When we stopped, I realized where we were. “The cave?” I said, looking to Rob in question.
Rob’s shoulders lifted, and I looked at the girls. Two of the smaller ones with candles rushed inside, and a dull glow began from within.
“You saved our lives by bringing us here,” Ellie told us, looking down. “So start your new life here too.”
Rob clutched me tight, and I looked at him. He nodded once, taking my chin and kissing me.
I nodded. Rob dismounted and helped me down, and I hugged Ellie. “Thank you,” I whispered. “This is perfect.”
She hugged me. “Hopefully you’ll feel the same in the morning,” she laughed, and swatted my rump as I let her go.
The little sprites inside the cave ran out, and I kissed Missy’s cheek and thanked her too. Then Rob took my hand and I forgot all about them as he led me inside.
They had lit a fire, and instead of our old pallets there were a new one, fresh stuffed and bigger, with furs and blankets heaped on it and flowers strewn all around the place. Rob’s hand ran up my spine to my neck, and I shuddered. He came in front of me, kissing my neck, and then my cheek, and then the corner of my mouth. “Do you remember what I told you that night?” he whispered, switching his kisses to the other side.
That night. That night in this cave, when he’d told me—everything. Everything for the first time. “That I changed everything.”
Another kiss, and my clothes started to feel overtight, like my skin were burning, my whole body trying to burst out. “What else?” he murmured.
His lips sucked on my neck, just beneath my ear, and my knees buckled. I gripped him with a gasp. “That you’d keep my heart,” I moaned.
His mouth hovered right over mine, grazing whisper soft over my lips, not giving me what I wanted, what I burned for. “What else, my sweet Scar?”
“That we’d be free,” I said, pressing my lips to his.
His mouth were fire hot, aggressive, powerful, his tongue moving into my mouth and filling me with taste and touch. He gripped my hips and pulled them flush against him, and I pulled my mouth away from his, gasping for breath. He moaned, lips reaching for mine again.
“Rob,” I breathed, panting.
He gave me a kiss-drunk nod.
“Take my dress off,” I asked him. Smiling and dropping a teasing kiss on his mouth, I whispered, “Please.”
Holding me tight, he twisted me around in his arms, trying to untie the knot in my laces Mistress Morgan had tied. With an impatient growl, he yanked and the thing tore. I gasped, but with one hand he pulled my shoulder close to him, kissing my neck as he undid the whole bodice until it gave way, and he tugged the blue kirtle off over my head.
It tore out some flowers with it, and he seized on this new task, dragging his fingers through my hair and plucking out one after the other.
His fingers drew the string of the knot holding my underdress together at my neck until it gave, sweeping my hair over my shoulder. For long seconds, he didn’t touch me, and I knew my back, scarred as it were, were exposed before him.
He took a breath and dragged his lips along the long scar Gisbourne had given me. I shivered.
He found another by my spine, and pressed his lips there.
He kissed every mark. He stood, pressing his head into my hair. “I hate that I can’t protect you from the pain you’ve already faced, Scar.”
I turned. “You do,” I told him. “You make it go away.”
He kissed me, pressing me tight, and bunches of new sensations flared and sparked in me with only the thin barrier left between my body and his. I started tugging at his tunic and he let me drag it up over his head, and I pulled the shirt beneath with it.
His chest were bare beneath it, and I felt like my body must be running on something other than air. I couldn’t catch my breath, couldn’t remember to try, and still I were moving, alive, more alive than ever before. I put my hands on his chest, knowing I weren’t the only one with scars.
“Turn around,” I told him.
He didn’t move, looking at me, nervous and mournful, and I took a breath, moving around him.
His back, once punctured and pierced with metal spikes, were a mess. Some were neat circles, but most were craggy dips and ragged tears of healing and infection and pain.
Tears sprang to my eyes, and I ran my hands over his shoulders. He turned, looking at me, shaking his head. “No, my love,” he whispered. A tear fell and he wiped it away, kissing my mouth.
He broke away, touching my cheek.
“I’ll never regret those scars,” he told me, pressing our foreheads together. “I’ll always remember that as the day I knew you loved me.”
He kissed me again, and I wrapped my arms around him.
He pulled the longer kirtle and the plain underdress up together, and my legs felt the rush of cold. I shivered, and he stopped. “Scar?” he asked, his chest heaving against mine. Waiting. He nudged my nose with his own.