EPILOGUE
When Terryl offered to take the children for breakfast and handle the morning cleanup efforts, Yerina almost swooned. Fortunately, Dexter stepped in before she could protest her friend’s generosity.
“Appreciated,” Dexter said, nudging Yerina’s arm. “We’ll make it up to you.”
Terryl winked at them before she made a shooing motion, and they returned to the loft.
“The whole morning,” Yerina said, looking around at the empty loft. No children to wrangle, no teashop to run. Such freedom was a foreign concept. “What are we to do—”
Dexter came up behind her, arms wrapping around her waist. His head dropped to her neck, nuzzling as he inhaled. His lips feathered across her skin.
The ticklish sensation made her laugh. “Oh, I see. You don’t want breakfast of our own first? Or—”
“I just want you. Now, unless…?”
Yerina reached up, her fingers finding his face, his hair, twining around the strands. She let her hand curl into a loose fist, giving his hair a tug. “Yes.”
Something in him let go. Snapped. Allowed lust and delight to animate the quiet man Dexter presented to the world.
She kissed him back, her enthusiasm matching his own.
His tongue swept into her mouth, swallowing down the muffled squeak Yerina made when he backed them toward the bed.
His hands roamed over her body, pulled at her clothes.
When Yerina hesitantly plucked at his own shirt it was all the excuse he needed to drag himself from her mouth long enough to pull it over his head and toss it aside.
Yerina marveled at Dexter’s body. A big man, broad in the chest. She’d seen the way his shoulders filled out his shirt, snatched glimpses of muscle here and there in the natural course of his work.
But she’d never been able to simply look, not stolen glances but to purely take in the sight of him.
Not since their brief romance so many years ago.
A few freckles dotted his skin, and more hair was sprinkled across his chest than she remembered, too, along with a new scar she didn’t remember below his collarbone.
He twitched when she reached out to trace the flattened line of scar tissue, not yet silvered out with age.
When her fingers hesitated, he covered her hand, pressing it flat against his skin.
“Accident helping out at the greenhouse. Happens,” he murmured.
“Does it hurt?”
He shook his head. “I-I like how it feels when you touch me.”
Yerina let her fingers knead at his skin. “Do you?” she teased.
Dexter stepped closer, pulling her into him. Let her feel the way his cock was straining against his laces.
She gasped, the sound short, quiet, followed by a giggle. He nuzzled her neck, mouthed at the column of her throat. Rumbled happily when her hands trailed across his back, the gorgeous, broad expanse of it.
He followed suit, his fingers rucking up the hem of her nightdress as he continued to kiss her neck. Slid along her skin, hands gently grabbing and releasing as if he couldn’t get enough of the feel of her.
“De-Dexter.” Yerina gasped again, breath catching as his thumbs dragged roughly across her nipples.
“Hmm?” The kiss he planted against her neck turned more into a sucking motion as he rolled the rapidly firming points between his fingers. His lips released with a wet smacking sound. “Did you want me to stop?”
Yerina let her fingers tangle in his hair again, smiling up at him. “I don’t want you to stop.”
His cock bobbed in response. Yerina snorted, shoulders shaking with laughter. Dexter covered his smile by pressing a kiss against the top of her head.
In a matter of seconds, they’d shed the rest of their clothing. Dexter scooped Yerina up and laid her out naked on the bed. He propped himself up on one arm, letting his eyes rake over her body.
He reached between her legs, made an all-too-guttural noise at the wetness he found as he dragged a finger through her slickened folds. Yerina watched, transfixed, as he brought his glistening finger up to his mouth.
His cock nudged against her entrance, hot, throbbing with the want they’d been denying themselves for so long. Her hips canted up the slightest bit in response, signaling her own mix of nerves and desire.
“Make love to me,” Yerina murmured, lifting her legs and settling them over his shoulders.
Dexter groaned at the way it angled her up, their bodies in perfect alignment. He thrust two fingers into her, transferring her slippery juices onto his cock. He was nudging her legs even wider, just letting his tip nose inside when Yerina realized—
“Gods all… Shit. I don’t have sheaths. Or a contraceptive potion.”
Dexter froze. His mouth tightened as he bit the inside of his lip, his eyes never leaving Yerina’s face. She could practically see the gears turning in his head, so loud were his thoughts.
“Dexter.”
“There won’t be a babe,” he said, soft but decisive.
