The rain had started,making it difficult to hear if anyone was approaching. With no utensils or plates, I collected a few flat pieces of slate by the river and gave them a quick rinse. After cleaning the fish, something Eava had taught me to do once upon a time as punishment for stabbing Rían over the last biscuit, I settled them on another stone to cook.
The hinges groaned when the door opened. Keelynn stood in the entrance, arms laden with wood, hair and gown plastered to her thin frame. I hurried to collect the wood, adding it to the pile Rían had shifted and the few larger logs I’d gathered while waiting. “What took so long? I was afraid you’d gotten lost.”
“Don’t worry, the ring and I are here safe and sound.” Despite the chill in her tone, her husky voice left me feeling warm all over. Keelynn pulled something from her dress pocket with purple-stained fingers. “I brought you food.”
“You brought me food,” I repeated like a mindless fool.
Blackberries.
I loved blackberries.
“I’m hardly going to eat them all myself,” she said, gaze falling on the fire. “Although you obviously didn’t need my help.”
“I’d take a bushel of blackberries over a trout any day.” Sweetness burst on my tongue when I popped one into my mouth. She shivered, her lips tinged blue—from cold or berries, it was hard to tell. “Give them here and get out of those wet clothes before you freeze to death.”
I prepared our meager dinner while Keelynn withdrew the emerald dagger and placed it next to her boots. I couldn’t help looking over my shoulder to find her struggling with the buttons at the front of her dress. Was it any wonder she struggled? Her hands must be frozen solid. I stood and closed the distance between us. Somehow, even drowned, she smelled like a field of lavender.
“Allow me?” I expected a sharp retort. Instead, her hands fell to her sides. She let me unfasten each clasp and peel her out of her dress the way I’d fantasized so many times this past week.
An ivory stay cinched her waist, thrusting her breasts upward beneath her shift.
“Turn around.”
I shouldn’t have enjoyed unlacing the satin ribbons. Uncovering her shoulders, tasting her pale skin, yearning for more.
She’d lost so much. The last thing she needed was me taking advantage of her.
But if she offered . . .
Cursing myself for not asking Rían to shift something for her to wear, I collected my clean shirt so she’d have something warm and dry to sleep in. “Here. Put this on.”
Fighting the constant tug in my core, I turned from her wide eyes back to the fire. The fish looked cooked to me. I used my dagger to transfer it from the hot stones to the two cooler ones next to the portions of berries. Keelynn shuffled softly behind me, but I didn’t dare turn around for fear of my self-control vanishing.
“Are you finished?” I asked.
“Yes.”
Feck it all. She had legs for days beneath that shirt. And the black stockings she still wore highlighted the fact that the shirt only reached to her thighs, pale as moonlight.
There was only a slight tug from her, and yet my blood rushed south. It had been a long time since I’d been the one to feel more desire for a woman than the other way around.
I handed her one of the stones.
“Thank you. And not just for this.” She nodded toward the cottage walls. “For everything.”
“I know it’s not what you’re used to.” She would’ve been used to fine dinners and parties and silver platters. Not fish on rocks.
“It’s wonderful,” she insisted.
Right. Wonderful. I picked apart the meat, scalding my fingertips. How many feckin’ bones were in these things? Damn, I hated fish. The berries were excellent though.
“It is,” she insisted. “I didn’t think I would get any food tonight, so this is a feast.”
“A feast. Right.” In comparison to nothing, I supposed it was. If I weren’t cursed, I could’ve shifted an actual feast. I would’ve loved to see the look on her face when she walked into this tiny cottage and found a table laden with delicacies and desserts. I could almost see the smile. The same one she’d given me the other day in the stable.
“Really. I’ve always wanted to go camping. Aveen and I used to beg our mother and father to let us camp in the gardens. They never did. So we’d steal scraps from the kitchen and bring them to our bedroom and eat in a makeshift tent in front of the fire.”
How differently we’d grown up.