Page 53 of The Merciless Laird
The fire had burned low, the embers orange in the grate. The candles had been replaced in the night, by Ivar. The room was amber and warm and outside the window, Mull was the grey that came just before color returned to things. She felt the warmth of the blankets, a stark contrast to the phantom chill of her memories.
Then she turned her head and looked at him.
He was asleep in the chair. The sight of him there, a silent sentinel in the shadows, made her breath catch.
Upright.
His head back against the chair, arms loose on the armrests. His breathing was slow. She watched the steady rise and fall of his chest, her own breathing beginning to sync with his.
The sword was on the floor beside the chair. Not leaned against the wall. Not set aside. On the floor, within reach of his right hand, exactly where it should be if he needed it in the dark before he'd fully woken. She stared at the steel, the cold glint of it a reminder of the world they lived in.
She looked at that for a moment. Her fingers curled into the edge of the furs.
Then she looked at him.
He'd pulled his tunic back on at some point in the night. She wasn't sure when. She hadn't heard him move, which meant she'd slept deeper than she normally would, which was its own information. The realization made a small, uneasy knot form in her stomach.
The tunic had ridden up slightly on one side, and she could see the scar. Long, old, following the line of his ribs fromsomewhere below his arm to somewhere below his waist. White against his skin in the low light. Her eyes traced the jagged path of the wound, and she resisted a strange, magnetic pull in her fingertips, an irrational urge to reach across the gap and trace that jagged line, to feel the heat of him beneath her hand.
Whoever had put it there had meant it. The thought sent a shiver down her spine.
She looked at his shoulders. Even slack with sleep, they held a readiness that hadn't fully let go. He looked like a coiled spring, even in repose.
She looked at his face.
Without his dark eyes open and doing their thing, he looked younger. The harsh lines of his face were less severe in the amber glow.
Not soft. Just quieter. The stillness of his features was almost unsettling.
The line of his jaw, the slight furrow between his brows that hadn't smoothed even in sleep, the mouth that spent most of its time holding back whatever he'd decided not to say. She wondered what words he was guarding even now.
She was still looking when he woke.
No gradual surfacing. No slow blink. His eyes opened and found her immediately. Direct and already focused. The air in the room vanished. His gaze didn't just see her; it weighed her, heavy and unblinking, and the heat that rushed to her cheeks felt like a brand.
"Mornin'," he said. His voice was rough and deeper, sleep still in it. The low vibration of it seemed to hum through the very floorboards.
"Good mornin’," she said, to the ceiling. She jerked her gaze upward, her hands smoothing the furs with unnecessary intensity.
A pause. The silence stretched, thick and expectant.
She heard him stretch. The shift of the chair, the crack of his back, the slow exhale after it. The sound of his movement was deliberate and heavy.
He shifted, leaning forward until his forearms rested on his knees. He was close enough now that she could smell the woodsmoke on his skin and the faint, warm scent of a man who had spent the night guarding a door.
"How long have ye been awake?" he said. She felt the slight rasp of amusement in his tone like a morning caress.
"Nae long." She squeezed her eyes shut for a second, wishing her face would cool.
"How long have ye been starin’ at me?"
"I wasnae staring." She bit her lip, the taste of her own heartbeat in her mouth.
"Aye." Another stretch, slower this time, his muscles rippling under the dark wool of his tunic. "Ye were very much staring, Matilda. The weight of it stirred me from sleep."
She kept her eyes on the ceiling. The amber plaster. The shadows where the candles didn't quite reach. She focused on a small crack in the ceiling, her fingers knotting together.
"I was looking at the scar," she said, which was true and also easier than the rest of it. She felt the weight of his gaze on her, heavy and unblinking.