Yerina hesitated, a furrow wrinkling her brow.
“You mean,” she said, slowly, as if feeling out each word. “You can’t…?”
Silently, he shook his head. “We can… We can wait until—”
As if he could ever be less than perfect in her mind.
“Dexter.” She lightly touched the side of his face. “Don’t stop. Please.”
He kissed her, then buried himself in one swift push. Yerina cried out, her fingernails biting into his shoulders. He was so much. Glorious, but intense. His body shook, taking every scrap of his self-restraint to hold himself still, to give her body a chance to adjust.
Dexter reached between their bodies to finger her sensitive nub.
Yerina arched into his touch, her head landing back on the bed with a muffled thump as she moaned.
Dexter drew back an inch, then sank into her again, slowly this time.
Gently, or at least more gently than before.
Gave her shallow thrusts that had her squirming and clenching each time his pelvis notched against hers.
“Yeri, You’re perfect, so perfect,” he rasped into her ear.
She rocked her hips up, fingers tugging at his arms, grasping and releasing over and over, a wordless plea all she could manage.
It made something primal in Dexter break free.
He peppered her face with sloppy kisses as he caught her by the wrists and pinned her arms up by her head.
He leaned over her, into her, his pace quickening as he bent her in half.
Her slick pussy created such pleasurable friction that it didn’t take long for his balls to tighten, for his cock to swell and drive Yerina even closer to her peak.
He cupped her ass, lifted her a fraction higher.
She cried out as his cock hit a new spot in her, swollen hard and on the brink.
It made her tighten again, shudder, her pussy gripping him as his thrusting faltered and his seed spilled out.
He groaned, low and long with release, his sweaty forehead dropping next to her on the bed.
She squeezed him again, eliciting a half-hearted bob from his emptied cock.
Dexter pushed himself up on one arm so he could reach for her.
Ground his pelvis against hers, keeping his softening cock in place.
Yerina whimpered, body twitching at the tight circles he rubbed over her clit.
Her legs, still hooked over his shoulders, flailed when he pressed her down at their juncture.
“You feel so good,” he said, stroking her firmly.
Yerina made an incoherent blur of sound as her body tensed, then she was coming for him, soft whimpers marking each shudder of her hips. It was bliss to feel herself pulsing around his cock, spent but still so deliciously full at her core.
Dexter draped over the top of her, lips pressed against her hair. “I love you, Yeri,” he mumbled. “You’re perfect. That’s what you are.”
He was so drunk on the fumes of their fucking that at least half the words were lost in a grunt and the rest slurred. It didn’t matter; she understood his sentiment. Shared it, too.
Yerina’s chest jerked with soft laughter as her arms twined around his neck. Dexter shrugged out from under her legs, still holding her close to him as he moved them to a more comfortable position. He nuzzled against the top of her head.
For a moment, they were content to lie next to each other, the haze of their frenzied lovemaking slowly lifting.
Yerina felt the tension creeping back into Dexter’s body, the turmoil. She held him tighter, as if she could take it into herself and banish it away.
“A family,” he whispered. “You won’t have that with me. And you-you should—”
“Hush, Dexter.” Yerina turned over so she could face him, fingers stroking his cheek. “I want you, Dexter Burl. Not what you can give me, just you. Be mine. Let us be a family.”
“Are we a family if it’s only the two of us?”
“Isn’t family just another way of saying more than one?
If that’s only ever us, then I’ll be happy.
But what of Eunny—and Anadae, seeing as they’re attached at the hip?
There’s still half the season left before they return to Central, and I want my niece here as often as she can, for however long she wants it.
And…” She hesitated, then added, “My sister, difficult as she may be. She is family too.”
“I know.” Dexter leaned into her palm, turning his face to press a kiss against it. “You would be content with that? It would be enough?”
“I would be happy, and you alone are all that I want; they would be extra,” she teased. In a serious tone, she said, “Blood may start a family, but it isn’t the only thing to make one. I think this summer has proven that.”
“Yes, yes it has.” Dexter kissed her, then settled his head into the crook of her neck.
Yerina let her head rest against him, breathing in his scent. Her man of few words, and so much heart. Who was her source of comfort, and finally allowed himself to fully embrace it in her too.
She let her eyes close, a smile curling her lips, and her heart so very full.
The story continues with ELEMENTAL AFFECTIONS. Anadae returns to school and won’t let a brooding prince get in the way of learning how to use her magic.