Page 9 of The Naiad's Wish

I wasn’t good at it.

I wasn’t used to not being good at things.

But I had missed him fiercely and despite just having spilled over him, I needed to have him again.

I needed to be inside him. I needed his naked body against mine, to share heat and heartbeats. I needed to move in him and have him move with me, our limbs entwining and bodies sliding. I needed…

“Sayan,” Erik said with a little nudge.

I released him abruptly and strode over to the hearth. Going to my knees, I thrust both hands into the log basket and scooped out some seasoned logs. Once I’d tossed them into the grate, I stretched up to grab the tinderbox from where it sat on the mantel and opened it carefully, as Erik had shown me. I struck the flint over and over, even managed to get some sparks, but the tinder wouldn’t catch.

I struck it again and again, tamping down my frustration. It was the fire I was supposed to light, I reminded myself. Not my temper.

I snarled with irritation when the tinder failed to catch once more, then stilled when Erik’s hand slid beneath my hair and rested on the back of my neck. My head drooped and I sighed, the tension in my muscles releasing in a delicious wave.

“Let me do it,” he said.

“I can do it,” I told him, stiffening back up. “I want to.”

I wasn’t achild. It had been an aeon since I had new skills to master, new ways to be, but I wanted to learn.

“All right.” Erik knelt beside me. “Shall I tell you what you’re doing wrong?”

“Yes, or we’ll be here until wint—” I broke off and stared at him.

He was naked.

Erik closed my open mouth with a forefinger. “I did say I was freshening up.”

“I thought…” I ran my hungry gaze all over him. “Clothes…” I skimmed the backs of my fingers down his side, watching his skin pebble with those little bumps that said he was cold.

I didn’t get them myself, and they fascinated me almost as much as the hair that grew on his chest, down to his groin, and dusted his arms and legs. I rubbed the pads of my fingers over the tiny bumps wonderingly.

Goosebumps, he called them.

They had nothing to do with geese.

Erik caught my wrist, his stomach hollowing on a sharp inhale.

My gaze flicked up to meet his and we stared at each other.

“You light it.” I thrust the tinderbox at him.

He struck it successfully the first time and lit a small taper before looking at the logs in the grate and sighing.

“Hold this.” He passed me the taper.

I watched the flame dance down the length of it, getting closer and closer to my fingers, as Erik swiftly rearranged the jumble of logs. He took the taper back and lit the fire.

I shifted impatiently on my knees as he waited for the fire to catch, adjusted a couple of logs, then turned to me with a smile.

It was the signal I had been waiting for.

5

Ipushed him back and crawled over him, lowering my body to his until he was pinned beneath my dense weight. Humming with soul-deep satisfaction at the feel of him under me, I lowered my head to take his mouth in a long, soft kiss.

The earlier urgency to take him and re-stake my claim still beat through my blood but it had eased to a deep, steady throb rather than the jagged and desperate scatter of beats it had been before.

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