Page 95 of Fate

He moved downward and placed a single kiss in the dip between her breasts, and it felt so intimate a gesture that it took everything in her to keep still, to let him lead, to see what he might do next.

She did not expect for him to sink down beside her. For his arm to come about her middle as he pulled her back into him. “I do not think I deserve you,” he confessed, his voice so tight, so small, that it made her ache just to hear it. His hold tightened. “But I want to keep you.”

She wriggled around so she might face him. Might take his face in her hands and kiss both his cheeks. His temple. Brush her thumb at the lines at the corner of his eyes where he held such tension. “Thankfully, the Maker disagreed with you. Because here I am.” Another kiss, this time to his mouth. The one she loved, most particularly now that it was not quite so prone to grimacing at her. “And I am not leaving you.” The ache, the pull in her heart, the one that was an offer she did not want to make, but needed to. “Even if you had told me you could not offersomeday.I would stay. And love you anyway.”

His eyes darted about, as if he was afraid for them to settle on her. Afraid for her to look and see. To know how deeply she affected him.

But the bond told her. Made her burrow closer and hold him to her. To press skin against skin until his breath calmed.

Until his eyes were dry.

Not that she would ever tease him about that. It was a private moment, shared and experienced between the two of them. “I love that you try,” Firen added. “That you want to be different. And I think...” she nuzzled into his chest and felt the bond pull and warm. Settle more deeply than it had before, and it felt soright that she could not suppress her sigh. “I think you love me, too.”

He hadn’t said it, but he’d shown it. Bit by bit. When he’d chosen her. When he’d put her first. When he’d respected her mother, when he’d listened to her father’s stories.

If it wasn’t love, she wasn’t certain she needed to know any other kind.

“I am a poor seducer,” Lucian complained, as she reached out and tried to grapple with the edge of a quilt to bring it over top of them. She failed, but Lucian didn’t, and he covered the both of them well enough.

“Really? Because I’m rather enjoying myself,” Firen assured him, rubbing little patterns into his chest. Runes she’d seen on doorways, that meant nothing and yet... did now. Because it was a place shared with him. A language of her people that she had not learned, but perhaps she would.

“We still could,” Lucian offered, but it was half-hearted. A concession to her needs. Quiet though they’d gone as they lay there. He could rouse them easily enough if he tried, but there was something nice in this, too. The lying together. The knowledge they could come together in the morning without thinking of her father at work downstairs. Of having to dress properly in order to use the facilities in the main house.

Perhaps it was not quite how she’d imagined spending her first night in her new home, but she found she had no complaints.

“Maybe part of the seduction is waiting for daylight,” Firen teased. Kissed him once on his bare chest, just because she could. “I told you I’m patient.”

Another chuckle, softer this time. Full of fondness.

“I do love you,” he told her, so quietly that if she had not felt the words against her ear, she might have doubted he spoke them at all.

She hummed. Pulled the quilt higher on her shoulder and enjoyed being nestled against him while it lasted. He’d roll away, eventually. When he thought she was sleeping and would not notice.

But for now, she had him pinned. Made all the better when she brought her leg on top of one of his. “You’ve nothing to say?” Lucian asked, his fingers finding the tidy ribbon at the end of her plait, pulling it free. She should stop him. It would be a mess come morning if she didn’t.

Maybe she would have him comb it, after they loved in the morning. Since it would be his fault when it tangled. “Oh,” she mumbled, turning her head so she could glance at him. “I already knew. But thank you for telling me.” She smiled at him, and even tilted her chin to indicate she would like a kiss, but that only earned an eye roll from her mate.

“Such a romantic, you are.”

But he did kiss her.

And she sighed happily as her head dropped back down to his chest.

“I have to be at the Hall early.” His fingers were stroking through her hair, skimming across the bare skin of her back. Over and over. “Vandran’s schedule is... rigorous.”

Her eyes opened.

“Oh. Well. Then I suppose we should do this now.”

She popped up, leaning over him as he watched her try to cover him as best she could with herself. “I thought you were resting,” Lucian laughed at her, tangling his hands in her hair and pulling her down to him.

“And I thought we could have a leisurely morning. We can both be wrong.”

And when he touched her, there was nothing half-hearted about it at all.

???

Firen sat in the garden.

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