Varren left and Eira was instantly aware of how empty the decks were. Only a couple pirates were awake and they were focused on their own discussion on the main deck below, barely visible from
where she sat.
“I hope I didn’t wake you when I left,” Eira said. Though she had been gone for some time and suspected that wasn’t the cause of his presence… She had to say something to break the immediate tension.
“You didn’t.”
“Good.”
“I was already up.” Olivin crossed over. The wind caught his dark hair, the strands highlighted by the stars. He knelt and her heart answered with a skip as his cool eyes shone in the silver moonlight. A contrast with the warmth of his expression.
“I’m sorry you couldn’t sleep,” Eira said softly, her words growing heavy and hard to say.
“You should be.” Olivin’s eyes traveled across her face before his hand did, knuckles brushing against the swell of her cheek and resting there. His lips parted as if he were about to speak, but he abandoned the notion, soaking in the moment. Just as she was about to ask him what he was waiting for, he found words. “I find I can’t sleep as well as I used to.”
“And why is that?” she asked.
“You know why.” His attention dropped to her lips. “I’ve been here for weeks now, waiting for you to look my way.”
“Olivin, I…” Words were harder and harder to say. A wave of heat rolled off him, enveloping her. The feeling of expectancy grew heavy in the air as his gaze became half-lidded. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I still don’t know.”
There was so much tied up with those words. She didn’t know where she was headed once they defeated Ulvarth—if they did. She didn’t know who she’d be by the end of it. And didn’t know who she’d want. It was all the words she’d said and everything she couldn’t formulate into cohesive thoughts.
Somehow, he smiled in spite of her turmoil.
“You don’t have to know everything.” He chuckled deeply. Barely a rasp over the breezes. “You just have to know one thing…” He pulled lightly with the pads of his fingers. She straightened at what was little more than a suggestion. Eira’s lids grew heavy.
“And what is that?” she murmured.
“In this moment, here, now, do you want to kiss me?”
The world went still. Even the ship seemed to pause and the creaking of the wood and groaning of the ropes fell silent. The wind held its breath and she held hers with it as the sides of their noses brushed together. Olivin brought her right to the edge, but no further. The pressure from his fingers around her cheek eased slightly.
Are you sure this is what you want? the movement seemed to ask.
Eira gave in to the pull of the currents between them. She closed the gap and her lips brushed against his. It was all the permission he needed.
Olivin’s left hand found the other side of her face, pulling her closer. He tilted his head and she granted him access. His tongue slid against hers and a shiver coursed through her.
This kiss was different than the last time… It felt like it was the first time. When she’d kissed him in Champion Village, her heart and mind were a confused mess. Now…well, they were still a confused mess. But she was finding comfort in the chaos. In the unknowing. Gone were the expectations of order. The pressures of conformity.
Everyone knew where she stood—or, rather, where she didn’t. There was no guilt or shame, just discovery. Opportunity for her, and for them. Besides…wasn’t this sort of thing what pirates did? Explore? Pillage? Take what they wanted whenever they wanted?
A grin split Eira’s lips as her hands balled into Olivin’s shirt. She held on to him as though he were her sole lifeline in the current sweeping her away. He tasted like fresh winter snow, yet his body was as hot as fire, as hard as marble.
Olivin’s hands took on a life of their own. They slid down her body and grabbed her hips. He eased back, pulling her onto him, their kiss unbroken.
His hair was spun silk between her fingers. She grabbed it as he gripped her rear, massaging the muscle there. A gasp escaped her lips, one he eagerly caught with his own mouth.
The kisses caused her to tremble with the force of her restraint. Her thoughts were blissfully quiet. The worries of the day smoothed away with the force of his caress.
Olivin nipped at her throat and Eira sighed softly into the cool night air, exhaling tension and doubt. He kissed and licked away any flashes of pain from his bites. Eira’s fingers dug into his shoulders, holding him tighter, closer. Her hips pressed forward slightly and her eyes rolled back at the feeling of all of him so near and ready.
Nails digging into her back, he drew a shuddering breath against her flesh. “You are every nightmare and every delightful dream I have ever had wrapped into the shape of a woman. I’m damn near sure you will be the death of me, and yet I welcome you with open arms.”
His words drew consciousness back to her, the heat of the moment becoming a simmer in the pit of her stomach. Eira met his eyes once more, hands shifting to caress his face. His strong jaw. The dark arch of his brows. There were scars that hadn’t been there during the tournament. A nick extended from his temple to cheek, carving a thin, white line through his left eyebrow.
