Page 77 of His Claim
“Better?” he asked, mouth near my ear.
“Almost,” I said.
He tipped my chin up with two fingers, and I saw the softness in his eyes before the heat, the way they always went gentle right before he set me on fire. He kissed me then, and I melted into it. The world fell away.
I tasted smoke and the salt from the jerky we’d had this morning. His hands traced the line of my back beneath the surface, gentle and comfortable. I pressed closer, feeling the slow slide of skin on skin, the way the spring mapped our bodies in warmth.
“You make me forget we’re in the middle of a war,” I whispered against his mouth.
He kissed my cheek, the corner of my jaw, the hollow beneath my ear. “Only long enough to remember why,” he said.
“Why?”
He smiled that small, private smile I had only seen when we were like this. “Because there needs to be time for us to live.”
I pulled back enough to study him, steam wreathing his face, damp hair falling across his brow. “You’re ridiculous,” I said.
“And you’re beautiful.” He brushed his thumb along my lower lip, amused and tender at once.
Heat rose to my face that had nothing to do with the spring. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”
“Just you, little wolf.”
The quiet settled around us. He kissed me again and I let myself float into it, slow and sweet, water lapping at our shoulders. I shifted so I could straddle his lap and the water rocked us, ripples pushing against stone. He went very still, hands gripping my hips, eyes searching my face as if the answer to a question he hadn’t asked yet lived there. I swallowed. My heart beat too hard and felt good doing it.
“Varek,” I said.
“Yes?”
“Let’s stay a while longer.”
“Okay.”
He pulled me closer. I wrapped my arms around his neck, threading my fingers into his damp hair, and kissed him back trying to give him all the words I didn’t know how to say. Heresponded like a man who had been given a rare, precious, fragile thing, like I could shatter if he squeezed a bit too hard.
The steam rose, warm against my shoulders. His hands slid up my sides, then down again in slow strokes that were more comfort than claiming, and I let myself rest there, in that strange, generous peace. It wasn’t the frantic relief of surviving. It wasn’t the desperate need to prove we were still here. It was gentler. It was the space between fear and the next step, a moment set apart.
It was truly special.
He kissed the corner of my mouth and then my cheek, then pressed his forehead to mine. We stayed like that, breathing the same air, sharing the same secret silence, until my pulse finally fell into a rhythm that matched his.
Varek didn’t move away. The steam wrapped around us, the water rising to our shoulders, and everything beyond this little circle of heat blurred into mist. He kissed me again, slowly and gently, until breathing felt like something we did only because our bodies remembered how.
The sound of the spring filled the space between our words. His thumb traced small circles at the nape of my neck; my hands settled against his chest where his heartbeat thudded strong and steady beneath my palms.
“I could stay like this forever,” I whispered.
He smiled against my mouth. “Then stay. Just for now.”
The world narrowed to the soft slide of skin, the warmth of the water, the quiet rhythm of his breath. I let the rest of the world fall away. The mountain, the war, the cages. For the first timesince I could remember, I wasn’t running or fighting or afraid. I was justhere—in the circle of his arms, alive, and truly safe.
He moved just a bit, making the water ripple around us, and gently turned me so my back was to his chest. One arm slid around my waist, the other wrapped over my chest, his hand cupping my shoulder, holding me against him. I felt his lips press into the damp hair at my temple. My body went soft, pliant, melting into the heat of his embrace.
“You’re trembling,” he murmured.His thumb stroked my side.
“A little,” I admitted.
“Good,” he said, and there was a smile in his tone.
