“Okay,” I agreed readily and listened to his chuckle as it rumbled against my skin.
Oh yeah.
I was home.
* * * * *
I watched Lahn walk back into our room after putting down Tunahn who I just fed.
Night had fallen but candlelight lit the room softly. If I was lucky and fell asleep quickly, I could maybe get four hours in.
Lahn got under the covers, stretched out beside me, shoved an arm under me and curled me to his long, warm, hard side.
Okay, f**k that. No way I was sleeping.
I lifted up on an elbow, rested my hand on his chest and looked into his dark, beloved eyes.
“Do you make trainee warriors buff your saddle?” I asked and he blinked.
“What?”
“Trainee warriors. Do you make them buff your saddle?”
His mouth twitched. “Warriors in training learn and do many things, kah Lahnahsahna. Buffing saddles is not one of them.”
My eyes drifted to his shoulder and I muttered, “Oh.”
“Something they do learn,” he went on and my eyes moved back to his, “is not to waste time performing deeds that are not worth performing. Like buffing saddles.”
I started giggling. Lahn’s arm gave me a squeeze as his lips tipped up into a smile.
I rested my chest into his, my arm curving around him, my face getting closer.
“Did you really lose your virginity when you were twelve?” I whispered and his eyes immediately shuttered so I shook his body with my arm. “Lahn.”
“Meena,” he said shortly.
“No joke?” I asked, eyes wide with surprise, he studied me then he shook his head.
“No joke.”
“Wow,” I breathed. “That’s kinda young isn’t it?”
He kept studying me. Then he stated, “A warrior’s trainer will decide when a warrior is ready to advance through all facets of his training. My trainer decided I was ready to take a woman at twelve. So I took a Xacto at twelve.”
I felt his gaze sharpen on my face when he said the word “Xacto” so I told him quickly, “Baby, I know you’re not going to step out on me. If a guy like you who needs it as often as you do and the way you do can hang on for eight months for me, I have no worries about you going to the Xacto.”
“No, my Circe, you have no worries about me going to the Xacto,” he said quietly.
I smiled at him.
Lahn smiled back.
Then he asked, “What is a… dork?”
I giggled again. Then I explained, “A kind of, I don’t know, it’s hard to explain. A person that does stupid shit, kinda klutzy, kinda bonkers, kinda foolish, not enough of any of those to be really stupid or harm anyone, just, I don’t know, a dork or…” I tipped my head to the side and grinned, “Me.”
Lahn wasn’t grinning. “My golden queen is not a dork,” he declared.