The Mate He Gave Away novel · Chapter 16 of 40

Chapter 16: The Lodge

His hand stayed on the latch.

The rain hammered the shutters.

"Say it again," he said, without turning around.

"Stay."

"Not that part."

I knew which part.

"I'm asking," I said. "Nobody gave me to you. Nobody's watching. Nobody's counting days. It's mine, and I'm giving it, and I'm asking you to stay."

He let go of the latch.

He dropped the wet cloak on the floor where it was.

When he turned around his face was wide open, the way I'd only seen it once, on the bank with flour on his cheek.

"You're sure," he said.

"I've been sure since the wheel pit. I've been stubborn since the wall."

That got the corner of his mouth.

He didn't come to me.

He stood by the door and waited.

He'd waited like that on the north road, and in the hot spring with his whole body shaking.

So I went to him.

I crossed the room barefoot with the fur held shut at my chin.

I stopped in front of him and looked up.

His good black coat was soaked to the shoulders. Rain still dripped from his hair onto his collar.

"You're wet," I said.

"I noticed."

"Take it off."

He undid the coat one button at a time without looking away from me, and let it fall on top of the cloak.

His shirt underneath was soaked too. It clung to his chest.

I put one hand on it, flat, the way I had in the wheel pit.

This time I didn't think about pushing.

His chest was warm through the wet shirt.

I could feel his heart under my palm.

It was going faster than mine.

"I thought about this in the wheel pit," I said. "Standing there with my hand on you, pretending I was checking your ribs."

"Were you checking my ribs?"

"Not even a little."

He made a sound that was almost a laugh.

I slid my hand up under the wet shirt.

His skin was hot, and the hair on his chest was rough under my fingers.

"I thought about it in the hot spring too," I said. "When you walked in and I was sitting there in the water. I wanted you to keep looking."

"You told me to stop."

"I told you to stop because you were killing me."

He caught my wrist.

Not hard.

Just his fingers around it, his thumb resting on the inside where the pulse jumps.

He lifted my hand to his mouth and kissed the inside of my wrist.

"You didn't say where," he said.

I had to close my eyes for a second.

"Take the shirt off."

He let go of my wrist and pulled the wet shirt over his head in one motion.

I'd seen him bare-chested before, in the wheel pit, in the hot spring.

It hit me the same way every time.

The pale claw scar ran from his cheekbone to his jaw, and the fainter lines went down his neck to his collarbone.

Old scars crossed his ribs and back, white and flat.

I put both hands on his chest and pushed him backward, one step, two, until his back hit the door.

"Stay there," I said.

"I'm not going anywhere."

"Good."

I dropped the fur.

It pooled at my feet.

He didn't say anything.

The fire was behind me, and I knew what I looked like with the light behind me.

But the way he looked at me wasn't about the light.

It was the same look he'd had on the north road, when I first rode up to him.

Like I was something he'd been told he couldn't have.

"You asked me once what I wanted," I said. "On the wall. You said I could have a year, a mill, a home. You never offered me this."

"I didn't think you'd take it."

"I'm taking it now."

I stepped out of the fur and closed the space between us.

I reached for the laces on his breeches.

He put his hand over mine.

"Clem."

"Don't you say my name like that unless you're going to finish it."

"I've been holding back all summer for you."

"I've been thinking for three years." I looked up at him. "With Osric, I held still. I lay there and I counted the beams in the ceiling and I held still. I am done holding still."

He moved his hand.

I got the laces open and pushed the breeches down over his hips.

He was already hard.

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