Page 106 of Sunder

“Most inconsiderate,” Orma agreed, and then he was pulling her shift lower still, and there were her hipbones. The very edge of her scar was visible, but she tilted her head back and closed her eyes, not quite ready to watch his expression as he took it in. It healed well. She’d been promised. It would fade so well she’d hardly need to think of it.

They’d been wrong about that, too.

Her body liked to keep its scars. They did not fade and flatten, but pinked and twisted, ensuring they would stay a constant reminder to keep the memories close.

There was no mistaking how pleased he was with each bit of her he uncovered. She waited for the threads to turn to pity, for his ardour to cool in favour of playing the healer.

He did not tug her shift lower, so he might inspect her scar. Instead, he went leftward, seeking the profusion of her hipbone, smoothing his lips over the skin just above. She jolted. Drew in a sharp, startled breath.

Watched as she could just make out the corners of his mouth pulling upward in a smile as he did it again, this time holding her hips down gently so she couldn’t move away so easily.

She had never imagined what a kiss might do. That gentle suction and a warm hand in hers could illicit such responses. Had never really imagined anything but chaste kisses at all. A cheek. A peck on the lips. Nothing like this.

Had he?

When he read through his texts—not hers, but the ones during his apprenticeship. When he was in that cusp of being grown, all anxious anticipation that even the very day of majority, and his mate would be there, ready to celebrate.

She ran her fingers through his hair and was rewarded with his hum of approval, and he released his pleasant torment of the little spot on her hip.

“Happy?” Athan asked, looking up at her. He did not appear worried. His eyes were warm and soft, and a lump settled in her throat to be regarded so.

Happy wasn’t the word. It was there about the edges, along with the thrill of her newfound freedom. “Bothered,” she decided, forcing down the urge to tilt her hips and ask for more of his kisses.

Athan chuckled, skimming his lips across the very edge of her shift, catching the edge of her scar. It prickled, and it wasn’t the same pleasant awareness and her breath caught until he settled back over her other hipbone. “Is that what I’m doing? Bothering you?”

She swallowed, her thoughts a jumble of sensation as he kissed, fully aware that this was lovely and she should be grateful for his attentiveness, but it wasn’t quite right. Wasn’t low enough, wasn’t stroking at the need that suddenly felt terribly urgent. “Yes,” she managed to get out, growing more frustrated than was reasonable. It wasn’t fair that he did not seem to share in the discomfort. That he could make lazy work of his exploration while she twitched and pulsed and needed.

Wanted.

That’s what this was. It was love and desire and it was all right because he was Athan and he’d be patient with her. Would do anything she asked of him if she was only brave enough to do so.

Was she?

It was indecent. Not at all how a lady would act, or even worse, not something she might say.

But she wasn’t in a fine tower. Her ancestors would be horrified enough by her new station as a healer’s mate, and she doubted there was more she could do to offend them.

She took a breath and took the hand that held hers and brought it where she wanted it. Covered still by cloth, but aching in a way that was new and no less troublesome. “Can you...” she began, but words failed her. She was flushed all over, and she was shocked at herself and a little bit horrified. But beneath all that, was him. He was... proud of her? Which was strange and unsettling, but she held onto it with as much strength as she could muster. She did not have to be a lady. She did not have to come from an impeccable bloodline. Orma just had to be his.

And he would be hers.

He cupped her through the fabric, and her hand fell away, unable to bear the idea she’d pushed him there. His first touches were tentative, and she should have told him to take off her shift entirely. To strip off his own clothing while he was at it. To give her time to stir his blood and to make him want, so she wasn’t alone in her audacity.

She might have done a lot of things, but his touch grew more insistent, and it suddenly became very difficult to imagine doing anything at all but... this. It wasn’t quite right, not just yet, but it was enough to keep her still, to wait, to let him settle into a rhythm that pleased her. She should care about ruined shifts and hadn’t her mother warned about fluids in one of their talks ages ago? She couldn’t quite recall now.

He adjusted his position, and she bit her lip hard because there was the source of it, the pulsing, the wanting. It had just been a brush, and Athan glanced upward to gage her reaction as he passed over it again. She felt so sensitive already, she couldn’t quite imagine how much more it might feel if the fabric was nolonger between them. Should she ask for that? Or be content with having his touch directly where she most desired it.

Would there be shimmers of the bond, even there? She remembered being a little girl. Stripping off her clothing and stealing to the looking glass. She hadn’t thought much of anything about where the tangles landed, wanted only to dance about her room and watch the threads follow, glimmering in the firelight.

Her mother had come in a moment later, urging her back into her nightdress because one did not dance in the nude, not when there were gowns for such things, and wouldn’t she rather twirl a pretty skirt?

Another touch, this time firmer, a little more sure of himself. And it was not a conscious choice to move, but she did, her hip twitching and arching. Or it might have done, if Athan had not placed a little more weight on her, holding her fast. “This all right?” he asked, because she did not like to be caged, did not like to be tied down, but this wasn’t that. This was Athan, and he wanted to please her, and she nodded because words felt terribly far away when he was tending to her.

With her assent, he tugged down the fabric just enough that he could place a kiss to the scar across her middle. Small, they’d called it, but to her it was anything but. Red and swollen in places, and her mother reminded her often they needed to be massaged with oils if she ever wanted it to get better.

She stopped asking a long while ago if Orma wanted her to do it for her.

“My Orma,” Athan breathed, and air caught in her lungs because he’d never said her name like that. He was always so careful, didn’t want her to feel presumed upon, never laid his own claim.

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