Page 29 of Tusk Love

She giggled, wrinkling her nose at him. Her long hair was spread over the pillows in a moonlit cascade, and some odd compulsion made him tuck a few wayward strands behind the shell of her ear.

He finished washing and changing behind the privacy screen to find that she had dozed off, splayed out like a starfish, her mouth slightly open. Oskar bent down to carefully liberate one of the pillows. He was almost,almostsuccessful in this endeavor—but, at thelast possible second, Guinevere woke up. Those incredible eyes fluttered open and those slim hands were fisting in his shirtfront and she was tugging him down to her, upsetting his balance. He barely managed to avoid crushing her, catching his weight on his elbows, caging her in between the mattress and his body.

“I like kissing you, Oskar,” she confessed shyly, biting her lush bottom lip. “Shall we do it again?”

Would that it were that easy.

“We can’t,” he rasped. “You’re drunk.”

She pouted. “But do youwantto?”

The noble thing to do would be to tell her that it didn’t matter what he wanted. Even if she were sober, she was still promised to someone else. But Oskar wasn’t very noble, and he couldn’t bear to bring up Lord Wattledump or whatever the fuck his name was. Not when Guinevere was all giggly and tipsy in the lamplight, and looking only at him.

He pressed a kiss to her smooth brow. “Go to sleep, Gwen.”

“You’re a meanie,” she said without rancor, her eyes at half-mast.

“I really am,” he ruefully agreed. “You shouldn’t forget that.”

She drifted off without another word, her breathing evening out, and only then did he move, easing one pillow out from under her and reluctantly clambering off the bed to sleep on the floor.

Chapter Nineteen

Guinevere

This,Guinevere told Teinidh the next day,is all your fault.

A laugh like the sputtering of a dying fire was the elemental’s only response.

Guinevere was the sole diner in the lobby of the inn at this early hour, which meant that no one was around to witness her shame as she abandoned her manners to rest her elbows on the table while she spooned a bit of coddled egg into her mouth. Her head throbbed something fierce. It was a punishment.

Last night, Teinidh had spurred her into trying ale for the first time. Guinevere had regarded the frothy tankards being passed around with curiosity, and the wildfire spirit had leapt on that like a…well, like a moth to a flame.

It’s not ladylike to drink ale,Guinevere had protested.

Neither is it ladylike to rub yourself all over strange men in the swamp,Teinidh had retorted.

Oskar isnota stranger—

But he isn’t your betrothed, is he? Drink the ale, little girl. You want to, so just do it. I won’t shut up otherwise.

Guinevere was quickly coming to the conclusion that, more than being dangerous, Teinidh was downrightannoying.She regretted taking Elaras’s advice and opening the connection. She regretted it with every inch of her aching head and dry-as-sawdust mouth.

But she would doubtless be in direr straits were it not for the hot bath that she’d gratefully sunk into when she woke up. Oskar had apparently arranged it for her before he headed out to resume his woodchopping. And, in fact, once she’d broken her fast and helped herself to the mushroom coffee that was a Berleben specialty, Guinevere felt very nearly like her old self again.

Planning to keep Oskar company while he worked, she skipped out the back door of the Drowned Nest and into the murky sunshine. Almost immediately, however, she realized that she’d made a terrible mistake.

First of all, the moment she saw him, every utterly humiliating thing that she’d done the night before came crashing back to her with the intensity of a thousand flares from a thousand suns apiece.

Second of all, he was shirtless.

After all these days on the road with a rather inordinate amount of hugging on horseback, Guinevere was no stranger to the feel of Oskar’s body. She knew that he was rock solid and well formed underneath his simple tunics. But nothing could have prepared her for the actual sight.

For the sweat-damp waves of his midnight-black hair curling against his broad oakmoss shoulders, and the beads of moisture that trickled tantalizingly into the divot between his sharp collarbones. For the wide expanse of his chest, the sculpted plane of his abdomen…the spurs of his lean hips, peeking out from dark trousers that hung far too low to be decent. For thosearms,bare and gleaming in the daylight, the cords in them rippling with each swing of the axe.

Dear gods, his muscles had muscles. Guinevere felt faint.

Inside her, Teinidh cocked her head in interest. Licked her lips like a cat with a fiery tongue.

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