Page 80 of The Shape of Silence

“I’d make love to ye.”

She studied him with quiet curiosity. “What does that mean?”

His brows lowered a bit, as if he now was confused. “It means I’d take ye as my woman. It would make ye mine.” His hand came up to cradle her cheek.

“And you would be... mine?” she asked, filled with wonder at the very idea.

The hint of a grin lifted one corner of his beautiful mouth. “Aye. Ye would belong to me and I to ye.”

She had only the vaguest understanding of what he meant by making love. She knew, in the abstract, that there was something more between a man and a woman than kissing, something that bound husbands and wives together, but she had never imagined herself standing at the edge of that unknown place. She wasn’t frightened by her uncertainty—if this was what it meant to belong to him, then she wanted it. Whatever it was, she wanted it because it would be with him.

She smiled then, bright and sure, if a little shyly. “I think... I'd like that.”

In response, Morggán cupped her face in his large hands and pressed his lips to hers with a tenderness she had not felt before. Avery met his kiss without hesitation, unable—and unwilling—to resist him. Her arms tightened again around his neck, her fingers sliding into the thick softness of his hair, and she answered him with everything he had taught her about kissing. When his lips parted, her tongue found his, and she felt the deep rumble of his groan as he kissed her back, fitting himself more intimately against her, pressing a hardness into her belly. She continued to kiss him with a calmness that belied all the screaming, joyful tumult inside her.

She gave not one thought to consequences, and how could she with Morggán's expert hands and lips upon her? Somewhere deep inside, however, she knew this moment had awakened a longing far older than the kiss itself. For years she had lived with almost no human touch, no easy conversation, no one with whom to share even the smallest pieces of herself. She could not honestly say she had spent those lonely years imagining this exactly—to be kissed, held, and seemingly cherished by a man—but she recognized the ache all the same. It had never truly been for romance, but for closeness, for companionship. For the simple comfort of knowing she mattered to someone.

When Morggán said she would belong to him, and he to her, the words had reached some quiet place inside her she had scarcely known still existed—a desire to belong, and not simply to the forest that had become her refuge, nor to the lonely little house that had kept her alive, but to another soul who chose her as surely as she chose him. She hadn’t realized how desperately she had hungered for that until he placed the possibility in her hands.

Only then did she fully understand the question he had once asked her, whether she had grown weary of being alone. She hadn’t answered him then, but the response deep within had been yes, she’d been weary all along. She had simply forgotten there was another way to live.

His hands found the hem of her shirt, hesitating only long enough for her eyes to meet his. When she offered the smallest of nods, he drew the garment upward with unhurried care, lifting it over her head before setting it quietly aside. Beneath it remained only the thin undershirt she wore. He slipped the second garment over her head with the same gentle deliberation, treating the simple task with an almost reverent tenderness.

Cool air brushed across her newly bared skin, and for the first time since he had kissed her, a flicker of self-consciousness stole over her. Instinctively, her arms folded lightly across herself, more from unfamiliarity than shame.

Morggán's hands found her wrists with infinite gentleness.

“Nae, lass,” he murmured as he eased her arms away from her body.

Heat rushed into her cheeks, and she lifted her eyes to his, suddenly uncertain what she would see in his eyes.

Whatever she had expected, it was not the expression that met her. He regarded her with such quiet admiration that her self-consciousness began to melt away. She had never been looked upon with such tenderness, and she found that she did not wish to hide from him after all.

He bent his head and pressed his lips against the skin he had uncovered, his lips resting first upon her shoulder before traveling no farther than the curve of her collarbone. Each kiss was unhurried, until the shyness that had momentarily tightened her chest gave way to a rising exhilaration.

––––––––

He moved closer again, his hand rising up between them to surround her breast. His hand was large and firm upon her, cupping and lifting her breast until it filled his hand. His thumb grazed over her nipple and Avery marveled at the wonder of this, so much uproar in that previously unused part of her body.

When he lowered his head and his mouth joined his hand at her breast, Avery died a little death. Her breathing spasmed, a sound escaped, sounding to her ears much like a purr.

His lips traced a slow path down the slope of her breast until his mouth closed around her nipple. The sensation was so unexpected that her breath caught, and she lifted her hands, her fingers tightening instinctively in his hair. His tongue swirled gently, teasing the sensitive peak until it hardened beneath his touch, and just as she began to adjust to the warmth of his mouth, his teeth grazed her skin.

A sharp gasp escaped her, her back arching involuntarily as pleasure and surprise tangled together. His grip on her tightened, one hand splayed across her back while the other cradled her breast, holding her steady as he explored her with deliberate care. The scrape of his teeth sent a jolt through her, sharp and sweet, and she found herself pressing closer, her body seeking more of the sensation even as her mind struggled to keep pace.

His breath moved across her skin, humid and hot, the sharpness of his jaw and the rasp of his stubble raking a slow, perfectly unhurried path over her breast. Each graze left a vibrating trail that seemed to travel not outward, but in, lighting up nerves she’d never known could hunger this way. He lingered there, tasting her, tongue flicking and lips tugging with playful, deliberate provocation, and only when her body trembled with anticipation did he move to repeat the same careful worship on the opposite side.

The rest of her had gone boneless, her legs threatening to crumple, and when they did, he caught her by the waist and lifted her easily, as though she weighed nothing. She made a choked sound—not from fear, but from the vulnerable delight of being handled so gently and yet so confidently, as if her body was a wild thing he alone could coax into trust. He sat her on the edge of the table and pressed himself between her knees, the expanse of his body swallowing the boundary of her own. The feel of him against her—hard, wanting, and utterly intent—sent a shock through her core that was not fright, but a kind of wild awe.

He kissed her again, this time not with the greedy urgency of before, but with a slow, deep intent that pulled her under. She could feel his hands on either side of her face, his thumbs stroking her jaw in time with the movement of his lips. When she shuddered, he responded not in conquest, but with a drawing in, holding her so close she thought he might break her apart only to gather her up again. She wanted, desperately, to keep him there, to hold this sudden, white-hot sense of belonging, to banish all the cold years behind her in the heat of his presence.

It was as if he read her thoughts. His hands drifted lower, tracing the path down her ribs to her hips, and then to her thighs, leaving behind a trail of goosebumps. She realized, dizzily, that she had no experience for any of this—all reference points were from books, from half-remembered movies, from the abstract knowledge that people did these things and somehow survived the shattering vulnerability of it.

Morggán paused at length, his stormy gaze locking with hers. And then, with deliberate intent, he reached first for his sword belt, his fingers working the buckle with the unhurried ease of a man who had done it ten thousand times. The leather slid free and he set it aside. Then he crossed his arms and gathered the gambeson at its hem, drawing it up and over his head. The tunic followed. She watched all of this. She could not have looked away.

She had seen him wounded, had seen him diminished by pain and fever, his body a problem to be solved. She had not seen him like this—whole and wanting, the firelight pooling in the hollows of his collarbones, tracing the long muscles of his abdomen, illuminating the silver threads of old scars that crossed his ribs like a map of every close call he had survived. He was extraordinary. The word arrived in her mind with the blunt force of fact.

Her hands moved without instruction from her. Her palms found the warmth of his chest, and she felt the breath leave him at her touch—felt the deep, involuntary stillness of a man trying to hold himself together. Beneath her fingers his heartbeat was rapid and insistent. She spread her hands wider, wanting more of him, wanting to learn him by touch.