Page 36

“I’m sure your father would reward you richly,”

Remin went on, as she sat stupefied before him.

“But I have made provision for you, all the same.

Tounot and Edemir witnessed my will today.

You can see it is sealed, with a stamp that means it is sworn in the light of the stars.

It is my will that if you kill me, no harm will come to you.

No one will lay a hand on you. In the morning, you will be given safe transport anywhere you want to go. Segoile, if you like. Anywhere in the world. There’s a draft waiting for you against my accounts for a thousand gold sovereigns, with a further thousand to be paid annually. Once the valley starts producing—”

Ophele’s head shook slowly as she listened, disbelieving.

None of this made any sense, she didn’t understand, why—

“Please, just listen.”

The strong brown column of his throat worked as he swallowed.

“Once the valley starts producing, you’ll receive a percentage of its profits, including the river trade and the port.

You will never want for anything, the rest of your life.

You will be safe.

We can even call in the guards to watch you do it, if you like.

To prove I let you.”

He smiled very gently.

“You couldn’t get me unless I let you, Princess.”

“What—what—w-why?”

she stammered, bewildered.

“Why, I don’t understand, why would you—”

“Because I love you.”

He said it straight out, with such sadness in his eyes that she felt tears burn in her own.

“I love you, and I would rather…you lived.

But I’m tired of waiting for the axe to fall.

If this is another trick—”

He had to stop.

His jaw tightened.

“Then you win,”

he whispered.

“I concede.

Just do it now, please.”

“No.”

Her lips trembled.

“No.

No, I don’t want to, Remin—”

“I know you might not want to.

Maybe the Emperor is forcing you somehow.

I don’t blame you if he is, wife.

It’s happened before.”

His big hands covered hers.

Warm hands.

“It’s all right.

I understand.”

His hands squeezed, and she felt the hilt of the knife under her palm.

He had put the blade into her hand himself.

“You won’t be hurt, I swear it to you,”

he repeated softly.

“You won’t ever get a better chance than this.

I just don’t want you to…surprise me.

I might strike back without thinking and if I hurt—I would rather die, do you understand? Please.

This way, you’ll be safe—”

“No.

No, no, no.”

That broke her paralysis.

Ophele stumbled out of her chair, clutching the knife in her hand like a live serpent.

“No, I won’t, I don’t want to, I won’t!”

She didn’t know what to do, and she realized she was still holding the knife and flung it into the corner with a cry, scrubbing her sweating palms on her skirt.

Oh, she did understand.

It took her only a moment to put it together.

This was what Sir Miche had been warning her about.

This was why he had told her that terrible story, and the reason Remin had tried so hard to push her away.

This was what had been tormenting him from the very beginning.

Remin couldn’t be sure of anyone. Ever.

He loved her? He was afraid to love her.

Ophele, the daughter of the Emperor.

How could he ever believe she was not her father’s tool, placed at his side and waiting only a single moment of weakness? How could he know that she would not be like Merrienne, who had beguiled him and won his trust and then not only tried to lure him to his death, but forced him to kill her with his own hands?

What could she possibly say? Her tongue was rooted to her mouth, blocking all questions and objections, and she had never been good at finding the right words when it mattered most.

He was right to be afraid.

There was her father, implacable and vengeful, who might very well decide one day he had a use for his bastard.

There was the nameless crime of her mother, and all the many poisons Lady Hurrell was carefully hoarding.

But it was just as her mother had said: Ophele could not control what the Emperor would do, or what Lady Hurrell would do, or what her mother had done.

All she could control was her own hands.

“Wife—”

Remin began, rising from his seat.

“If you would just read—”

Her eyes fell on the parchment on the table beside him.

His will, wrapped in ribbons, witnessed and sealed, his intent in writing that she could take his life and go unpunished.

And just like that, she knew why.

He was giving her this chance to kill him.

He was giving her every possible reassurance that she could do so without repercussion.

