Page 138 of The Sun He Buried

Not a word. Nowhere near a word.

Ohhhh.

So that’s the whole point of this.

I take more of him. Then more, because I’ve apparently decided I’m good at this now, and it turns out there is a limit and I find it immediately.

I come off him and cough into my own shoulder.

“Sól—”

I wave a hand at him without looking up. “I’m fine.”

“You’re—”

“I said I’m fine.”

The hand is still going.

My eyes are watering.

Alright, then.

Less ambition works better. My hand covers what my mouth can’t, which is most of it, and nobody needs to know that started as an accident.

Slower works better. Slower, and my hand, and paying attention to which things make the sound happen—that works best of all, and I’m keeping track. I’m keeping very careful track.

His hand finds the post behind me.

Not my hair. Not my head. The post.

Because of course he won’t put a hand on me while I’m doing this.

I reach up, take his wrist, and put it in my hair myself.

“Sól.”

“Hold on to something that isn’t wood.”

A horse shifts in its stall and blows out a long breath.

I check on Snowpetal exactly once, because I’m me. She’s asleep in the hay with the rope under her chin.

Good. Everyone’s having a lovely evening.

Baldr’s fingers close in my hair and he isn’t steering. He’s holding on. His other hand is flat on the post, and his head has gone back, and the whole enormous careful man of him is coming apart above me in a barn—quietly, because the door doesn’t lock.

I did that.

I’m going to think about that for the rest of my life.

His thigh goes hard under my palm.

“Sól. Move.”

I don’t move.

“Sól—”