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Nessa shivers against the strong gust of wind that blows right through her thin layers of clothing. Behind her, Oliver tenses, his hands tightening around the reins to urge the horse into a quick canter. She clutches her hands to her arms and fights back another shiver, but he catches it, just like he catches everything else.
“You holding up okay?” he asks her, his voice nearly torn away by the wind.
His warmth is sweeping and solid against her back. She wishes she could wrap it around her and tuck into it like a child. Her throat is dry when she speaks. “I’m fine,” she tells him. “How much longer until we make it back?”
Thunder follows her words like a rolling shadow, the wind turning colder and fiercer. The horse beneath them picks up the pace unbidden. Oliver’s voice is grim when he replies.
“I don’t think we’ll make it to camp with the storm rolling in.”
She thought he might say that. “What are we going to do?’
“I saw a sign for an inn a few miles back. We should be there soon. Hold on.”
He barely gives her enough time to curl her hands over the horn of the saddle before he’s urging the horse into a gallop. They fly over the road, straining against the wind, trying to race the storm. Nessa grits her teeth as a cluster of lights on the road ahead blossom against the early night, but they are too slow. Fat rain drops begin to splatter against her face, and her neck, and her arms before they turn into a wet, pelting curtain. Thunder, once distant, now cracks overhead like an angry whip, rattling her bones.
Oliver curses under his breath and by the time they reach the building, they are both shivering, soaked through from head to toe. The wind screams, the rain thrashes, and Nessa presses herself back into Oliver’s chest, uselessly seeking shelter. He pulls the horse up close to the stable and slips off to open the door, his eyes closed into slits against the rain, jacket and shirt slick and wet against his skin.
She takes the reins up immediately, ducking her head to protect her face from the downpour, and urges the horse into the safety of the stable. It nickers nervously, but it’s warm and dry in here, and the security is enough to calm it even when another roar of thunder makes the ground beneath them shudder.
“Are you okay?” Oliver asks over the din of other nervous animals, and helps her direct the horse into an empty stall. The stables smell like fresh hay, the scent stronger now because of the humidity. It’s cloying, but at least it doesn’t stink.
“Just wet,” she says, but the words are choppy between her chattering teeth.
The gleam of his smile is visible in the near-darkness as he reaches up to help her down. She thinks he must be gleaning some sort of amusement from this, from her, utterly waterlogged, hair plastered to her face and neck. There is very little she finds funny about the way he looks, grinning, wet shirt leaving nothing to the imagination, his strong forearms glistening. Nessa crosses her arms over her chest and tries to suppress her shivers.
“There are worse things to be,” Oliver agrees, smile turning crooked, eyes crinkling with mirth.
She feels her face flush but she decides not to let him bait her, rubbing her hands against her arms. “I hope Reina is alright. She’s going to be so worried.”
“You should have considered that before you followed me,” he says.
She scowls, her blush deepening. “I was not following you. I should have been the one to go, with or without you.” They needed supplies for their trek across the waste coming up and it had seemed stupid for Oliver to go alone. Besides, she hates being coddled, like she isn’t capable of running errands or pulling her weight equally in the group. She goes to pass him, stomping her way out of the stall annoyed and embarrassed and tingly from his damp proximity, but he catches her hand before she can get too far.
“As a precaution,” he says softly, “let’s keep your identity a secret. It’s doubtful any of the patrols are this deep into the mountains, but we still need to be careful.” His smile has disappeared, but she can feel the weight of his eyes on her as potently as the steady touch around her fingers.
“I prefer it that way,” she tells him. She used to be afraid of the thought of the king’s guards finding her, but she doesn’t feel fear anymore. She’s stronger now, for one thing, but for another, she has Oliver. He’s clever and calm, and he makes her feel safe, even when she isn’t. It’s the sureness in him, she thinks. His carefulness is different than Reina’s. He doesn’t hide or fear or slip through shadows. She admires his boldness, and finds it refreshing more than she finds it reckless.
“Glad we’re on the same page,” he says. “Come on, then.”
He keeps hold of her hand as he guides her through a door on the far wall and into the front lobby of the inn. It’s a modest room; wooden slats make up the walls, a stone fireplace roaring with flames in the farthest corner, chasing away the chill brought in by the thunderstorm. The heat smothers Nessa, pressing against her wet skin, and she welcomes it. It reminds her so much of the humid summers in Niaren that she has to tamp down on the memory before it can make her feel homesick.
A tall, skinny woman in an apron checks them into the inn for the night, and then leads them up two flights of stairs to a small room at the end of the narrow hall. Nessa doesn’t have enough mental capacity to be stunned at the fact that there is only one bed; she is still trying to work through how Oliver had called her his wife.