He had done it because he desperately hoped she would not.

Ophele lunged past him and thrust the parchment into the fire.

“No,”

she said, whirling to face him, throwing out her arms to keep him from retrieving it.

“No, I won’t.

I won’t, ever.

I—I swear…”

Frantically, she searched for words, any words, magic words that would once and for all remove all the doubt and fear from his heart.

“I can’t promise for my father, or Lady Hurrell, or anyone else, but Remin…I swear, I swear if I ever lay my hands on you with violence, may all the stars in heaven strike me dead.

I never will.

I swear. I swear.”

Those were his words.

That was the oath he had made to her the first night they came to the valley, a spell of protection.

Tears streaked hotly down her cheeks as she gazed up at him, but even with her eyes blurring, she saw the change in his face.

“You’ll—you’ll be safe if you do it,”

he began, wavering.

One hand gripped the back of a chair as if he needed the support.

“There’s another copy, Edemir has it—”

“I don’t care.

I’ll burn that, too.”

Her voice cracked as she swiped at her eyes.

“This is my chance to kill you, right? Without any punishment.

I could be rich.

I could go anywhere, and—and I won’t, I won’t, I don’t want to! Remin, I won’t, ever—”

He took a stumbling step toward her and she wasn’t sure if he pulled her down or if she fell with him, but he dragged her against him, his hands gripping so tight they hurt.

He wanted to believe her.

Oh, how he wanted to believe, she could feel it in his desperate grasp, the way his fingers trembled as he held her.

This was the greatest test of his life.

Not whether he had the courage to offer his throat to her, the daughter of his enemy, and risk everything he had to ask her this question.

The test was whether he had the strength to believe her answer.

“I won’t,”

she repeated.

She didn’t even realize she was sobbing.

“I won’t.

I really won’t, I’d sooner go in the Brede—”

“Don’t say something so terrible.

I can’t—you won’t.

You really won’t?”

He sounded strangely breathless, his voice more wavering and uncertain than she had ever heard it.

“You’re not…tricking me?”

“No. Never.”

Her hands reached to cup his face, to look straight into his black eyes and let him see her own, transparent as glass and filled with certainty enough to sustain them both.

She could promise him this.

She could promise him this with all her heart.

“Remin. Never.”

His eyes flickered as if he had been struck.

He twisted his head out of her hands and his throat worked, his chest giving a traitorous quiver before he managed to suck everything in and shove it down hard, hiding it all behind the cold, stern mask of his face.

“All right,”

he whispered after a moment, catching her to roughly wipe away her tears.

“All right, I’m sorry.

Don’t cry.

Please don’t cry, I’m sorry, I had to…I had to be sure.

I’m sorry, wife.

I…believe you.”

“You do?”

she asked, looking up at him with fresh tears welling.

“If my father does something terrible, you won’t hate me again?”

“No,”

he said huskily.

“No, he has nothing to do with you.

Nothing at all.”

His arms went around her and he all but crushed her against the wall of his chest, a place so solid and safe that it was inconceivable that it could ever cease to be.

His heart pounded frantically under her ear, but that was all right as long as it was still strong and beating, and the warm, masculine scent of his body was so comforting.

And gradually his heart slowed, and her tears ended, and his deep voice rumbled through his chest under her ear.

“I’m sorry,”

he said again, stroking her hair.

“I couldn’t think of any other way.

It was driving me mad, wondering, and I never really thought you would, but I…I couldn’t stop imagining…but that’s not your fault.

I will make it right, I swear.

Every grief I’ve given you, I will repay.

Ophele, I love you.”

He pushed her back gently to look into her face.

“I love you so much.

I hope one day to make you love me.”

His gaze was as stern and direct as ever, as if he meant to win her love with the same awkward, stubborn, touching persistence with which he had dedicated himself to taking care of her after her sun sickness.

Locking them both in the cottage, Ophele a captive in her bed while he interrogated her about her shoes.

