Page 100 of The Courting of Bristol Keats
“I need you in me,” she whispered. “Now.” He moved atop her, nudging aside her legs with his knee, his hand sliding beneath her hips, pulling her impossibly closer, whispering her name against her lips. And then he pressed forward, gentle at first, but then deep, hard, a powerful force cleaving her in two, his hunger consuming. Her back arched, her hips meeting him, wanting it all, and he pressed deep inside her again and again, his breaths quivering against her temple. The sharp fullness of him, the burning heat, the rumble in his chest, it pushed her over the threshold she was teetering on, and the fiery throb between her legs exploded, rolling in wave after wave, devouring her so completely, growls rolled from her throat and through her clenched teeth. His arm tightened around her and his chest shuddered, halfway between moan and scream, halfway between pain and pleasure, pushing deeper, plundering every inch of her, until finally a last savage groan vibrated from his throat, and she felt the hot hiss of his breath on her cheek.
And then the room grew quiet again, and between them there was only the sound of their gentle panting, air filling their lungs again, as he relaxed against her.
And finally, laughter, soft and wondrous.
CHAPTER 69
Kierus trudged through the forest, finally coming upon the abandoned cottage. He thought after so long, he might have forgotten the way, but there it was, still standing, tucked deep in the Wilds, the shadows so thick, even monsters didn’t pass this way. It was mostly unchanged. The thatch roof sprouted with ferns and weeds. The shutters hung from broken hinges. He’d expected it to be in ruins by now, but then again, here in Elphame, only six months had passed, not the lifetime he and Maire had created together in the mortal world.
He noted that the dark door of the cottage was ajar, beckoning him in, just as it had then.
Whether it was six months or twenty-three years, their first day together was still as fresh to him as yesterday.
He remembered they had stripped slowly, undressing like it was a formal ceremony. A charm, an amulet at a time, a belt, a sword, a knife, a garrote, a shirt, a dress, until they were each left with a single amulet around their necks, mutually agreed upon to protect them from spells the other might cast. Her amulet hung from a thin gold chain and rested between her breasts. Lovely breasts. Kierus had drawn a deep breath. She smiled at his eagerness, which was impossible for him to hide.
Their first stilted steps toward each other were a strange combination of wariness and barely controlled lust. The lust won out. If she got the upper hand and that was how he was to die, Kierus couldn’t think of a better way.
They took their time, savoring each other’s body like it was a last meal. Which in both of their minds, it probably was. Later, when they finished, she rose to dress, while Kierus lay back on the bed, his skin damp, his chest still heaving, the taste of her skin still in his mouth. He wasn’t sure he could even stand.
It was only supposed to be one day, one time. Her back was turned as she pulled a stocking over the leg he had just caressed. His knife was within reach, she unaware, the perfect moment, but he couldn’t do it. He wasn’t sure why. It was the plan. Their business was done, and he knew she was plotting to be rid of him so she could get on with the business of terrorizing Elphame, but then when she turned, he stopped thinking about his knife and asked, “What’s our hurry?”
She met his gaze for a long while, and her silence became a growing blaze inside him. “No hurry,” she finally answered.
One day turned into five, five days into ten.
They lay on their backs, both exhausted, she tucked into his shoulder. “What if we don’t go back?” he asked.
“And do what?”
He rolled to his side and lowered his mouth to hers. “This?”
On the fourteenth morning, he asked again, “What if we never went back?”
“Kormick will hunt me down eventually, and I will pay dearly for my long absence.”
“Haven’t you ever wanted to be something else besides the Darkland monster?”
She laughed. “Is that what they call me? I like it. It’s better than what I was called before.”
She had told him of her years growing up in the Darkland Forest at the hands of her uncles and cousins. It was not something anyone would want to go back to.
“What about you? Don’t you love being the renowned Butcher of Celwyth?”
“It wasn’t something I ever planned to become. It just happened. Others told me what I was good at, and I wanted very much to please them. Fit in. But at one time I wanted—” He let the thought trail away, dismissing it with a shake of his head. But she pressed him, and he told her how he had grown up in the upper halls of a museum where he met great artists and watched young artists blossom. He had studied with them, until he was drawn into the knight’s service.
“Do we always have to be what we were? Only what others planned for us?” he had asked. “Do you think it’s possible to start over—to leave the past behind and become something else?”
“You’re very good at what you do,” she said, running a lazy fingernail down the center of his chest.
“I want to be better at other things.”
“You’re a dreamer, Kierus. They’ll find us, and I will be forced to kill you, or you will kill me. One of us will be dead, and the other left with fond memories. We’ll live on through them. That’s something. Let’s not ruin these moments with maybes.” And then she lowered her mouth to his.
But on the sixteenth morning when they woke, she whispered in his ear, “What if we didn’t go back . . .”
They set their plan and spent five more days preparing, she closing the Abyss door and then every other door out of Elphame she could find to make hunting them down harder if not impossible; he, selling what few valuables he had to the trows. A knight’s Gildan sword, especially his, was worth a small fortune. They were minutes from leaving for good, everything prepared, when Tyghan rode up outside their cottage.
Kierus tried to shake the memory away, but still found himself turning from the cottage door to look back at the clearing where he and Tyghan had confronted each other.
