Chapter 40 #3
“I love you,” I told him, though I didn’t need to. He could feel it across the bond. “And I made such a mess of it.”
We both did, he told me across the bond. But it’s our mess.
His lips were on mine before I knew it, warm and firm. It wasn’t even quite a kiss, it was a meeting of our mouths, a sharing of our breath, a mingling of our bond. We held each other there, his neck uncomfortably craned down over the wall while I went up as high as I could on my tiptoes.
I smiled at the ridiculousness, as tears dripped down my face from the rightness of it.
Come back home with me, he said in my mind.
I pulled back, a shy smile flitting across my face. This was all so new. I still didn’t even know what this meant for us.
“I can’t,” I said. “If Syris woke up and found me gone in the morning, she’d worry herself sick. Tarkosh already keeps two eyes on me at all times. I don’t need to go disappearing in the night again.”
“I meant back to Grym,” he murmured.
My breath hitched, surprise widening my eyes as they flickered over his serious expression.
“After the season is over,” he continued, his eyes drifting to my lips, pressing a small kiss there. “But we can discuss it later.”
Right.
The Arsadia was only his temporary home. I hadn’t given much thought to what would come beyond the next moment these days. So the fact that he was thinking of the future, of our future, made my insides feel a little melted.
“Even when everything is so uncertain between us?” I asked.
“I don’t feel uncertain about us, mariss,” he replied. “Not at all. I made my decision when I bonded our magic. It was simple for me.”
Was it as easy as that? A simple decision?
Maybe it was me who was overcomplicating it, overthinking too many things when maybe it was so incredibly simple.
“It is simple,” he agreed. “Move back from the wall.”
I frowned, confused, but did as he asked, pacing back a few feet, watching as he jumped and swung himself over it effortlessly.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
“I don’t intend to sleep without you tonight, and you will not leave the hatchery. So it’s simple,” he said again, taking my hand, guiding me back to the hatchery door, which was still ajar.
A small bubble of a laugh rose in my throat, though I tried to stifle it. “No outsiders are allowed in at night.”
Not that Moak ever abided by those rules, judging from the sounds I sometimes heard coming from his room. Though none recently, strangely enough.
Alaryk gave me a dry look. “I think Tarkosh will make an exception for me.”
“The bed is so small,” I added, following behind him. “You’ll barely fit.”
“Then you’ll sleep on top of me,” he answered. He raised his brow over his shoulder. “Simple. Anything else?”
No, I thought, making my decision as I slipped into the hallway behind him. I didn’t have it in me to stay away from him.
Good, he replied silently.
Inside my room, I watched as Alaryk quietly bolted the door. The candle had burned further, the light of the flame dim. He undressed, hanging his tunic and trews over the back of the chair.
I watched from the foot of my bed, my eyes skimming over hardened planes and deep ridges of muscle. My fingers curled into my palm, and when he approached me, knowing in his gaze, I tipped my head back, baring my throat.
His thumb rested on the indent just below my lip as he stared down at my face, his eyes flickering across it like he was memorizing every line, every dip, every swell.
“Beautiful,” he whispered. I realized it was awe in his gaze, and it made me feel like an explosion had gone off in my belly. No male had ever looked at me like he was looking at me, like he couldn’t believe that I was real. “Mariss. My little ember that sparks flames.”
My lips parted. That was what he’d been calling me? This entire time?
Heat licked at my belly. I wanted to show him just how brightly I could burn for him.
I pulled him down for a kiss. Deep and languid and slow. We were in no rush. And tonight wasn’t so much about sex as it was about connection. Reconnecting.
I wanted to feel the weight of his body pushing me down. I wanted to be bathed in his scent until it was all I could smell. I wanted to memorize the way his wicked, hot tongue would trace over the curve of my hip or between the crease of my thighs. I gripped him tighter, needing that.
And when we were both naked in my bed, when he was swallowing my moans and gasps to keep us quiet, when he pushed two fingers between my lips to keep me from screaming to my goddess while he lapped away between my thighs, taking his sweet time, as if dawn was eons away…I still needed more.
After he made me come on his tongue, I dragged him up with strength that surprised me, given how boneless my arms felt.
He sat, his bare back against the stone wall of my sleeping quarters, which the small bed was pushed up against, and I straddled his lap.
My breasts were pushed against his chest as I plastered my body against his, winding my arms around his neck.
Our kiss was a battle, an apology, a beautiful twisting of our hearts, tangling as the bond pulsed to life, threading us together as one.
I’d never felt anything like it before. So sweet and pure and tangible that it made my eyes sting and the back of my throat tingle.
I didn’t have to doubt what he felt for me.
I felt it like it was my own truth, ringing bright and clear through every vein.
I sank down onto his cock as a tear dripped from the corner of my eye. He kissed it away, murmuring his own truths across my cheekbone, hissed little confessions of his love as I rocked my hips over him. Harder and faster, chasing him down.
His lips returned to mine. Our eyes, half-lidded, met and never strayed.
And when we both came, there was no pain, only pleasure. I felt his orgasm spark inside him, a wonderment as much as a release, and we saw it through together.
Hours later, as dawn was breaking over the Arsadia, pink light creeping across the floor and over our naked, damp skin, I finally fell asleep on his wide chest, exhausted and sated and wanting even more, with him still deep inside me.
His simple solution to my small bed made reality.