It made her laugh and cry at the same time.

How could she tell him anything but the truth, when he had just bared his heart to her?

“You remind me of a bear,”

she whispered, her fingers stroking his high, arrogant cheeks.

She loved every part of his face, from his tip-tilted eyes to his thick black brows, so quick to frown.

“From the first day we met.

Remember, when you pulled me out of the tree? You looked just like a bear, your hair, and your eyes.

And you grumble like a bear.

And I was scared, at first, but you were so nice that day in Granholme, and so I thought…”

Her eyes went to the glass bear on the mantle above them, small and melancholy, with one large paw outstretched.

“I like bears,”

she whispered, feeling heat rise to her cheeks.

“Oh.”

Remin blinked, looking from her to the bear and back again, his dark eyes wide.

“Ophele. Ophele…”

She hadn’t dared to hope that he would kiss her again.

That slow, considering kiss that she had never forgotten, his lips brushing hers so steadily, it was as if he was mapping their terrain, learning every contour.

And she wanted him to learn it.

No land had ever yielded itself so completely to Remin Grimjaw, her soft mouth moving to match his, following his lead, sensitive to his growing urgency.

It was like falling.

It was like drowning.

She could feel the waves, warm and dark, a churning heat that matched the rhythm of his stroking tongue, a tangling wet roil.

The grip of his hands matched the motions of his mouth, holding her so tight against him she could feel his ribs expanding when he breathed, deep and ragged.

They breathed together.

They fell together. They drowned together.

“Wife,”

he whispered against her lips.

“May I share your bed tonight?”

Her eyes fluttered open.

Everything was hazy and her lips were tingling, almost bruised from the intensity of his kiss.

She wanted more.

Her head nodded and she felt his hands at her back, tugging at the laces of her dress.

His mouth kissing her neck, her shoulders, deep, hungry kisses that almost hurt, devouring kisses of teeth and searing hot breath.

Her gown pooled on the floor and Remin slid his hands under her chemise, sliding it up her body and over her head.

Her arms automatically lifted to cover her breasts, but in this golden dream, suddenly it didn’t seem like something she should be ashamed of.

Looking up at him, she thought she wanted to be naked for him.

The look in his black eyes made her shiver inside.

And she wanted him to be naked for her.

Her fingers were nervous and fumbling as she tugged the laces free on his jerkin, and he bent silently to help her push it off his shoulders.

Remin.

Her heart ached to see all those scars on his body, to feel the gauges and gashes and stippled indentations.

And he was so beautifully made; broad-shouldered and deep-chested, tapering to a narrow waist that was so sculpted, she wanted to run her fingers over it and feel the ridges.

Every one of those ugly scars was someone’s attempt to take his life.

He had come to her tonight prepared to die.

It was unthinkable that he should die.

Never, she wouldn’t let it happen, no matter what.

No one would touch him.

He loved her, and she loved him, and every inch of his skin was precious to her.

“Ophele…”

he rumbled above her, and she looked up at him as she unbuckled his belt and slid his breeches down his long thighs, baring all of him.

She did blush when she saw him, already erect, his male part twitching and flushing red as he hardened.

It must be strange, to have such a part.

She had so many questions.

Curiously, she reached to touch him, her fingers closing around him.

Oh, he liked that.

Remin groaned, his face flushing as he watched her stroke him, slow and unsure.

He felt different than she had expected, almost velvety, warm and living as he throbbed in her hand, and seeing the pleasure in his face made her own breath come faster.

This was him, and he was hers, and this was their secret.

“Slowly,”

he breathed, muscle rippling in his jaw as he bit back another moan.

His hand covered hers, gently guiding.

“Like that—ahhh…yes.

Your hand is so soft…”

He was getting harder, and hotter.

She could feel him throbbing, and for some reason it sent an answering pulse between her thighs.

Her fingers slid over him, her thumb brushing the thick head, and he jerked in her palm.