“Tell me, do you feel for me, Eira? Do you want me as I want you?” he whispered. “I can be everything that you need. Just say the word and I will remake the world in your image.” He searched her expression. The fleeting moment of hesitation. And inhaled between his teeth. “Or…I can be nothing. But I must know at least if there is still possibility ahead. Because I see him with you, with his hands on you”—Olivin’s fingers tightened at her waist, where Cullen had supported her earlier—“and my insides knot. I grow hot with a rage and frustration I’ve never known before.” He shook his head slowly. “My emotions are hooked on your little finger.”
“I’m so sorry.” She pressed her forehead into his and shook her head. “I never meant to do this to you—to us. Things happened so fast and every time I think I catch my bearings, I’m gone again. A compass spinning with no headway.”
“But there’s yet hope?” he murmured, kissing her lightly between the words.
“One moment, I want his hands on me, holding me. The next, I meet your eyes and all I can think of is them staring down at me—you over me,” she admitted. The confession should have felt more shameful. “You… him… I am lost.”
“Then I will be lost with you.”
Eira leaned away, studying his face. She smoothed her hands over his cheeks. An easy smile carved his lips.
“You look…surprised?” he whispered.
“I would’ve expected you to offer to be my North Star, my guide map.” The side of her index finger ran up his earlobe and along the outside of his ear, reaching its point before slipping back down.
“Eira…” Olivin chuckled low. “You may pick the path, and I will beat down any who stand in your way. If you are mine, I will do everything in my power to ensure nothing will work against you.”
She exhaled a soft noise that sounded like relief. It eased her back to him and Eira kissed him gently. Slowly and with purpose. No longer did she feel the need to rush. This wasn’t the last time, but the start of many. His chest expanded to press against hers as he inhaled deeply—as if he were breathing in her worries. Taking them so she no longer had to carry them.
“When I am with you,” she uttered against his lips, “I can’t think of anything else. At first, I thought you would be nothing more than a distraction. An escape.”
“I can be that, if it is all I’m meant to be.” “But…perhaps…I want more.”
“Say the word, and I will give you it all.” He kissed her again, pulling her lower lip between his teeth and biting gently. A moan escaped her. Loud enough that it brought the world around them back into focus. Even though it was night, there were still others not far.
“This is hardly the time or place.”
A low growl rose in his throat, one he stopped, but it made her want to press her hips against his even further. His hand flew to the back of her
head, gripping her hair. “When, then?”
“I don’t know, but soon,” she whispered breathlessly. “Very soon.” The wanting would tear her apart. Knowing he desired her as much as she did him—that this fire was a mutual flame—would make their every interaction torture.
“And him?”
The cold of the Stormfrost reached her. The chill that permeated the air around it sent a shiver up her spine that had nothing to do with desire, or passion. Him. Cullen. The man she’d once fallen in love with. The man who Eira, for a blissful moment, had seen every day of her future with. A fantasy that now seemed like little more than the musings of a naive girl. And yet…
Yet…
Her heart couldn’t let go of him. He was the measure of her. He was where the compass stopped spinning and she found a heading. Where Olivin was untamed, unending possibility, Cullen was order and purpose. They both held a piece of her that she didn’t want them to give back.
“I’m not ready to let him go yet—I don’t know if I want to,” she admitted. Lying was going to get her nowhere. “I’m still learning who I am, and until I know that, I cannot tell either of you who or what I want.”
“It’s all right.” He leaned up to plant an almost chaste kiss on her lips. If such a thing were possible, given how tightly her legs were wrapped around his hips. “I can share for a while longer.”
“Are you sure?” she murmured, fingers trailing over his face, wondering how she’d struck such luck.
“These emotions are complicated. This decision is important—when you make it, I want you to be certain.” Olivin locked eyes with hers. There was no doubt. If anything, understanding. As if he, too, had experienced young and great loves. As if he knew the confusion and enthusiasm of passion beyond just her. Relief flooded her at the understanding.
“Thank you.”
He nodded. “All I need from you, is to still know you need me. All I want is your time, your smiles, your kisses whenever you might grant them to me.” Olivin ran his fingertips lazily up and down her spine. “I don’t need your forever. Not yet. Maybe someday we will be in a place where I would come to expect it—when I have earned you being mine, wholly mine. But, for now, just grant me tomorrow. Each day, I will show you why you should grant me the next day…and the day after that…”
“I think that much I can do.”
“Good.” He leveled his eyes with her. “Then, may I kiss you until dawn?”
A sly smirk curled one corner of her mouth. She repeated, this time far more coy, “I think that much I can do.”
