Page 128 of The Winner's Kiss
There was a long pause. “Are you certain you want—”
“Yes.”
“Because . . .”
“Arin.”
“Maybe you—”
“Arin.” She laughed, and then so did he, aware that they’d already found the bed. Words had fallen away. Maybe the words lay on the earth, nestled among clothes, curled into the undone dagger belt. Maybe later, language would be recovered and pieced together. Made to make sense. But not now. Now there was touch and taste and sound.
When he eased into her, she was glad for the burning lamp, the fuzzy glow of it on his skin. The way it showed the black fall of his wet hair, the flesh and scars that made him. She didn’t look away.
Later, when they were quiet, he looked down at her where she lay. Stretched out alongside her, Arin propped himself up on one elbow. “I think that I’m not awake.” His fingertips floated over her: nose, eyelashes, messy braid, shoulder. “Beautiful.”
She smiled. “Like you.”
Arin made a skeptical cough, scrunched his face. He found the end of her braid and paintbrushed it across her cheek.
“It’s true,” she told him. “You never believe me when I say it.”
The lamp’s wick fizzed and sparked in its oil. It would soon go out.
“I love your eyes,” she said. “I have from the first.”
“They’re common.”
“No, they’re not.” She traced his scarred face. “This.” He shivered. “I love this.” She bit him on the jaw. “And this.” She continued to touch him.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“This, too.” Not quite a question.
“That, too.”
She felt laughter travel through him, and something else, quieter and more intense. “Your mouth,” she said, “is not bad.”
“Not bad?”
“Quite tolerable.”
He cocked one brow. “I’ll show you.”
They stopped talking.
Chapter 35
In the morning, When Roshar saw their faces he rolled his eyes. “I want my tent back,” he said.
Kestrel laughed.
She loaded Javelin’s saddlebags, listening to the sounds of the army breaking camp: clatters and thumps, someone urinating against a tree, the jingle of horse tack, the sifting grate of dirt kicked over a fire. Javelin flicked his tail. Nearby, Arin was checking the hooves of his horse—a mare, one that took a moment for Kestrel to recognize. His previous horse had been left on the beach. This one’s master was prob ably dead.
Arin adjusted the saddle’s girth. As he ran his hands again over the horse, he said, “Why do you think we haven’t been attacked yet?”
She slowly buckled an open saddlebag.
