Chapter 24: Dusk, No Fever

He had spread a blanket on the cut rice straw at the very top of the high terrace, where the roof met the sky.

Shiori climbed the last stair with her hair full of chaff and her hands scratched from the sickle.

Found him sitting there without his coat.

The sun was going down behind the western ridge in long bands of pink and orange.

Below them the keep was lighting its lamps.

"No satchel," Kaedan said.

"No satchel."

She sat down beside him, and they watched the last of the light slide off the stubble.

The air cooled.

Nothing burned.

Nothing stirred in the shadows.

His tail curled around her without being asked, and she leaned her head on his shoulder.

"It's a nice dusk," she said.

"It's the best I've had."

He turned his head and kissed her temple.

"Twelve years, I sat up here every evening waiting to see what would come out of me. Tonight I don't care."

"What's coming out of you tonight?"

"A man who wants his wife."

She smiled, and tilted her face, and met his mouth.

The kiss began easy and went deeper.

She was twenty-two, and he was thirty-one, and neither of them had ever been so entirely unhurried.

He undid the laces of her tunic, and she let him.

The evening air slid over her bare skin, cool, and then his hands followed, warm.

She pulled his shirt over his head.

His broad back was scattered with stubble from the straw, and she brushed it off with her palms and he groaned.

"Here," he said, and drew her down onto the blanket under the open sky.

The first stars were coming out above the ridge.

He laid her out on the blanket and spent a long time between her thighs.

He worked her with his mouth and hands, his tongue licking through her wet folds and sucking her clit while two fingers fucked deep into her pussy.

The stars blurred and she came hard against his mouth, shaking with it.

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