Chapter 4

4

T he walk to his cabin had never taken so long.

Erik’s hand was warm in mine, his hold on me as firm as my hold on him. We talked as we walked through the forest, but I couldn’t tell you what we spoke of; all my senses were attuned to him. To the warmth of his body beside me and to the sounds he made as he breathed, as he swallowed, as he moved at my side.

Where he belonged.

Sunlight filtered onto the track we’d worn over the last few months between the thick trees. It was quiet and hushed here. The sheltered air was warmer than down by my lake, and instead of water and rock, it smelled sweetly of pine. It felt heavy and intimate.

Twice, I had to stop and kiss him breathless before I could wrench myself away and resume the endless, everlasting walk.

The third time, Erik was the one to stop us.

He wasn’t talking anymore, but he wasn’t silent, either. His breath came fast and rough. I knew that it wasn’t from our brisk pace. He was a fit man, used to walking many, many miles every day.

I sent him a sideways glance from under my lashes and found his eyes on my face. Our gazes clashed and locked.

“Fuck it,” Erik said in a low growl, and startled me by turning and pushing me up against a tree.

He leaned in, ducking to press a harsh, biting kiss to the centre of my chest. “I have missed you,” he said. “Gods. So much.”

“I have—oh.” My head fell back as he took hold of my shaft and gave it a demanding pull. “Erik,” I said. “ Erik , I?—”

He kissed my neck as he continued to stroke me. He opened his mouth over my skin, caught my flesh in his teeth, and he sucked. Hard.

I made a needy, gasping sound as my buttocks clenched and I forced myself into his grip. He pressed his free hand flat against my stomach, told me to hold still for it, and set about driving me out of my mind.

I shuddered and trembled, trying to be good for him but I couldn’t help it, I couldn’t help it, my hips had to move and my muscles all tightened as I?—

I came disgracefully quickly and stood on shaky legs, panting loudly in the quiet of the forest around us.

Erik stared at me with possession and pride.

I almost came again, just from looking at him.

The rest of the walk home was a dazed blur. This, too, was something new that I’d experienced only with Erik.

I used to satisfy a lover, take my pleasure, and leave, content with a job well done but otherwise unmoved. With Erik, I felt something else entirely.

I’d asked him about it, once.

He’d said it was called an afterglow.

I liked the word. It fit.

I glowed after Erik had taken me, or I had taken him.

I radiated with warmth, with satisfaction and happiness. I had begun to understand—a little at least—Erik’s obsession with warm fires and candles and his hot drinks in the cold times, and his seeking out of the bright sun in the warm times.

I glowed all the way home, soft and fuzzy-edged like a dandelion clock lit bright with the setting sun, and by the time my thoughts sharpened, we were already mounting the steps onto the porch of Erik’s cabin.

I rushed him inside and slammed the door behind us, making him laugh when I curled over him and walked him backwards into the main room, my lips parting his.

“Now, now,” I whispered into his mouth. “Let me have you now, my Erik.”

He hooked an arm around my neck, smiling as he said, “Not yet, my Sayan.”

I growled and fake-nipped at that smile, the one that told me he was in a mood to make me dance to his tune.

And I would , as I always did.

I squeezed him closer, making him groan. “It was a long journey to get here,” he said, “and I haven’t had the chance to freshen up yet. I came straight down to your lake to find you.”

A flash of pride rippled through me. “You did?”

“Of course I did.” He cupped my cheek, looking almost sad. “You must know that you are precious to me.”

“Most precious?” I asked quickly.

“ The most precious. Of all things and all people.”

“Including Lars? ”

“Including Lars,” he said solemnly, though his lovely dark eyes gleamed with amusement.

I unbuttoned his coat, pushing his hands away when he went to do it himself. It was my delight to unwrap him.

I’d be even more delighted if he agreed to be naked for me at all times, but Erik was, after all, a human. He had strange human ideas about such things.

Usually, I liked to take my time. Not today.

Today, I found myself gasping and pulling at his clothes. Fabric ripped beneath my fingers, and Erik huffed out a sharp laugh when I yanked at his breeches, bouncing his hips off mine as I wrestled with the fastenings before whipping his breeches down his thighs.

I moaned, my hands going straight to his buttocks. I gave the heavy globes a firm squeeze, reminding myself to be gentle, gentle , but as soon as I felt the bare skin of his torso against mine, and that glorious rasp of hair that led down to his cock abrading my smooth navel, I pushed my fingers between his buttocks without ceremony.

