Page 107 of Sunder

The bond flared.

The pulse thrumming through her blood along with it.

And suddenly the touches were not enough and too much all at once. Because they weren’t right, and he wasn’t as overcome as she was, and that was unbearable.

She sat up, and Athan looked at her in alarm, and Orma did not quite recognise herself as she pushed him onto his back. His head wasn’t on the pillows, and that should matter, but what seemed of far great import was getting this clothing off of him.

And, for that matter, the rest of her nightdress. It was caught about her hips, and she was kneeling on the bed rather than standing properly on the floor, but she shimmied out of it anyway, tossing the garment wherever it pleased as it landed.

He opened his mouth, likely to ask if she was all right again, but she halted him by leaning down and kissing him soundly. No more distractions. No more teasing and exploring while he was neglected.

She did not care what he said. He might derive great satisfaction from caring for his patients, for tending to her every need, but it could not possibly follow that he had none of his own.

“My Athan,” she murmured into his ear, her voice low. She smiled to herself when he swallowed, and it was his turn for his hands to clutch at the bedclothes as she went back to the knots at his shoulders. His cuffs. They yielded to her touch this time, now that she knew what she was doing wrong. And if she’d been bold enough, she would have suggested they do this standing, because there was little enticing about the awkward manoeuvring of cloth, either down hips that had to rise and lower, or over wings that did not want to be bothered so.

But he’d managed it. And if she felt a little silly, and not at all as comely as he had been while he’d undressed her, then she would make up for it with kisses.

His wrist.

Right above his elbow.

The curve of his shoulder.

His throat.

While he was left to struggle not to reach for her. To hold on to her hips and let her attend to one side, then the other.

It was easier for her. The threads told her where to go, and she had only to follow. To let her heart warm to him, to excite him with her lips and her touch as he’d done to her.

She’d left the laces of his trousers alone, and she could admit a sort of nervousness about it. It wasn’t fear—she banished that thought entirely. But it was new, and she was not nearly as familiar with a body as he was, and males were built strangely. Not that she would ever say so to the Maker directly in a prayer, but perhaps in the privacy of her own thoughts when her mother had tried to explain it to her.

Tucked neatly away until their services were required, she’d said, her lips tight and her eyes away from her daughter’s.

She was no girl any longer. She was a woman who wanted her mate, and she would not grow silly and anxious over something as inconsequential as laces on trousers.

She did not lie over him as he’d done with her. Did not trail kisses across his torso, although she could plainly see where the bond nestled.

She was growing impatient while he was lying there, seemingly content just to watch her.

She took a breath. Reached for the bond as well as his laces, and found the comfort she needed. She was doing fine. More than fine. He was so pleased he was near to bursting with it, and he wanted to touch, to pull, to bring them together, but he was restrained. For her. To let her have her fun, to be pliant and amiable to her whims.

It didn’t mean she had to look. She didn’t know how she’d feel if he stared at her most intimate places—most especially ifhe’d be thinking of others he’d seen, despite the context differing vastly than his time with her.

She compromised by tugging the legs off him, wondering if he’d mind if she tossed them away as she’d done her shift, or if that would seem insulting. He hadn’t complained about the shirt, so she did not bother with ceremony, and dropped it off the side of the bed.

“You are beautiful,” Athan observed, and she sat back on her heels, wondering why he might say such a thing. Her bad hip was in plain view. The sutures they’d used made a pale zigzag across the curve that should have been smooth and lovely. She hadn’t brushed her hair before she’d gone to find him.

Orma blinked, glancing down at herself. She was too thin, but even so, there were little rolls of softened flesh that surely were notbeautiful.

She opened her mouth to give her objections. To list all the things she found to be quite the opposite.

Then closed it again.

He thought her beautiful. Scars and all.

She felt a wave of tenderness for him, and she forgot about the rest of it. About laces and undressing and explorations as she stretched herself over him, holding him to her as best she could. Which really was an entirely new level of indecency if she took the time to think of it, but she didn’t. “Thank you,” she murmured, her voice a little smaller than it had been, and for entirely different reasons. Her mother had taught her to be polite, to accept compliments without fuss.

His arms came about her, and her skin prickled with awareness. To be touched all over, all at once. For it to feel so strange and so right, for skin to press against skin. To open her eyes and peek at the threads that fused and merged, settling together.

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