“If you need anything, there will be someone in the kitchen all night. I’ll have our stable hand take care of your horse for you. Please make yourselves comfortable.” The woman says all this in monotone, like she couldn’t care less, but Nessa’s heart is pounding so hard she feels like the woman should care. She feels like everyone in the world should care a lot that she is about to spend the night alone with a man who isn’t actually her husband. Particularly, this man, who makes her react in unpredictable ways.
The woman in the apron leaves, shutting the door behind her without waiting for a response. The click of the door sounds as loud as thunder to Nessa and she can feel her heartbeat in her throat. Seemingly unbothered, Oliver sheds his wet jacket and hangs it up on the hook behind the door. Nessa looks away quickly before her eyes can snag on the width of his shoulders, her face hot, her body frozen in place.
“Don’t worry,” Oliver says, slipping out of his boots. “You can have the bed. I’ll sleep on the floor.”
She nods, unable to find her voice. It makes her feel childish. She’s spent so much time with Oliver. She’s even slept near him before, but…they’d never been alone. Not this entirely alone. She couldn’t have guessed how nervous this would make her, how frantically her heart would beat. Her hands curl into her dripping skirt as she does her best to get a damn grip.
“Hey.” His voice is softer, coaxing her to look at him. She does. “Are you sure you’re okay? You look pale.”
She stares at him, slanting her eyebrows so that he can’t guess the real direction of her thoughts. Now that she’s looking, she doesn’t want to stop. “I’m okay.”
He doesn’t look convinced. “You should take a bath. I’ll try and get a fire going here so we can dry our clothes.”
“Right. Yes. I can….do that.” She bites her lip against her embarrassment again, silently willing herself to keep the blush from her face, and finally finds the strength to move. It’s a relief to scuttle out of his sight behind a changing screen. The tub is large and she’s happy to see that it has a faucet, which means they won’t have to heat the water themselves. Before she can overthink, she undresses quickly and throws her garments over the top of the screen so Oliver can reach them easily.
She debates leaving her shift on, but it’s the only thing she’s got to comfortably sleep in, so she slowly--reluctantly--peels it off and places it next to her bodice and her skirt. Nessa has to concentrate very, very hard to not think about the fact she’s naked in the same room as Oliver. He’s only steps away. She can hear him shuffling about, building the fire.
She wonders what he’s thinking about. Is he considering her naked? Is he trying not to? Her breaths clutter in her throat, heart throbbing as she stands there at the lip of the tub watching the steaming water pour into the basin.
He’s quiet. He doesn’t say a single thing as she turns off the faucet and slips into the tub, the water making little splashing sounds as it moves around her. She bites her lip as she leans back against the edge, a small sigh escaping her at the delicious warmth. Her eyes flutter closed and she tips her head back. Only then, does he speak.
“I’m sorry I didn’t get you a separate room,” he says. He sounds strange. She can’t identify it but her belly clenches hotly at the tone.
“You were right to,” she says, reaching for a bar of soap on a shelf next to the tub. Nessa is proud that her voice sounds strong and unaffected. “I wouldn’t get any sleep if I was alone.”
“I thought it would be safer to stay together.”
“Yes, I think so, too.”
“Okay.”
She licks her lips, stifling a laugh at his stilted words. “Glad that’s settled.”
He chuckles unexpectedly and the sound warms her like tea as she lathers up the soap and starts to scrub at her skin. “Me, too. Still, I’m…I’m sorry for putting you in this situation.”
Of course he noticed her nervousness. She’d like to get one thing by him someday, just one. “I’ve never heard you apologize for so much before,” she says, keeping her tone light.
“I’ve never had so much to apologize for. This is no way for a person to treat a princess, you know.”
She smiles at the smile in his voice, setting the soap aside. “Well, I’m not a princess tonight.”
He laughs again. “What do you mean?”
The changing screen between them makes her feel bold. “Did you already forget that you named me your wife?” she asks, sinking into the water and staring at her knees as they breach the surface. Her stomach flutters wildly like a million little butterflies when footsteps approach her. She watches as he pulls her clothing articles off the top of the screen, one by one.
“It’s just another precaution,” he promises. “If that’s what’s making you nervous, don’t think of it again.”
She doesn’t respond to that. How can he expect her not to think about it, in this room with one bed? How can he expect her not to think of it while she sits here just inches away, completely naked? Does he not realize how much she wants him? Does he not realize the scope of her trust, or her desire? She’s been trying to get him to look at her--really look at her--for weeks now, without success. He’s so focused on getting them out of the country that he often talks strategy with Reina more than he talks to her.