“Enough,”

he rasped.

Shivers ran through his body as she stroked him, his breath coming harder.

“Enough, or you’ll finish me right here.

When did my wife become so brave?”

His mouth covered hers as he dragged her up with him, her bare toes skimming over the rushes on the floor.

The blankets of the bed struck her back and the lumpy woolen mattress shifted as he knelt above her, his shaggy black hair falling forward around his face.

“We’ll have to be quiet,”

he whispered.

His hands slid up her body from her waist, cupping her breasts, and he bent to stroke his tongue over a nipple.

“Can you?”

She nodded, and he almost immediately made a liar of her when he drew her nipple between his lips and suckled so that she had to clap her hand over her mouth.

His fingers moved between her legs to find her already wet, deftly playing with her breasts and nipples and the flushing, heated opening between her thighs.

Her body rose as she gasped, hearing the soft, almost chirping noises of his lips suckling, licking, making her writhe.

Everything felt as if it had slowed, as if her body and her thoughts had been coated in warm honey.

“So beautiful,”

he breathed, his lips moving slowly from breast to breast as one long finger sank inside her.

“Are you ready for me?”

“Yes…”

Her voice came out so high and breathless and strange, it hardly sounded like her.

Inside, his finger tickled, and her hips arched and her thighs tightened automatically, her body seeking to pull him deeper.

“Hngh, yes, yes…”

Oh, she was ready.

She was wanting.

She was aching.

She could see his member as he moved above her, lowering to push against her opening.

“Remin…”

she breathed, looking up at him, and felt him press inward, so big.

His hands gripped her thighs and there was a burning stretch as he penetrated her, painful and exciting.

“You’re so…small inside,”

he gritted, his huge shoulders knotted as he forced himself to go slow.

“Tell me…ahhhh, ah…tell me if it hurts…”

“I will…”

Her voice was reedy and breathless.

He drew back and her body jerked, feeling the friction as he withdrew, and then a surge of pressure as he pushed in again, deeper.

Ophele’s back arched, her inner channel contracting strongly against that hard length, so tight she could feel him throbbing inside her.

She dug her nails into his shoulders, barely stifling a high, gasping moan.

“Ahhh…if you do that…”

His deeper moan vibrated in the depths of his chest as his hands wrapped her thighs around him, and he sank all the way inside her in one long, smooth stroke.

So full.

So much.

She couldn’t cry out, she couldn’t even breathe, she had forgotten how intense it was to take all of him, her small body straining to contain him.

Remin thrust, driving still deeper when she thought it was impossible, his hard hands sliding to her waist to hold her in place.

Ahhhhhh.

He drew back, a melting, liquid rush as his manhood tugged out of her, and then rolled in again with pleasure so powerful she sucked in a breath and barely remembered to stifle her cry.

“Remin!”

“I know, I know,”

he panted.

She could see the pleasure in his face as he thrust again, his black brows knotted together, lips parted, his eyes squeezing shut as his hips drew back and surged forward.

“But we have to be…quiet…”

“I can feel you…hhhhn, nnngh…oh, good…”

His mouth covered hers, muffling both their moans in a tangle of tongues and breathless panting.

Every thrust felt so good, she felt it all over, inside, outside, everywhere, his skin shivering against hers.

Another stroke, so deep, and his hips caught against her and ground forward and made her whole body surge upward.

White flashed behind her eyes.

“Shhh, shhh, ohhhh, Ophele…”

His stubbled jaw rasped against her neck as he strangled with the effort to keep quiet.

“It’s so good, it’s so good,”

she gasped, her arms trembling as she held onto him, feeling his body levering against hers unstoppably.

If anything, he went harder.

She thought she was going to suffocate or explode or die underneath him, and she felt him stiffening inside her, pulsing so hard she felt it bounce against the top of her skull.

His breath was huffing out of him in a deep huhn, huhn, huhn, faster and faster.

