Page 152 of Bound

But rather than feel saddened for herself, she was left with a feeling of fierce possession. That he was hers. The whole of him.

She would not share. Not with any other. She was not her mother, and he was not her father.

She broke the kiss and rested her forehead against his as she fought with the swell of emotion as well as the need for breath at all. “You won’t leave me.”

Wren hadn’t meant to say it aloud. It was a personal promise to herself rather than an assurance she needed from him. It would only be words, after all. Sweet and effectively meaningless if he chose to do it afterwards.

While she would be shattered. In ways she had not realised she might be.

Because it was different this time. Different because she loved him. Because she wanted him to stay. To love her in return and be with her, and love her people as she would learn to love his.

“Oh, Wren.” He moved her. Not to their pillows, as those were still in use by Merryweather. But so that she might lie on her back and he could hover over her. Could smooth his fingers in her hair, her cheek, doubtlessly looking for some sign of discomfort.

She’d mended. They knew that.

He did not say that he was incapable of leaving her. He did not talk of bonds and of instincts, of his ever present need to stay in her proximity.

None of the desperate explanations her father had given for why everything had suddenly changed.

“Do you think your love is unreciprocated?” Her breath caught in her throat. “If you must have doubts, let them be for something else. Not how much love I have for you. Not how much I wish to spend each of my days here. With you.” A kiss. Soft and gentle and filled with promise that felt a great deal more than simple words. “I’ll not leave you,” Braum murmured, not rising enough that she might look at him.

Another kiss, this one to her cheek.

Oh. Because... because she was crying a little. She hadn’t noticed, yet he had. Because that was Braum, and he loved her, and he liked to watch her. To listen to her.

“You are safe with me. Always.”

She reached out blindly so she could hold the back of his head, could pull him so that he would look at her. Because this was important. To her. To him. “I will hold you to that.”

And he nodded seriously. “As you should.”

And her eyes burned, and maybe that wasn’t how kisses were meant to be, but she rather liked them. When they were fervent and needful, and perhaps lasted too long so she had to gasp, or when she caught at his lip with her tooth, however accidentally, and he pulled away and tapped at her cheek in the facsimile of a chastisement.

Perhaps they were not particularly artful, but they were theirs.

And they made her blood race. Made her pulse a prominent entity all its own. Her arms were too tangled in the straps of her shift, which left her squirming to free herself so she could reach for him more freely. He did not move quickly enough to accommodate her, so for a moment, it was skin against skin. Hard and soft, all at once.

Distracting. Tantalising.

Kisses, she’d said. Undressing too. Which he seemed to remember, for he was working to free her of her shift. First one arm, then the other. Never quite removing himself from being near to her.

Then a kiss to each spot that he freed. First one arm. Then the other.

The space between breasts that were not very ample. She’d never thought to mind, for it seemed relatively common between their kinds. She almost wondered if she should fret about such things—but a kiss to each tip was enough to steal her thoughts. The worries that died only half-formed.

Then lower still, to the hollow of her stomach. Even her navel.

The swell beneath that seemed persistent no matter what she ate or what she didn’t.

Fussy things. A body that was perfectly functional, yet naked and kissed, she felt...

Anxious. And not. All at once.

The desire to cover herself. The desire not to be. Warring and tugging until she was breathless from either the kisses or from the tangle of feelings that did not seem to want to let her go.

Then her shift caught at her hips, and she was not at all prepared if he meant to kiss lower still. Whether on her legs, or the ankles still covered in stockings that could be seen as rather hideous depending on one’s point of view.

Or else there was also the place she’d not intended them to... for him to want to...