Sometimes, she thinks she must have lost some of her appeal since she left the palace. Her dresses are plain. Her hair is short, cut unevenly on one side. She doesn’t have the advantage of makeup anymore, or her favorite jewels. In fact, she’s usually covered in dust from the road, with dirt smudged on her face and caked beneath her nails. There’s nothing pretty or elegant about that. Even though that’s the simple truth of it all, she can’t help but want him to find her pretty.
He is interpreting her nerves all wrong. What a stupid man.
Nessa washes her hair, and neither one of them speaks again. She stays in the bath until the water turns cold and then wraps herself up in one of the large towels folded neatly on the shelves. Oliver doesn’t look at her when she shyly makes her appearance, which makes it easier when she struggles with looking away from him, who is shirtless, sitting on a bench at the foot of the bed.
“Our clothes are still drying,” he tells her.
“You ought to take a bath, too,” she says.
He nods and stands up. He doesn’t look at her at all, not once, not even from the side, as he passes her. She isn’t sure if that’s him being considerate or if he just doesn’t care that she’s standing near him in just a towel. It bothers her. She wishes he would look. She wishes that he wanted to.
Nessa bundles herself up in one of the extra blankets and places Oliver’s pants by the fire once he’s tossed them over the changing screen. She sits on the floor with her back to the bench, leaning against a cushion to get comfortable as she warms her feet by the fire. Her skin dries quickly, her hair beginning to coil in fluffy waves around her face. Her gaze stays fixed on the flames, dancing and crackling, the embers glowing like jewels in the ash.
After a while--once the silence has stretched long and thin--she says, “We can share the bed. I don’t mind.”
“No, that’s okay,” he says after a bloated moment.
She flushes with humiliation, feeling utterly rejected. Her voice becomes sharp. “You aren’t sleeping on the floor, Oliver. We both need a good night’s sleep after today. You will share the bed with me, or I will sleep on the floor, too. Do you understand?”
He begins to laugh. “Yes, Your Highness. I understand perfectly.”
“Very well,” she says, satisfied. Silence settles over them again and Nessa grows warmer and warmer by the fire as the dampness dries away. She finds herself leaning back against the bench, and then her eyes close, and the next thing she knows, Oliver is leaning over her, dressed in his cotton pants, hair nearly dry.
“Princess,” he says softly, “your clothes are dry now.”
She blinks sleepily at him. “Hmm?” she mumbles, distracted again by how much of his lovely brown skin she can see. She doesn’t feel particularly inclined to move. It’s warm and comfortable here, in this towel inside of a blanket, near the fireplace. Her eyes nearly drift shut again.
“If you don’t sleep in the bed, I’m not sleeping in the bed either,” Oliver says, almost teasing.
She groans, loudly, so that he will know her discontent, and he laughs quietly to himself as he sets her clothing beside her head.
“The choice is yours,” he says. That lightness in his voice, that amusement…she loves that sound. She no longer finds him infuriating when he teases her--she likes it. She likes his attention so much, she doesn’t care what kind of attention it is.
But she puts on a good show. She groans again and slowly opens her eyes. “Fine.”
She is graced with the flash of his grin as he backs away from her. Nessa sighs and reluctantly stands up, clutching the blanket around her shoulders. “Turn around, then.”
He does as she asks immediately. She turns away and scrambles into her white shift, crisp and warm from the fire. Thunder shakes the room and the sound of rain picks up again against the window pane. She starts to wonder if the storm will even let up enough for them to leave this place tomorrow and draws the blanket back around her like a cape. By the time she has turned back around, Oliver has put on his linen colored shirt and rolled the sleeves back up to his elbows. Her nerves are quieter than before, seeing him dressed down as she is, feet bare and hair a mess. They are on equal ground here.
“I’m dressed,” she says.
“Me, too,” he says.
“I know.”
He looks over his shoulder to find her grinning at him and he laughs that quiet laugh he has, her heart swelling.
He lets her crawl into bed first, probably to give her the freedom to decide how much space she wants before he slides in next to her. Nessa’s blood pounds through her veins and she feels every shift of the mattress in the pit of her belly. It suddenly occurs to her that sleep will be impossible this close to him. His arm accidentally brushes against hers as he is getting comfortable and she bites her lip to stifle a noise but she’s not quite fast enough to make it totally soundless.
“Sorry,” he murmurs.
“It’s okay,” she replies in a small voice, staring at the ceiling. It most definitely is not okay. She can scarcely breathe. She wants him to touch her again.
