Page 61 of Rune’s Solace

He stepped back and let me in, and I walked past him into the middle of that cabin, and then I did the thing I’d been terrified of for days.

I didn’t turn the lamp off.

I stood there with the lamp still on and made myself leave it that way. He could see me. I could see him. There was no sneaking into his bed after dark tonight, no pretending I didn't know what I was doing. I turned around and faced him, and I watched the second he understood.

His breath caught.

“Amy.” My name came out of him rough. He didn’t move toward me. His hands stayed at his sides. “Whatever this is. You need to be sure. You need to be all the way sure, because I am not — I can’t be the one to — ” He stopped and dragged in a breath. “It has to be you. Do you understand what I’m telling you? Every inch of it has to be you, or I can’t.”

“I know.” My voice shook. “That’s why I left the lamp on.”

* * *

I crossed the room to him.

The hardest part was walking to him. He stood there and let me come, didn't move an inch to make it easier, because he'd promised every bit of this would be mine to choose. Men had been closing distances for me my whole life, deciding when they got close and how close they got, and I'd never understood until that moment what it felt like to be the one deciding.

I took another step.

I stopped right in front of him, close enough to feel the heat come off him, and I looked up at that still, raw, waiting face, and I put my hand flat on his chest the way I’d done a hundred times in the dark, except the lamp was on, and he could see me do it, and I could see him feel it.

His heart was going as hard as mine.

“Say it,” he said. Barely a whisper. Not a demand. A plea. “I need the words, Amy. I’m sorry. After everything, I need you to say the words, because I won’t spend the rest of my life wondering if I took something from you.”

“I want you.” It came out of me plain and clear, and it didn’t shake the way I’d been sure it would. “I’ve wanted you since the first month I got here. I wanted you before you ever broke my heart, Rune, I wanted you so bad I couldn’t breathe, and you knew it, and you were the only man on this earth I was never once afraid of, and I’m not afraid of you now.” My throat closed and I pushed through it. “I’m choosing it. Nobody made me come down here, and nobody’s making me say this. I want you, Rune. I’ve wanted you for a long time, and I’m tired of waiting until it’s dark to let myself act like it’s okay.”

For a second he didn’t move at all.

And then he made a sound deep in his chest like a man who’d been holding his breath for a year, and he reached up, slow, careful, giving me every chance to stop him, and cupped the side of my face in one big rough hand like it was made of something that could break, and he said, “There she is,” in a voice that came apart in the middle, and I understood what he was talking about.

He’d waited months for me to choose.

So I did.

And God, I loved him for making me come all the way.

* * *

He kissed me like he’d been starving.

Slowly, though, which was somehow worse. I’d expected all that wanting I’d watched him choke down for weeks to finally break loose, but Rune kissed me like he didn’t quite believe I was real yet, one hand at my jaw and the other settling at the small of my back before he drew me against him, and I went willingly, arms sliding around his neck, my body fitting into the hard length of his while something warm and dizzy opened low in me.

I’d kissed him before. I’d wanted him before.

This was different. This was me letting him see that I wanted him and not taking it back.

His mouth changed against mine when I pulled him closer, some last thread of restraint slipping, and God, there he was. Not the careful man on the floor. Not the one in the garden pretending he hadn’t been staring at my mouth. This was Rune wanting me, and I’d spent so long wondering what that would feel like that actually having the answer nearly took my knees out. He was hot and hard everywhere I was soft, one big hand spanning most of my back, the other still at my jaw like even now he couldn’t quite believe he was allowed to hold me there, and when I pressed closer a rough sound caught low in his throat.

That sound did something terrible to me. I kissed him harder just to hear it again.

And I did.

His fingers tightened against my back before he caught himself, and I felt the exact second he tried to put the leash back on.

I didn’t want the leash. Not all the way.

I wanted to know what it felt like to be wanted by Rune when neither one of us was pretending otherwise, and when his mouth left mine and found the corner of my jaw, then the place just below it, I tipped my head without thinking and felt his breath catch against my skin.