Page 103 of Sunder

He hummed, pressing his lips back against her skin as he made from the delicate skin between her breasts back up to her mouth. “Never,” he insisted, eyes full of something very near to delight. She was supposed to have protested the lamp, because it was one thing to be with him in the dark, where scars and imperfections might be lost in the shadows. But for the moment, she was glad, because she liked to see him this way.

Happy, she decided.

Not merely content. Or pleased. Or any of the placid, mild feelings that were encouraged in her other home.

He was happy, and he smiled into their kiss, and he made no protest when her hands delved to his shirt, to the ties at the shoulders, the knots that kept it from hanging open indecently while he worked.

Then grew frustrated, because who taught him how to make these sorts of knots? She pulled the usual side, and fiddled with the other, but rather than give easily as hers did, it earned only a firmer tangle.

“I question your skills,” Orma protested, very nearly wanting to push away his head as he placed kisses down her throat so she could properly see what she was doing.

“My skills?” Athan murmured, placing another kiss. Then another. Seemingly unbothered by her frustration. “Which ones? Hopefully not at pleasing you.”

She gave one knot a tug to draw his attention. “Theseskills,” Orma insisted. “You tie them wrong. They won’t come apart.”

He chuckled at her, which was not at all what she wanted, because she was supposed to be alluring and bewitching while she undressed him. “Undressed many men, have you?”

She might have scowled except he wasn’t looking at her, but was busy pulling her shift to better expose her breasts to his view. They really weren’t all that interesting when he wasn’t licking and blowing and doing all sorts of scandalous things to them. They wouldn’t swell as she grew with child, wouldn’t soften and look all womanly like her sister’s did after her first.

She took a breath.

Released the thought along with the air.

It was sad, and she could be sorry, but she needn’t dwell. Athan said so.

“Of course not,” Orma retorted, and really, he shouldn’t be making her cross when they were supposed to be loving.

Athan hummed, and brought one finger to trail across the flat of her nipple, while the other attended to the line that formedbetween her brows. It really was the oddest sort of sensation, one of a fond, teasing tenderness, the other a distracting reminder of their lascivious activities.

“The order is reversed,” Athan explained, and at least he wasn’t laughing at her any longer. “Compared to when you are doing it for yourself.”

Her throat tightened. “Oh.”

He kissed her lips once before he smiled at her. “I do have some experience in the matter. There is no need to be embarrassed.”

Her mouth grew dry.

And she absolutely refused to be jealous.

It wasn’t like she wasn’t aware there were... dalliances. Highly discouraged by parents and grandsires alike, but it happened. She even remembered her brother returning home, somewhere between the cusp of night ending and morning beginning, her father’s voice carrying through the tower as he chastised him for making use of one ofthoseplaces.

She’d asked her mother the next day, who’d grown misty-eyed and at first informed her she needn’t trouble herself about such matters, but then changed her mind.

Orma might need to prepare herself. In case her mate grew impatient, and he found comfort in some of the merchant districts, where foreign women who cared nothing for mates and the sanctity of bonds not yet created might enjoy a night of company.

She tried to picture Athan in such a place. With such a woman.

Then did anything she could tonotpicture such a thing.

Athan shifted, bringing his hand to pinch her chin lightly as he waited for her to open her eyes and look at him. “Where did you go just now?” he asked, always so careful of her.

She couldn’t do it. Couldn’t meet his eye. She was being silly, and far too young, but it was merely another reminder of how much life he had lived while she... hadn’t.

“I didn’t realise you’d been with anyone else,” she admitted, her voice so small it was barely like speaking at all.

His mouth dropped open, and suddenly it wasn’t enticing touches and teasing kisses, but she was being pulled into his arms and squeezed tightly. “That isnotwhat I meant.” He huffed out a breath, and he was shaking, and if he laughed, if he teased, she was going to wriggle out of this bed and sleep on the chaise with Brum. “Examinations, Orma. Which I shouldn’t even be bringing up either, now that I think of it, but surely that’s better than...”

He placed a kiss on her temple and was petting her hair, as if trying to smooth away the upset between them as efficiently as he possibly could. “I haven’t. With anyone else. I swear to you.”

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