“Goodnight, Princess,” he says. The bed shifts and the covers pull and when she dares a glance in his direction, she only finds the expanse of his shoulders. Her heart sinks and she feels so damned foolish, sick with her own yearning.
It would be a relief, to not want him. Perhaps it would even make it easier if she knew for a fact that he didn’t like her. That he couldn’t like her, couldn’t want her, couldn’t even think of her. Then she could stop wishing and hoping and waiting. She knows that there had been a possibility once that he had liked her just a little bit. Before everything happened. Before the world turned upside down.
But those things had happened, and here he found himself, saddled with her mission and her issues and her priorities. Just how much safer would he be without her? How much freedom would he have? She suddenly hates herself for asking this of him, for being weak enough to beg for his help. Her hands grip the edges of her blanket in harsh little fists as she fights a wave of emotion that threatens to bring tears to her eyes.
She wishes that for once in her life, she could bring something good to someone. She inhales slowly, exhales even slower, trying to get herself under control. The next several moments are spent like this, each breath calculated carefully.
“I’m sorry, Oliver,” she says softly, once she’s sure the tears won’t come.
He sounds confused. “For what?” he asks almost immediately, turning enough to look over his shoulder at her. She clutches tighter to her blanket and draws it up to her chin, her eyebrows dipping over her eyes into sharp slants.
“For dragging you into my messes. For slowing you down.” She crinkles her nose. “You’d have been back to camp if I hadn’t followed.”
He studies her for a long moment, as if trying to pick apart the reason behind her sudden apology. “That’s true,” he says finally.
She sighs again and tosses her gaze to the ceiling. He agrees with her. It doesn’t hurt like she thought it might.
He rolls onto his back, face turned fully towards her. “You’ve been acting weird all night.”
She huffs. “You’ve been acting weird, too.” She peeks at him from the corner of her eye. “Do I make you that uncomfortable?”
His confusion deepens immeasurably, looking completely gobsmacked. “How in the hell did I give you that impression?”
A blush blooms red and quick on her cheeks, making her hot from her hairline to her neck. She frowns at him. “You haven’t looked at me once since we got in this room.”
He smiles an incredulous half-smile. “You’ve been naked .”
Her heart suddenly leaps to blaring life in her chest, her body buzzing, her blood on fire. “It’s--It’s not like I’ve been sitting around without anything to cover me!” she nearly yells, propping herself up on her elbows, her hair a wild cloud around her face. “And! I’ve managed to look at you just fine while you prance around without a shirt on!”
He breaks out into laughter, real, uncontainable laughter. Nessa is mortified by his reaction--if any more blood rushes to her head, she might pass out. She stares at him, red-faced and scowling, as he continues to laugh, hair mussed against the pillow, eyes crinkled crescents, one hand clutching at his belly like it could help him suck in a breath.
“It’s not funny!” she insists, sitting up and drawing her knees underneath her. “Shut up!”
“Sorry, sorry,” he says as his laughter quiets into a chuckle. “I wasn’t aware of my prancing , Highness. Forgive me, truly. I did not mean to be so--!”
She grabs the pillow she was laying on and smacks it against his face as he dissolves into yet more laughter. “I hate you,” she swears vehemently. “You are--! You are just the worst!” She sits up and smacks him with the pillow again. “I hate you!”
He grabs her pillow when she brings it down on him a third time and snags it out of her grip, lifting it off his face to reveal a wide, glittering smile, laughter still clinging to the corners of his mouth. Her scowl deepens, her face a bright, cherry red. Still, this is better than before. This is better than his back to her, and the ache of wanting his attention.
“You don’t hate me,” he says with an ungodly amount of confidence.
“That’s your problem right there,” she tells him. “As if anyone could hate you, right? You’re too charming and funny and easy-going, right? Well, buddy, I got some news for you--”
“You like me.”
She stares down at him, eyes narrowed, glowering.
All traces of laughter have left him now. His gaze is sure, his words as confident as before. He keeps his eyes on her as he reaches out slowly with his hand to touch the exposed skin of her thigh. Everything inside her quivers at the contact but she doesn’t move away.
“You like me,” he says again.
“I heard you the first time.”
He smiles crookedly for a moment. “Is there anything else you’ve been thinking in that silly head of yours?” he asks her.
“Maybe.” She looks down at where his hand rests against her leg, feeling her embarrassment ebb. “But you’ll just laugh at me again.”
“I promise not to laugh,” he swears, placing his free hand over his heart dramatically. He swipes his thumb reassuringly against her thigh, and she feels the press of it deep in her belly.
