, when you’re all around me, holding me in place,” I whispered. “When all I can feel is you. The strength of you next to the smallness of me. I feel…trapped, but in a good way. A safe way.”

It was the most embarrassing thing I’d ever said, and yet perhaps the truest, for in its wake came a sense of peace—a sort of clarity, a rightness, as if I’d finally found the words I’d been searching for all my life. Ryder smiled down at me, not in judgment or in jest but with a fondness that made me long even more fiercely for his touch.

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