Page 165 of Nothing More

Toly squirmed closer, so their shoulders were braced together, and they could both peer out of the window at the forest floor below.

Someone was coming: crunch of leaves, snap of low branches. If it was Tenny – and it had to be, given Toly’s exclamation before – then he wasn’t trying to be quiet. Giving them a chance to escape, or put themselves to rights…or, more likely, just to be a prick.

He appeared, finally, taking long, slow steps. He stopped a few paces from their tree and scanned the woods, moonlight glinting off his graceful profile, gleaming in his hair. Raven couldn’t make out his expression, for the shadows, but the set of his shoulders and hips was as theatrical as his posing at the fire pit.

Sod off, she wanted to call down to him, but Toly took her hand and squeezed. When she glanced toward him – a slice of face in faint pearly light, one corner of his mouth curled in a smirk, glitter of an eye sparking with the same electricity that hummed all through her body – he shook his head.Keep quiet.

Tenny lingered far longer than necessary, turning in circles. He even shaded his eyes unnecessarily with a hand and made a show of peering into the darkness. He knew they could see him, then, tosser.

Finally, he heaved a deep, over-loud sigh. “I sure hope there’s not any bears in these woods,” he called, voice echoing off tree trunks. He turned to leave the way he’d come. “And I sure hope Reese didn’t lose sight of Cassandra: she swears she’s running to Mexico with at least three New York wankers.”

Raven bit her tongue to keep from hurling an insult.

Toly felt along with his free hand and lifted something that glittered – a bottle cap, she saw – that he whipped through the window. It winked and was lost to the shadows, but Tenny’s step faltered, and he swore.

“Fuck.”

Raven slapped a hand over her mouth to hold back her laughter.

Tenny half-turned, and shot them a rude gesture, his aim perfect: he’d known right where they were. “Use a rubber, shitheads,” he called. “God help the world if you two reproduce together.”

“God help you if Cassandra gets a Lean Dog’s name tattooed on her arse,” Raven shouted back, the threat undercut by giggles.

“Sod off,” Tenny said, but before he turned and retreated, she thought she caught the fast, white glimmer of a smile.

When he was gone, Raven murmured, “Fuck me, but he’s turning into a good brother.”

Toly’s fingers – cool, sticky with tree sap – touched her face, turned her head, and his breath fanned across her lips. “I only heard half of that.”

Thefuck mepart, she knew, shivering pleasantly. “In a treehouse?”

“Any objections?”

She looped her arms around his neck. “Not really.”

Sheknewshe sawhisgrin, wicked flash of teeth, before he swooped in and kissed her.

~*~

The problem – the wonderful, beautiful, earth-shattering-in-a-good-way problem – was that they’d both said it:love. It couldn’t be taken back, couldn’t be ignored, couldn’t help but affect the moment. What started as a laugh-laced, playful tussle turned serious fast, when he set his teeth at the side of her throat, and pinned both her hands back by her head. When he breathed out shakily against her skin, breath catching audibly on his next inhale. A shudder like an earthquake moved through him, and the aftershocks settled deep in Raven’s bones, little ripples low in her belly, where she’d already begun to ache for him in a way wholly different from the chest-ache of potential loss. Wholly welcome.

Raven petted across his shoulders, which twitched beneath her touch, and she wanted skin, though their breath plumed white between them, a pale mist like dawn on the moors. Itwasa dawn of sorts, a new beginning. Anhonestone. She stroked his neck and his chest as he pushed up to look at her, hair falling in his face, eyes dark and wild.

“Okay?” she asked, softly. Reached up to tuck his hair behind his ear and stroke his jaw.

He tipped his head into the touch, a dog seeking contact, eyes fluttering shut a moment. “Yeah. You?”

“Yeah.”

He eased back down, slow. Hovered a moment. Touched her face with careful fingertips, tracing her cheek, the slope of her nose, her chin – while his other hand gripped her knee and parted her legs so he could shift over and lie between them, right where she wanted him. “Aren’t you cold?” he asked. She wore a long dress, and boots, but no tights, legs bare as he stroked up the inside of her thigh, eliciting a shiver.

“Freezing.” She tilted her chin up so she could peck his lips with hers – not a proper kiss because he was too far, still.

“Hm,” he hummed, hand skimming up, up, and palming over the lace of her panties. He’d tried to sound lazy and in-control, but she could feel the fine tremors in him, and glimpse the ardent glint in his gaze as he tilted his head and avoided her next kiss attempt.

“Tease,” she accused, pouting.

“Really?” He ground the heel of his light lightly against her clit, through her knickers, and when she gasped, slipped a finger inside the lace and along her lips, dew-damp already with eagerness.

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