One Night in Hartswood by Emma Denny

Author:Emma Denny [Denny, Emma]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2022-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Sharp dawn sunlight was pouring in through the gaps in the barn door. Raff blinked, waking slowly. They would need to move on soon, especially considering how little progress they’d made in yesterday’s blizzard.

He turned on the straw, watching Penn sleep. The cracking yellow light spilled across his face, making him glow. His expression was soft and gentle, free from the troubles that burdened him while he was awake, his lips still darkly red from Raff’s desperate kisses. He shifted in his sleep, eyes squeezing, mouth parting in a breathy sigh.

Raff edged closer. He swallowed. He wondered how it would feel to wake Penn not with a sharp word or a shake of his slender shoulders, but with a kiss.

It would be too tender. Raff could only guess at what had spurred Penn to act last night, but he would be foolish to think it was anything more than lust: desire and desperation, a mutual yearning for a different destiny.

Before he could act – kiss or back away – the decision was made for him as Penn’s eyes slid open. He spotted Raff staring, and his face split into a warm, genuine smile.

Raff felt his stomach flip. Before the tingling feeling could take him over, he quickly sat up, sending straw flying.

‘We should move on,’ he said. ‘It is already growing late …’

Penn blinked at him. ‘Of course.’

Penn sat up as Raff rose to his feet, grabbing his undershirt where they had tossed it aside and pulling it over his head. He could feel Penn’s eyes on his back, watching him, before he too rose from the straw and began to gather his things.

They had finished what they’d started that night in Hartswood. That should have been enough. It should have satisfied the urge that had been swirling in Raff’s chest since then. But it hadn’t. Raff already knew how it felt to kiss Penn, but now he knew the rest as well. Knew the softness of the skin on the inside of his wrists, knew the feel of his hands, knew the noises he made when his pleasure peaked.

He wanted to hear them again.

‘Penn …’ Fully dressed, Raff reached down and grabbed his pack from the floor. ‘Last night …’

Penn turned. He too was ready to go, his pack on his shoulder, standing in the doorway of the barn. He was smiling, although the expression did not reach his eyes.

‘Are you about to tell me that what passed between us was a mistake?’ he said. ‘That however much pleasure we found in each other, we cannot do it again? That you regret behaving so recklessly?’

Raff knew he should. He knew that to give into this would make it easier to give into the rest; the feeling he’d tried to bury when he’d named the pain in his chest as jealousy.

‘You are too reckless,’ he said, fondly.

Penn looked away. ‘Before you found me in Hartswood I had accepted that my escape might mean my death. Now I realise that I may yet survive this.

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