Elain rose and tugged Gwen to standing.
“Where are we going?”
But Elain only gripped her hand and pulled her from the hall. In no time they had crossed the walkway to the brothel and were making their way through the corridors and along the rat passage to the far corner. When they reached their ladder, Elain gestured for her to climb up first. She seemed incapable of speech, so Gwen hurried up the rungs.
When Elain stepped onto the loft boards, she took hold of Gwen’s head in shaking hands.
Gwen wrapped her fingers around the woman’s wrists, tense with corded muscle. “What is it?”
“He could have taken you, and I wasn’t there. I promised to be there.”
“I’m fine. Everything’s fi—”
Elain kissed her, a fierce thing that took Gwen by surprise, but only for a moment and then she was kissing her back.
Elain broke away. “Strip.”
The starkness of the word sent a swift shiver up Gwen’s spine.
It took a few attempts to work out the knots, the same ones she’d tied and untied her entire life, but her fingers weren’t altogether cooperating. Finally, she was able to step out of her skirts and hang them on the nail she’d claimed on her side of the small mattress. Slipping her tunic over her head, she sighed in relief. Their loft was warm to begin with—a condition she should be grateful for, as winter would soon settle in—but she felt feverish just now. Her plait fell heavy over her shoulder as she pulled off her shoes.
Then Elain was there. She hadn’t made a sound, but the warmth at Gwen’s back was unmistakable, and the soft lips brushing the side of her neck.
She closed her eyes to feel it better, that gentler kiss. As much as she’d wanted this, she still felt a strange fear that it had begun. Despite the things she’d seen and heard this day, she didn’t have the first notion where to begin, how to do this correctly. When she thought about trying to imitate the sounds and movements of the whores below, a small scornful voice in her mind laughed. She was barely a woman and, despite her own proddings on her wedding night, still a virgin, so what did she know of anything? She should leave women’s pleasures to women.
But because the voice sounded like her father’s woman, Eira, Gwen steeled herself and turned to face Elain.
The lamplight did nothing to dim Elain’s eyes. If anything, they seemed to shine brighter, like two blue flames. She wore her shift, as Gwen did, except not at all as Gwen did. Her shoulders were more square, with small knobs on top. Gwen set her fingertips on them, pressing into the bone. She followed the strength there, along the collarbones, gathering her courage, before letting her touch slip off the edges and down onto Elain’s chest.
Elain caught her wrists in twin grips that were too tight but only for a few seconds. They eased as she lifted Gwen’s hands above her head. “Hold on to the beam.”
Surprised, she found a place to hook her fingers. Its rough-hewn edge felt nothing like the smooth grace of Elain’s collarbone.
“Don’t let go.”
“Why not?”
“Because I asked you to.”
“You told me, you mean.”
Elain’s eyes narrowed slightly, but not quite into humor, and Gwen’s belly fluttered with that.
She sighed some of the tension away as Elain drew her hands down her arms. They came to rest on her ribs, warm and still, and then Elain’s gaze slid to her breasts.
They felt heavy, as they always did after she unlaced her tunic for the night. Now, though, her skin felt tight and overheated, the wool of her shift scratching her in a thousand tiny places. She twisted, trying to ease the sensation, but it persisted.
Her twisting affected Elain, loosening her jaw until her mouth fell open slightly. The tip of her tongue darted out to wet her lower lip.
Gwen pressed her knees together. “Let me—”
“Hold the beam.”
She caught her breath at the command, more forceful than before.
Elain’s eyes flicked up to meet hers. “Please,” she added.
