Page 76 of Sunder

But this...

She scrubbed at her face and refused to sink into a huddle.

There was nothing wrong with her. If anything, this was a good thing. Proof that she could function physically as a mate should.

Then why didn’t that only bring so much comfort? The rest was hollow and frightened. The girl she had been rather than the woman she wanted to be.

That woman would go back. Would lean over him and kiss him thoroughly. Wouldn’t be afraid to do whatever the bond urged of her, not when it meant more of those lovely feelings.

She needed to go back. Maybe not to be as daring as that, but she could feel his worry through the bond. He didn’t follow, didn’t knock on the door and ask her to come out again. He was giving her space to think, to calm, and she was grateful for it.

But she couldn’t abuse his patience, either. Orma wished she felt more herself, but it didn’t seem any amount of cool water was going to help.

She straightened her dress and grimaced at the transparent patches where the water had dripped.

A breath. And then another for good measure.

And she went back to his room. Their room.

He looked up immediately, eyes moving over her in search of some physical source of her distress. She almost wished therewould be something for him to find, something she might blame other than her own failing self control.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. He’d moved to her side, sitting at the edge of the bed with the book and papers tucked neatly on his night table.

She wanted to go to him. Stand in front of him until his knees parted and she could situate herself between them. Feel his hands settle on her waist as she tangled her fingers in his hair, urging him to look up at her. She would hesitate. Let him wonder at her intention. Then she would lean down and wait just a moment more, until the bond thrummed and pounded in his chest in time with his pulse, until he was the one weak and wanting while she revelled in her newfound power.

Except... that wasn’t her, was it?

She’d apologise and ease into the bed behind him, and let him hold her hand and list off a few of her ails and let him fix her. Or try to. Because that was comfortable, even if it wasn’t the same as desire.

“What happened?” Athan asked, still watching her. Waiting for her to do something. Say something. “I don’t know what I did wrong.”

The way he said it, the tinge of pain in his voice was enough to get her moving. Not to saunter and seduce, as her fantasies insisted, but to comfort.

Her fingers twitched to reach out and touch him. But that felt too similar to her earlier impulses, so she settled on sitting beside him on the bed. Close enough for their shoulders to touch, and that was all right. She’d sit just the same if it was Lucian beside her. Or Firen. Someone close but not...

“You didn’t,” she assured him. Wanted it to feel more true than it was. He hadn’t meant to prompt such a strong reaction, of that she was certain. She certainly hadn’t expected a simple touch to become a torrent of...

She rubbed at her throat, then down to where the bond still gave a dull throb in her chest. A reminder. She curled her fingers together and stared at them, not knowing if she could actually explain herself to him. Shouldn’t the bond do it for her? Let him know that she’d been... that he’d...

She felt altogether too young and too old, all at once.

He nudged his shoulder against her, and she shifted her gaze just enough to catch the edges of his smile. “You can talk to me,” Athan reminded her. “The point of this is to understandyoubetter, not just your history.”

Orma’s lips thinned, and her hands tightened. “It is embarrassing,” she settled on at last.

Athan settled his hand on top of her conjoined ones. “What is? Reading the texts?”

Well, it was, but not when she compared it to her response to him petting at threads he could not even see.

She shook her head ever so slightly, wishing something might interrupt them. That the Brum might navigate the stairs and burst in, pushing his enormous head between their legs in need of sudden and urgent attention.

Lucian’s father coming to give formal pronouncement of her disownment, formalised in the court.

Anything, really.

But all was quiet. No patients needed him, the Brum was busy with the fish in the stream, and she had only to sit and let shame slowly poison her.

He gave her hands a squeeze.

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