“Remin…”

Her voice quavered upward.

She could feel herself tightening inside, working him as she trembled on the edge.

Her eyes were open, but she saw nothing, the feeling of him inside her blotted out everything else in the world.

“Remin, nngh, nngh, ohhhhhh!”

His lips covered hers to devour her cries and he shoved hard, deep, making her inner thighs scream a protest.

Oh, there! It was like he was hammering the fracture points of her body, finding the fault lines, the pounding of his powerful body would break her into pieces.

Every stroke reverberated to her fingertips and she felt herself shivering inside, clenching tighter, as if her body desperately wanted this thing that would blow it apart.

Ophele clutched his shoulders and shattered.

Remin’s body jerked against her, slamming into her, grinding down into her as he filled her in huge, hot jets, spending himself inside her.

The surges of his body felt so good she could have screamed with pleasure, her heels skidding over the blankets as she tried to push herself up to meet him, feeling the mechanisms of her body finish him, wringing him dry.

All of him.

Everything.

She felt like she was floating.

As if they had become dust, light and ephemeral and mingling together in the air, and when she put herself back together, Ophele was sure he would be there, built into her bones.

Part of her forever.

Remin panted, his head between her breasts as shudders rippled through his body like aftershocks.

Even though her own body felt so distant and disconnected from her that they seemed like someone else’s hands, she lifted them, caressing the back of his neck, running her fingers through his black hair.

Against her skin, she felt his lips curve into a smile.

“I love you,”

he murmured, and moved over her to kiss her.

“Wife.

Ophele.

I love you.”

“I love you,”

she whispered back, tracing his cheek with a fingertip, and felt that her heart would burst with happiness as he nuzzled his face into her palm.

* * *

There would be no sleep that night.

It was impossible.

It wasn’t just his desire for her, though Remin barely managed to restrain himself long enough to let her catch her breath before he wanted her again.

He was alive.

He was alive, when he had expected to die.

He was alive, and she loved him, and she had consented to lie with him, and all those things he had dreamed about a home and their children and making a garden of this valley might really come to pass…

It was too much.

He had never really believed that those things would actually happen.

It was too painful to contemplate such happiness.

He knew how to suffer.

He knew that endurance was a question of scale.

He had been able to survive years of war.

Months of scorching summer heat.

Weeks of hunger in the winter, when the supply trains were stretched thin, and blizzards delayed them in deep snow.

Days of pain from healing wounds. Hours of torment as Genon stitched him back together. And minutes and seconds of agony when he had been shot or stabbed or poisoned, sometimes thinking only of the next breath when it hurt too much to contemplate anything further. He knew how to hurt.

Now, he was having to apply this harsh lesson to a joy so great, he couldn’t even grasp the outlines of it yet.

Instead, he thought of Ophele, real and tangible, his joy made flesh.

Wrapped in sheets and blankets that smelled sweetly of her, naked together in the dark, there were no walls between them.

There was barely the barrier of skin.

He had never known it was possible to talk to someone else like he was talking to his own soul.

“I think it started in Granholme,”

he said, brushing her hair back from her face.

He had already made love to her twice and thought he might have taken the worst of the edge off.

Now he felt only a dreamy lassitude, wrapped in the warmth and dark as if they could drift together in this small space forever.

“I liked you that day.

I think that was the first day I ever heard you really talk.

And that night, I didn’t want to leave your bed. I don’t sleep anywhere without guards, you know. Miche or Tounot usually take turns guarding when we’re traveling. But then when that assassin came…”

Her fingers grasped his as she listened.

“I felt stupid,”

he admitted.

“I know now you didn’t have anything to do with it.

But you’d talked to so many people that day, and the lock on the shutter was broken.

That’s not proof.

But if it had been you…I couldn’t stand that thought.

It happened before. Someday I’ll tell you about it.”

Not tonight.

He didn’t want to ruin this night with such a tale.