She frowns, biting at her lip. “I haven’t been the same since I left the palace,” she says, her voice hard and worn with those memories. “I’m dependent. I’m a liability. I endanger everyone just by being around them. You…I can’t figure out why you decided to stay with me.”
His expression turns very serious as he props himself up on his elbows to be closer to her. “Why do you think I stayed?”
She shrugs and picks at a thread on the hem of her shift, hiked up over her thighs. “I know Reina stayed because she feels a sense of responsibility for me. I know Adam stayed because Will trusted me with his life.” And look where that got him, she thinks bitterly. “But you? There’s no reason for you to still….for you to be here.”
Oliver furrows his eyebrows and simply says, “I stayed for you, Nessa.”
She glances up at him.
He meets her gaze head on. “You’ve been through so much,” he says. There is no humor in his voice now. It’s sandpaper, rough, the light lilt of his accent coming through. “I wanted to be there for you. It doesn’t matter how dangerous it is. It doesn’t matter that you are dependent or a liability. I don’t care about any of that.”
She can nearly taste her own heart in her mouth, shivering at the conviction in his words. She drops her gaze to her knees again. “It sounds impossible,” she whispers. She wants so badly for it to be true. The idea that he could stay because he wants to.
“Try to believe me,” he says, a little more gently now.
She takes a gathering breath and looks back up at him. His hair falls over one side of his forehead, unruly, and his midnight eyes are intent on her like he can convey the truth of his words through one look alone. Nessa reaches out to touch the scar through his eyebrow, and then trails her fingertips along the side of his face, so very dear to her. Her gaze follows the path of her fingers as she takes him in, committing him to memory. He remains motionless, nothing but the movement of his breaths in his chest, the flicker of his gaze over her face.
“You like me, too,” she says softly, tasting the words slowly in her mouth, finger resting at his chin.
He looks like he wants to say something, but can’t. It doesn’t bother her because she knows he never says anything he doesn’t mean. He continues searching her expression, picking it apart.
She licks her lips. “You like me a lot.”
“Princess.”
“Nessa,” she corrects him.
For the first time, he glances away from her, looking a little flustered himself, eyebrows furrowed. “I shouldn’t call you that.”
“You already did.”
“A slip of the tongue.”
She brushes her thumb against his chin and scoots closer to him on her knees. He sighs as she runs two fingers along his jaw on the other side of his face, turning his gaze back to hers. Beneath some surface resignation, he looks barely restrained, making a delicious thrill climb slowly up her spine. It feels good to know that the thing they’d kindled in the palace still exists in some capacity. They both want something they can’t have, and it burns between them now, brighter than ever.
She couldn’t have guessed this morning when she woke that she would be sharing a bed with Oliver, with nothing but the thin material of her shift covering her. He keeps looking at her like she is the question and the answer and it doesn’t matter that she doesn’t have pretty dresses or makeup or jewelry anymore. He likes her anyways. He wants her, just like this.
“You’ve got to stop looking at me like that,” he murmurs.
“I’m looking at you the way I always have,” she says quietly.
“Yeah, I know.” His eyebrows stay furrowed, and he looks so handsome like that. She’d tell him if she didn’t think he’d use it to tease her later.
Her thumb brushes his chin again, her heart trembling. “Will you say my name again? Just one more time.”
He studies her for a moment longer; the electricity crackling through her does not wane or disappear. She knows things will be different again tomorrow, when they make it back to camp. They won’t be alone anymore, they won’t have the chance to be this close again for a long time. Indulging as much as she can now, she swipes her thumb slowly back up the sharp edge of his jaw, fingers sinking into his hair.
His gaze doesn’t waver; he looks even more intent than before, her stomach clenching in anticipation.
“You’re going to be the death of me,” he says, voice low, rougher than before.
“You could tell me to stop,” she points out softly, biting her lip again.
“I don’t want to.”
The sound of his voice makes her flush. “Then I won’t.”
He sighs, and a thin smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. Her fingers slip from his hair as he lays back down on his side, patting the space beside him in invitation. “Let’s try to get some sleep, Nessa.”
She offers him a half-smile of her own and follows his lead, slotting herself next to him, resting her head on the edge of his pillow. “Okay,” she agrees, warm from the sound of her name in his mouth. She pulls the blankets up to her chin as he settles in. “Um…thank you, by the way.”
He blinks slow at her, the warmth of the fire casting shadows on the walls, the rain still pattering the window over and over again. “For what?”
“You just…make everything better,” she says in a near whisper, closing her eyes. “I’m really glad you’re here.”