Page 105 of Sunder

And that was part of why she loved him.

“None of our family will be banished anywhere,” Orma declared, just in case he needed to hear it. Because she was his mate, not some faceless girl he’d dreamed of, trying to make little considerations about his life before she existed to object to them.

She was real, and whole, and a little battered, but she could let him keep his house and keep his Brum and there would be room for the lot of them.

“Agreed,” Athan said, his tone slightly absent as he delicately pulled at her shift. She didn’t help. Didn’t shift about and make it easier for him. There was something thrilling about watching him work, feeling fabric that had just been a simple nightdress a moment before suddenly being something more.

It was a whisper against her skin. It was the tickle of the ties as he used them to brush against her collarbones.

It was the slide and pull as he brought it downward, trapping her arms as the cuffs caught.

Which made her squirm. Not in the playful manner they’d had before, but anxiously. “Athan,” she murmured, not wanting to make a fuss, but her heart was racing.

“Ah,” Athan soothed. “I have forgotten some.” He brought her hand up for his inspection, then curved it so he might release the small knot that held her sleeve together. He did not linger, just released first one cuff, then the other, before he placed a kiss to the inside of her wrist, helping the fabric fall away. “Better?”

She smiled a little apologetically as she nodded. “I felt stuck,” she admitted. Which wasn’t the word she wanted, but the one she was willing to give. Trapped was closer to the truth. Held down. And evidently, that was something she couldn’t bear any longer.

Athan brought his thumb to her bottom lip. “You can tell me anything,” Athan reminded her. “For your comfort, or simply for the sake of doing so.” He smoothed his hand over her shoulder, bared now to his touch. “But perhaps we needn’t keep them in the room with us.”

He glanced at her worriedly, and she took a moment to understand his meaning.

She needn’t expound. Not unless she wanted to. She did not need to dredge up the reasons. The history behind a scar or a fear. It was enough for her to say she didn’t like it. Enough for her to grow uncomfortable, and he would change it. Do anything she asked.

She relaxed, her smile a little easier. “All right,” she agreed, and was rewarded with a kiss as he smoothed his touch from her shoulder all the way back down to the tips of her fingers before twining his hand with hers.

“Better?” he asked, brushing his lips against her cheek while he squeezed her hand.

She sighed, so very grateful for him. “Better,” she granted. Would there be more moments like that? She didn’t like to think so, but perhaps it was better to be prepared. To acknowledge them and move on rather than... dwell.

She did tend to do that, didn’t she?

She nestled closer, grateful she liked his weight on her. That she could be close without feeling confined. His presence meant safety, meant kindness and understanding. “I love you,” she repeated, and that time was for her own sake rather than for his.

He brought her hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to the tips of her fingers.

Then her wrist.

Where the threads conjoined, fusing into a cord. Where he’d played and she’d grown frightened because she liked it far more than was reasonable.

Orma swallowed, more than aware of what it felt like to have him touch there. She watched as the threads shimmered at his retreat, as they flickered and pulsed, as he blindly sought the most critical point.

Blind, but not. He might not see them for himself, but he could feel it through her. From the bond that flared, from the quickening of her breath, from the way she kept so very still as she waited to see what he would do next.

He kept his thumb pressed against where the threads tangled, then he followed the line up her arm. She refused to think about books and diagrams. About what he might have committed to memory and why he had.

Was he thinking of this? Of what such knowledge might be used for? Or was this all intuitive?

She took a breath. Then another.

She would be present. She would trust him.

She made a little sound when he reached the next tangle. Just above the joint of her elbow, which he kissed with a hum of recognition when she squirmed slightly to be touched so.

If he could learn, so might she. When she urged him onto his back and captured his wrist and committed the feel of him to memory. When she christened their bond with claiming kisses.

But this was lovely, too. To wait and wonder. To feel the added pulse when he found another spot at the curve of her shoulder. Her throat. Downward. All while holding onto her wrist and that first-found point.

“You must think me selfish,” Athan murmured into her middle. Her shift had been pulled to just below her waist, and he seemed determined to make use of his new discovery. “For I did not help you with my ties and now I get to have you so.” Another kiss, this time to just above her navel. Her scar was lower, but she tensed all the same, then quieted. He could look. Athan could see anything he liked. He would love her just the same.

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