“You mean Merrienne,”

she said unexpectedly, making him stiffen at the name.

“It’s all right, Sir Miche told me.

You don’t have to say it.

Unless you want to.”

Remin’s lips tightened and his brows drew together, but he supposed he could forgive it, this once.

She knew, and he didn’t have to talk about it.

“Well, that was why,”

he said, shrugging as if that would push that long-dead girl out of his mind once and for all.

“I tried not to love you.

I think I knew almost from the beginning that I would.

You even knew my House’s words, the day we married.”

“I read them in a book,”

she said, which no longer surprised him.

Her fingers played in his dark hair.

“But…you love me now?”

“More than anything.”

How strange it was that saying it could make him feel so light.

The words had sat in his chest like a stone for so long, a secret he had hidden, probably even from himself.

“Even if the Emperor does do something again, though, you won’t…”

she said hesitantly, and suddenly he remembered how she had looked, that night in Granholme, and her red and swollen eyes the next morning.

He could really be appallingly stupid.

“No.

No, I won’t,”

he said firmly, pulling her against his body, his hands rough with apology.

“I believe you.

I’m sorry.

I will believe you always.

But if anything happens, if anyone tries to threaten you or blackmail you, tell me.

No matter what, I won’t be angry. I gave you my heart,”

he added, lifting her chin to look her in the eyes.

“That means my life is yours to take, if ever you have to.

Never forget that I chose your life tonight.”

Her lips trembled and she buried her face in his chest, filling him with regret.

There had been so many misunderstandings.

And so many refusals to understand on his part, so many times when she had offered a hand and he had chased her away.

Gently, he stroked her hair and waited.

He had made his apologies.

He would not keep saying words. He would show her.

“Well, that’s too bad.”

She said, muffled.

Sniffling, she lifted her head and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

“Because I chose your life.

And I threw my pardon in the fire.”

The corner of his mouth twitched.

“Then we’ll have to talk to each other about it, if it happens,”

he said, resting his forehead against hers.

Stars, how he loved her.

He loved her eyes.

He loved her lips.

He loved her little snub nose and he kissed that too, and her feathery eyebrows, soft arches.

He loved her breasts very much indeed, and lavished them with such attention that her breath turned shallow and panting and she arched against him, clearly as hungry for him as he was for her.

There was so much to learn.

He was discovering what made her writhe.

He played at giving pleasure and then withholding it, teasing his shy wife, and was delighted every time she surprised him.

“What do you want?”

he asked, his voice rumbling the question as he licked and tormented her nipples until she was squirming underneath him.

But he was utterly defeated when she looked at him through her thick eyelashes and touched the rigid length of his manhood, her fingers stroking the swollen, throbbing head.

“That,”

she whispered, meeting his gaze with a mixture of shyness and shamelessness that made his desire claw its way to a mountaintop and howl.

That was a clear victory to Ophele.

Unfortunately, the walls were thin and there were two guards and a dozen cottages nearby, so howling had to be kept to a minimum.

They were both rather vocal with their pleasures and Ophele finally grabbed for a pillow to muffle her cries while Remin died a dozen deaths, swallowing his own groans.

Privacy was a luxury he would never enjoy while the Emperor lived, but he still didn’t care to broadcast their activities to half the town.

The bed was another problem.

It had not been made to withstand this sort of activity and every time he really got going, it started smacking against the wall.

Rhythmically.

“Shhh, oh, Remin, they’ll hear,”

Ophele whispered, breathless and horrified at the same time, and Remin stuffed a pillow between the frame and the wall so they could finish together in a strangling, simultaneous orgasm.

They dozed, lying limply together in a tangle of limbs.

They made love again.

He lost count of how many times he had been inside her; it all blended together in an endless, blissful dream, sleeping and rousing and coming together again.

Telling secrets.

Telling truths.

“Why were you in the woods that day?”

he asked.

