Page 63 of Odder Still
I moan, both at the act itself and at the carnal pressure that builds beneath my hips. “I don’t think anyone who can draw forth a sound like that should be ashamed.” My voice goes low near the end, honeyed words turned raspy and needy.
I kiss Tavish again, my fingers working their way down the last few buttons of his shirt, until I can run my palms along his stomach. He nibbles his way to my earlobe, laughing as he finds the set of three fang-like rings there, and I trace my pinkies tenderly at the rim of his soft underwear.
He pauses, nose buried in my hair. “If you lived alone with your pets, then have you ever done this before?”
I snort. “I was an outcast, Tavish, not a fucking monk.”
“So, a non-fuckingmonk?”
“Not—” I break into laughter so murderous I feel as though I’m sobbing. When I wipe a hand under my eye, it comes away wet. “I’m sorry, you dear, dear god-prince, but damn you.” The exclamation comes in a wheeze, and I pull myself together before continuing, “Imeantthat I have slept with other people before. Other men, technically—only men. I only like men. Gods, all these words are not working. What the hell did you do while you were in my mouth?”
“Nothing you didn’t feel. But thank the Trench, I was about to be vastly over-experienced. Though not just with men. I can be a terrible fool for anyone with a voice as gorgeous as yours and skin this delectable.” Smirking, he preoccupies his mouth with the skin in question, his teeth brushing the stubble along my jaw.
I fiddle with the rim of his underpants. “I will admit, most of my previous experience happened in alleys behind taverns.” All of it, technically, but for that one beautiful Murk boy at sixteen, who had loved the secrecy of us until it seemed his carpentry apprenticeship would be revoked if anyone found out. The memory nearly makes me cringe. I force it away. I have no delusions as to where Tavish and I will end up, but I’ll deal with the hole it will leave in me when the time comes and not a moment sooner. “Even that was a while ago.”
I feel Tavish’s smirk in his voice. “Your body certainly still recalls what to do with itself.”
He presses up with the leg he’s slipped between mine, rubbing his thigh someplace highly inappropriate and absolutely perfect. Before I’ve finished moaning, he finds my mouth again. I draw down his underpants.
We explore, gentle caresses turning rough and needy as our moans grow ragged. It feels like everything I imagined, and so much more.
By the time we finish, the bioluminescence in our light has faded to a few tiny flutters. We hold each other, the rest of our discarded clothes tangled somewhere near our feet and the furs pulled up to our shoulders. Sometime in the night, I know he’ll turn away from me. I’ll watch as his back gently rises and falls. But for this moment, this one night, I’ll also be able to slip my hand around his waist, and draw my thumb over his scars, and press a chaste kiss to his shoulders while he sleeps. That has to be good enough for now.
As I lie there, my parasite flickers in the back of my mind. This whole time, it was there, warm and awake and happy. And I barely even noticed. Neither did I bother to think of what I might become once I finally attempt to remove it, and how alone that could suddenly leave the wonderful man in my arms.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
More than One Reality
My wants devour.
The stars, I said,
the stars are going out.
Cinders in the hearth,
darkness like a shroud.
I WAKE TO THE sounds of the village coming to life: splashes and thuds and soft voices paired with the occasional shouted hello. Despite the subtle ache in my muscles and the dryness of my throat, I feel alive, as though last night was the first night I ever truly slept. I reach across the bed, but I find only cold furs.
“Tav?” I mutter, opening my eyes to the silvery light of the cloud-marred morning.
Tavish answers with a grunt. He sits at the edge of the bed, dressed in his pants and shoes with his shirt tucked in and his coat splayed across his knee. He scribbles lopsidedly onto a scrap of paper, even though his ignation-powered aid that would let him reread the lines must still be back in Maraheem. Maybe it’s just the motion that helps him think.
I scoot toward him, pressing my hand to the hollow of his back. A softgood morningforms on my lips. Before I can speak it, he bursts into a scrambling explanation, his words bouncing into each other.
“I’ve been thinking, once we break back into Maraheem, we’ll need to turn Lilias’s rebellion over to the BA ourselves—if all I have to offer the assembly is my word that Lilias is the culprit, it might not be enough to appease them. I doubt Lilias is a diddy, so she’ll likely have already moved to another location. But there are already so few routes into the city without permission from a big seven family, and every way I can think of will reveal our identities too quickly.” His paper crumples as he tightens his fingers on its edge, his pen slipping carelessly across the writing. “The longer we wait, though, the harder this all becomes. We should hurry if we can.”
The light in my chest fades. I ache to take away his frustration, to give him back the relaxed, happy world of last night. But I feel my parasite lurking in the corners of my mind, and I can’t ignore it forever.
“All of this comes after we see Dr. Coineagan, right?” They’re soft words, but somewhere under them I feel a flicker of the pain I share with the finfolk.
Tavish must hear it, because he sets his papers aside to fumble for my hand. “Of course, of course. You’re our focus right now. Your life is more important.” He squeezes my fingers. “There’s nothing I can do while we’re in Glenrigg anyway.”
I try not to wonder whether that dedication would waver if he could leave for Maraheem this instant. How close is this choice to a coin flip? I chide myself: I knew he would leave. I knew this was temporary, a source of pleasure in a painful situation. Now that I’ve kissed him, though, I also know how badly I want to kiss him again. And again. And again.
I don’t want to lose him.