Erik yelped, his entrance tight and unyielding.

I rubbed apologetically over his hole, petting it and murmuring nonsense against his mouth, still hauling him into me, into me, into me .

“Oh,” I said, and spilled without warning over his stomach, my heart thundering, my legs trembling.

Erik held me through it and pressed a kiss to the side of my head when I curled over him and hunched down to tuck my face into the crook of his warm neck. I opened my mouth over his skin, taking in the taste of him. Salt, heat, male.

Mine.

I shuddered and spilled one last time.

Once, this would have mortified me.

Shocked, appalled, and mortified me. It wasn’t a naiad’s place to take his pleasure first—he must give and give and give, and only when he had earned it was he supposed to take his own.

So my mother had taught me, back on her island when I was young.

Erik taught me differently.

Pleasure between lovers, he said, was a thing to be shared, not apportioned and doled out. I was allowed to feel. I was allowed to seek and take joy in his body. He offered it to me freely. He wanted me to take joy in it.

He wanted me to be happy.

My mother had also wanted me to be happy—Erik had had a strange expression on his face when I’d told him that—but more than my happiness, she was concerned with my dominion over humans. With my survival.

If there was one thing I knew, it was how to survive. As for being happy?

I was learning.

Erik ran a firm hand over my long hair, all the way down my back to grip my buttock. He jiggled it playfully in his hand and I moaned into his neck, bumping my hips into his.

“Lay the fire for me,” he said, releasing me with a brisk pat, “and let me go and freshen up.”

I made a complaining noise and pressed closer, picking up his arms and wrapping them around me. While I was drawn to the fire and would doze in front of it for hours and hours, sprawled out on the rich autumn-coloured rug, I didn’t care for laying it. It was a messy business.

I wasn’t good at it.

I wasn’t used to not being good at things.

But I had missed him fiercely and despite just having spilled over him, I needed to have him again.

I needed to be inside him. I needed his naked body against mine, to share heat and heartbeats. I needed to move in him and have him move with me, our limbs entwining and bodies sliding. I needed…

“Sayan,” Erik said with a little nudge.

I released him abruptly and strode over to the hearth. Going to my knees, I thrust both hands into the log basket and scooped out some seasoned logs. Once I’d tossed them into the grate, I stretched up to grab the tinderbox from where it sat on the mantel and opened it carefully, as Erik had shown me. I struck the flint over and over, even managed to get some sparks, but the tinder wouldn’t catch.

I struck it again and again, tamping down my frustration. It was the fire I was supposed to light, I reminded myself. Not my temper.

I snarled with irritation when the tinder failed to catch once more, then stilled when Erik’s hand slid beneath my hair and rested on the back of my neck. My head drooped and I sighed, the tension in my muscles releasing in a delicious wave.

“Let me do it,” he said.

“I can do it,” I told him, stiffening back up. “I want to.”

I wasn’t a child . It had been an aeon since I had new skills to master, new ways to be, but I wanted to learn.

“All right.” Erik knelt beside me. “Shall I tell you what you’re doing wrong?”

“Yes, or we’ll be here until wint—” I broke off and stared at him.

He was naked.

Erik closed my open mouth with a forefinger. “I did say I was freshening up.”

“I thought…” I ran my hungry gaze all over him. “Clothes…” I skimmed the backs of my fingers down his side, watching his skin pebble with those little bumps that said he was cold.

I didn’t get them myself, and they fascinated me almost as much as the hair that grew on his chest, down to his groin, and dusted his arms and legs. I rubbed the pads of my fingers over the tiny bumps wonderingly.

Goosebumps, he called them.

They had nothing to do with geese.

Erik caught my wrist, his stomach hollowing on a sharp inhale.

My gaze flicked up to meet his and we stared at each other.

“You light it.” I thrust the tinderbox at him.

He struck it successfully the first time and lit a small taper before looking at the logs in the grate and sighing.

“Hold this.” He passed me the taper.

I watched the flame dance down the length of it, getting closer and closer to my fingers, as Erik swiftly rearranged the jumble of logs. He took the taper back and lit the fire.

I shifted impatiently on my knees as he waited for the fire to catch, adjusted a couple of logs, then turned to me with a smile.

It was the signal I had been waiting for.