A

faint dusting of dark hair across his chest narrowed and thickened, going down in a vee below his belly. Her fingers twined in it, brushing with and against the grain. So, with his odd Lakewalker senses, what more of her did he touch?

She swallowed, and dared to say, “You said you could tell.”

“Hm?” His hand spiraled around her breast, and how could such a soft caress make it suddenly ache so sweetly?

“The time of the month a woman can get a child, you said you could tell.” Or wait, no, was that only Lakewalker ladies? “A beautiful pattern in her ground, you said.” Yes, and she’d believed Sunny, hadn’t she, on a piece of bed lore that, if not a mean lie, had turned out to be a costly untruth, and Sunny’s tale had seemed a lot less unlikely than this. A shiver of unease, Am I being stupid again… ? was interrupted when Dag propped himself up on his left elbow and looked at her with a serious smile.

His hand traced her belly, crossing the malice marks there that had turned to thin black scabs. “You’re not at risk tonight, Spark. But I should be right terrified to try to make love to you that way so soon after your injuries.

You’re so dainty, and I’m, um, well, there are other things I’d very much like to show you.”

She risked a peek down, but her eye caught on the parallel black lines beneath his beautiful hand, and a flash of sorrow and guilt shook her. Would she ever be able to lie down with anyone without these cascades of unwelcome memory washing through her? And then she wondered if Dag—with, it seemed, so many more accumulated memories—had a similar problem.

“Sh,” he soothed, and his thumb crossed her lips, though she had not spoken.

“Reach for lightness, bright Spark. You do not betray your sorrow to set it aside for an hour. It’ll be waiting patiently for you to pick it up again on the other side.”

“How long?”

“Time wears grief smooth like a river stone. The weight will always be there, but it’ll stop scraping you raw at the slightest touch. But you have to let the time flow by; you can’t rush it. We wear our hair knotted for a year for our losses, and it is not too long a while.”

She reached up and ran her hand through his dark tousle, petting and winding it through her fingers. Gratified fingers. She gave a lock a little tug. “So what was this supposed to mean?”

“Shaved for head lice?” he offered, breaking the bleakness as she giggled, no doubt his intent.

“Go on, you did not either have head lice!”

“Not lately. They’re another story, but I have better things to do with my lips right now…” He began kissing his way down her body, and she wondered what magic was in his tongue, not just for his kisses and how they seemed to lay trails of cool fire across her skin, but for how, with his words, he seemed to lift stones from her heart.

Her breath caught as his tongue reached the tip of her breast and did exhilarating things there. Sunny had merely pinched her through her dress, and, and blight Sunny for haunting her head like this, now. Dag’s hand drifted up, his thumb caressing her forehead, then he sat up.

“Roll over,” he murmured. “Let give you a back rub. Think I can bring your body and ground into better tune.”

“Do you—if you want—”

“I won’t say, trust me. I will say, try me,” he whispered into her curls.

“Try me.”

For a one-handed man, he did this awfully well, she thought muzzily a few minutes later, her face pressed into the pillow. Memory seemed to melt out of her brain altogether. The bed creaked as he moved off it briefly, and she opened one eye, don’t let him get away, but he returned in a moment. A slight gurgle, a cool splash pooling on the inward curve of her back, the scent of chamomile and clover…

“Oh, you got some of that nice oil.” She thought a moment. “When?”

“Seven days ago.”

She muffled a snicker.

“Hey, a patroller should be prepared for any emergency.”

“Is this an emergency?”

“Just give me a bit more time, Spark, and we’ll see… Besides, it’s good for my hand, which tends to get rough. You don’t want hangnails catching in tender places, trust me on that.”

The oil did change the texture of his touch as he worked his way smoothly down to her toes, turned her over, and started back up.

Hand. Soon supplemented with tongue, in very tender and surprising places indeed. His touch was like silk, there, there, there? ah! She jerked in surprise, but eased back. So, this was making love. It was all very nice, but it seemed a bit one-sided.

“Shouldn’t it be your turn?” she asked anxiously.

“Not yet,” he said, rather muffled. “ ‘M pretty happy where I am. And your ground is flowing almost right, now. Let me, let me just…”

Minutes flew. Something was swirling through her, like some astonishingly sweet emergency. His touch grew firmer, swifter, surer. Her eyes closed, her breath came faster, and her spine began to arch. Then her breath caught, and she went rigid, silent, openmouthed, as the sensation burst from her, climbing up to white out her brain, to rush like a tide to her fingers and toes, and ebb.

Her back eased, and she lay shaking and amazed. “Oh.” When she could, she raised her head and stared down over her body, strange new landscape that it had become. Dag was up on one elbow, watching her in return, eyes black and bright, with a grin on his face bordering on smug.

“Better?” he inquired, as if he didn’t know.

“Was that some… some Lakewalker magic?” No wonder folks tried to follow these people to the ends of the world.

“Nope. That was Little Spark magic. All your own.”

A hundred mysteries seemed to fly up and away like a flock of startled birds into the night. “No wonder people want to do this. It all makes much more sense now…”

“Indeed.” He crawled up the bed to kiss her again. The taste of herself on his lips, mixed with the scent of chamomile and clover, was a little disturbing, but she valiantly kissed him back. Then brushed her lips across his enthralling cheekbones, his eyelids, definite chin, and back to his mouth, as she giggled helplessly. She could feel an answering rumble from deep in his chest as she lay across him.

She had brushed against him, but she had not yet touched him. It was surely his turn now. Hands should work two ways. She sat up, blinking against dizziness.

He stretched out straight and smiled up, his crinkling eyes now resting inquiringly on her, downright inviting, in an unhurried sort of way. He lay open to her, to her gaze, in a way that astonished her anew. All but his mysterious ground, of course. That was beginning to seem an unfair advantage. Where to begin, how to begin? She recalled how he had started.

“May I… touch you too?”

“Please,” he breathed.

It might be mere mimicry, but it was a start, and once started, acquired its own momentum. She kissed her way down and up his body, and arrived back at the middle.

Her first tentative touch made him jerk and catch his breath, and she shied back.

“No, it’s all right, go on,” he huffed. “I’m a little, um, sensitized just at the moment. It’s good. Almost anything you can do is good.”

“Sensitized. Is that what you call it?” Her lips curled up.

“I’m trying to be polite, Spark.”

She tried various touches, strokes, and grips, wondering if she was doing this right. Her hands felt clumsy and rather too small. The occasional catches of his breath were not very informative, she thought, though once in a while his hand covered hers to squeeze some silent suggestion. Was that gasp pleasure or pain?

His apparent endurance for pain was a bit frightening, when she thought about it. “Can I try your oil on my hands?”

“Certainly! Although… this may be over rather quickly if you do.”

She hesitated. “Couldn’t we… do it again? Sometime?”

“Oh yes. I’m very renewable. Just not very fast. Not”—he sighed—“as quick as when I was younger, anyway. Though that’s mostly been to my advantage, tonight.”