Page 101 of The Silversmith

“Yes.” His lips twitched. “That one was… an accident.”

I nodded and ran my finger along it. “From your blacksmithing days,” I realized. “Which one hurt the most?”

I wholly expected him to say the scar on his face, over his eye and down his cheek. But he took my fingers and gently rested them on the open palm of his left hand.

“The one on your hand?” I asked, surprised. Two weeks ago, he had put a gash in his right palm and acted like it was nothing.

“The one on this hand.” He gestured with his left, seeing the confusion plain on my face. “But it was worth it.”

Indeed, the faded wound looked like it still hurt. As if whatever evil had put it there marked him far beneath his skin. His darkness, that unquenchable rage—maybe whatever had happened to cause this scar was the source.

I let my fingers sweep across his abdomen, around his side, until I stood behind him. My throat burned. I had seen these scars—how they formed cross-hatched patterns up and down his spine. But up close, I realized it looked like he had been whipped. I shuddered and swallowed my tears. And then, to comfort him for all the pain he’d endured, I kissed his back—the sensitive place between his shoulder blades where the scar tissue was thickest. When my lips touched his brutally textured skin, he released a deep, startled moan.

Need shot from my stomach to the throbbing between my legs as the deep sound of his pleasure rushed through me. That sound—low, coarse, and uncontrolled. I could memorize it. Savor it. Hear it forever. And instead of pushing me away, he pulled me to his front and held my head against his chest.

“Ella,” he breathed, pressing a kiss to my hair. “My Ella.” His name for me was a plea and a warning mixed together in one zealous breath.

I pressed my lips to his chest and looked up at him. “Earlier,” I whispered, “you said you wanted me to know you, and I do. I see you.” With gentle fingers, I traced the corners of his mouth and brushed over his lips. “You used to be unscathed and young until this world took its toll, but I see your heart, and it is good.”

Though I could hardly see in the dark, the dim light of the single oil lantern glimmered fleetingly across the sorrow marking his handsome face.

“You know yourself,” I continued, “and sometimes I envy that about you.” My voice faltered in a subconscious attempt to shy away from the words I probably shouldn’t say. Words that would put my heart right on his chopping block. “I love the friends and family I know, but I’ve felt detached—just… not right—for as long as I can remember. Truthfully, I’ve hated myself for it.” I stroked his bearded chin. “But now there’s you, and I feel you in ways I didn’t know I could.”

He cupped my face in his hand and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.

I lifted myself up on my toes and pressed my lips to his cheek. His beard was both soft and rough beneath my lips. “So thank you,” I whispered against his cheek, smiling against his skin, “for everything you’ve done, everything you’re doing.”

A hot rush of air escaped his lips and caressed my skin, my neck. I wanted to memorize that feeling of his breath on me. His hands. His eyes. A few torturously long moments later, his gaze landed on my lips.

A million battles raged through him in a matter of seconds. I tried to read the unspoken words in his eyes, but I couldn’t keep up.

So I made my own decision.

I kissed him. It was a delicate kiss: the gentlest touch of my mouth to his, and only for a brief moment. Too subdued to truly taste him, because I had no idea how to kiss. But I shivered with delight at the unexpected velvet softness of his lips framed by the igniting friction of his beard. I memorized how he felt and savored the heat of his sweet breath as his unsteady exhale swirled in the air between our mouths.

But he didn’t kiss me back.

When I drew back and opened my eyes, I found that his were closed. His throat bobbed as he swallowed. Each rise and fall of his chest pulsed through my body as if his breath controlled my heartbeat.

He took my face in his hands, touched his lips to my forehead, and whispered, “Good night, Aryella.”

He turned away and left me standing there. Kicked in the gut harder than our mare ever could.

“Why?” I demanded, my voice low and shaky.

The door opened, but he paused with his hand on the knob. And then he was leaving, disappearing into the darkness of the hallway. He slammed the door behind him, not before I heard him rasp: “Because I won’t be able to stop.”

Chapter twenty-four

In my dreams, he kissed me back. And then some.

In my dreams, his scarred hands were all over my body. Inside me. His mouth was heaven when tasting me and hell when it wasn’t. And when I woke, I woke up panting and paralyzed, flat on my back. I shifted slightly, and my eyes widened at the ache between my thighs.

“Good morning.”

I squealed and shot up in bed. I knew he had come back at some point in the night. In my drowsy state, I had heard the shifting of a chair and the creaking floor beneath his footsteps.

This morning, he sat on a chair beside the bed, his ankle resting on his other knee, one hand curled beneath his chin. Narrowed eyes, watching me.