Chapter 11: What He Wanted

The room upstairs had one bed, one window, and a fire somebody had built in a hurry.

Alaric closed the door behind them and stood with his back against it.

He didn't touch her.

He only looked at her.

"I told myself I would keep my hands off you tonight," he said.

"That's stupid," said Lysandra.

"Yes," he said.

"You've been alone with it for eight days," she said.

"Yes."

"You shouldn't be alone with it now."

She crossed the room, took his coat in both fists and pulled.

He came off the door at once, and his mouth landed on hers hard enough to bruise.

It was nothing like the table.

That had been heat.

This was grief and hunger in the same shaking hands, and they tore at each other's clothes.

His coat hit the floor.

Her cloak, her bodice, her wet skirts, one by one.

She got his shirt up over his head and stopped.

The black scar ran down his ribs in the firelight, and the veins around it were pale and quiet.

She put her palm flat over it, and it was ice-cold.

His whole body shuddered.

"It's the first thing in eight days that hasn't hurt," he said, rough.

She kissed it.

She kissed down his chest, his stomach, the hard line of his hip, and went to her knees on the cold boards.

His hands came into her hair.

"Lysandra."

"Hush."

She undid his trousers and freed him.

He was hard already, thick and heavy in her hand, the head dark and wet at the tip.

She'd read about this and never done it quite like this.

She took him in her mouth.

He swore, long and low, and his fingers closed tight in her hair.

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