She was sprawled partway on his chest, and the curve of her slender back fit perfectly under his fingers as he stroked her.

“When we came to Aldeburke.”

He was trying to tread lightly; Remin was aware that he was not always the most delicate of men.

But there were a number of things that gave him pause.

“I didn’t know who you were,”

she said instantly, as if she had been dying to tell him this.

“I was sorry as soon as I found out, I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

“But why were you there, little owl?”

he asked it as gently as he could, his finger trailing along the large outer orbit of her eyes.

His little owl, so solemn.

“Hiding in a tree, of all places.”

“I was afraid there would be trouble,”

she said, her lashes lowering to conceal her splendid eyes.

“I thought, so many knights…”

“The lord never told you I was coming?”

“No.”

“So I scared you,”

he said regretfully.

“I thought it was an insult.

The Emperor enjoys such tricks.

But…Ophele, if it wasn’t an insult, why were you dressed—”

“Well, I didn’t need anything nice around the house…”

Could that be right? She had been a prisoner.

But it felt like there was something she wasn’t telling him, and even worse was the way she was avoiding his eyes.

And she still hadn’t explained why she would see strangers and hide, he realized.

She had answered so neatly it had almost gone right by him.

He frowned.

She was a formidable opponent.

“I see,”

he said quietly, and let his fingers play over her lower lip.

He wasn’t sure what to do.

Now that he thought about it, she had always had little to say of herself, and was so good at turning questions aside.

“Considering that I began our acquaintance by shouting at you, I wonder that you ever came to love me, wife.

Explain yourself.”

Under his fingers, he felt that soft lip curve.

“Well, I didn’t at first,”

she said, relaxing against him.

“But I was listening on the way here, when all of you talked about Tresingale.

I liked that.

I’d never thought about what it takes to build something.

And then when we came here, I realized that you didn’t come out of a book.

Remin Grimjaw. I heard about you from when I was a little girl…”

He could have listened to her soft, drowsy voice forever as she went on, telling her story.

It was odd to hear about the Remin Grimjaw she had heard about, a man that was nearly as strange to him as he was to her.

He hadn’t really known what was said about him, when he was growing up.

He had been too busy trying to live long enough to grow up.

“But none of those things happened by themselves,”

she said.

“You had to figure out how to do all of it.

All of this.

And I was always sorry about what my father had done, everything—everything,”

she said, touching the scar on his cheek.

“I knew he wanted to kill you, but then I started thinking how terrible it would be if you died.

And, in Granholme, before…I thought it would be nice, if you loved me like that.

And then I realized I couldn’t bear it, if you didn’t.”

Her voice grew softer as her shyness got the better of her, and Remin held his breath, not wanting to miss a single word.

“But I think it started with Tresingale,”

she finished, resting her head on his chest.

“It’s your dream.

And I liked your dream.

I love your dream.”

“Come here,”

he murmured, tugging her toward him and covering her lips in a slow, caressing kiss that singed the edges of every nerve.

Lifting a hand, he traced his thumb along the delicate ridge of her jaw, feeling it move with the soft slide of her lips over his own.

“Remin,”

she whispered, a musical little purr as his other hand slid down her back to her lovely round backside.

Remin had not had much opportunity to contemplate his favorite parts of female anatomy, but it was so satisfying to squeeze her. “Again?”

“I think so,”

he said thoughtfully, and rolled on top of her as she giggled, sliding her legs apart.

She had gained back much of the weight she had lost in the weeks since her illness, and her thighs felt so pleasingly round and smooth in his hands, he had to kiss them before he insinuated his big body between them.

She was still wet.

He had filled her so many times, this was not surprising, and though he thought there was small chance his seed would catch, it gave him pleasure to sow her thoroughly.

Even if he did get her with child tonight, the main house would be done before she delivered.

He entered her in a long, deep stroke, the plump pink petals between her legs wrapping tight around him, with just enough friction to make him lightheaded.

“Oh, you’re so deep…”

she moaned, her hands sliding over his back.

His hard member rasped her as Remin pushed still further, sheathed to the hilt and feeling her tight channel grip him.

“Too…deep?”

he managed, grinding himself there because it felt so good he could hardly stand it.

“Nooo…”

she breathed, pulling him down to her, and her small, silky body lifted to push against him eagerly, a rolling motion that made him push up, in, and made them moan together as he rubbed in her.

“Come deeper…”

When they first met, he thought she would have died of embarrassment before he saw her chemise.

He had never expected his shy wife to be so honest in bed.

She never lied to him, he thought, dizzy with pleasure.

Not even here.

Her legs wrapped around him and her voice rose in breathless whispers to urge him to go faster, harder, her nails scoring his back until he thought he was losing his mind.

“You get too loud when I do that,”

he panted, almost ready to say to hell with the entire listening world.

“But there, there—ahh, Remin, there’s something…”

she gasped, her eyes squeezed shut, her face screwed up with pleasure.

“What, what?”

“When you—oh, nnnngh! Oh there, there, what you just did!”

He did it again.

He had no idea what he was doing, all of this was as new to him as it was to her.

But he found something inside her, maybe that rough spot Miche had told him to find with his fingers, and angled his body to rub the hard length of himself over and over and over it, rolling his hips upward to strike it as precisely as he would jab a spear.

The effect was extraordinary.

Her body bucked underneath him and she gave a gasp and her body gripped him and yanked him inside her, so hard that he barely had time to get a hand over her mouth before she came.

“Oh, there, there, there,”

she sobbed breathlessly as he pounded her, pushing her through a climax that probably made Yvain and Dol think he was murdering her.

And it hardly felt any less good to him; Remin managed only a scant few seconds before he was coming so hard, it felt as if he were turning inside out, every muscle in his body straining with the force of his climax.

And as he filled her again, this time it was Ophele that had to clap her small hands over his mouth.

“You’re…poking your fingers…in a bear’s mouth?”

he asked as he fell panting beside her on the bed, and she jerked them back as he bit her fingertips.

“They’re going to hear you roaring otherwise,”

she said, her eyes widening with surprise and delight that he was playing with her.

“It’ll be better when the house is done,”

he promised, maneuvering her into the comfortable shelter of his body.

He hadn’t slept in a bed in six months.

It felt almost decadent to lie on a mattress with her soft, silky self against him.

“And a better bed.

This one sounds like it’s going to come apart.”

“Do you think anyone heard us?”

she whispered, a little anxiously.

“It’s so late, everyone should long be asleep,”

he evaded, though he was already planning to make sure Yvain and Dol had cleared out before she left the cottage that morning.

There was no point in trying to keep secrets from guards and servants; they saw and heard everything, and the good ones took pride in their silence.

But he thought it was probably better to introduce this idea gradually.

“I want to go see the house tomorrow with you,”

she said, turning her chin up to look at him.

“Today,”

he corrected.

Already he could see her face better than he had a few minutes before, large eyes and red lips, swollen with his kisses.

“It’s almost dawn.

And only if you’re not too tired.

You have to tell me if you are.”

“I will,”

she whispered, and soon she was asleep beside him, her lashes curving dark over her cheeks.

To Remin, sleep seemed both very far away and entirely unnecessary.

And maybe some part of him feared that if he fell asleep, the spell would end, and he would wake to find that all of this had been a dream.

Beside him, Ophele turned on her side and reached for a pillow, hugging it to her breasts.

The familiar sight made the corner of his mouth curve upward.

Carefully, he rolled onto his side to shape himself around her.

He had never shared a bed with anyone before.

It had always been too dangerous.

It was strange, but pleasant.

He just meant to enjoy the warm and lovely weight of her beside him, but the sound of her soft breathing lulled him, and he closed his eyes.

Just for a few minutes.

But he could learn this.

He could learn to endure happiness.