Chapter 18 Alaric
ALARIC
Alaric had never liked the way winter could swallow sound.
Tonight it pressed against the cabin like a held breath, storm hissing at the logs while the fire threw copper light across the room and across her—Elara, small and stubborn and shaking, snow crystals melting in the ends of her bob.
Her green eyes were bright behind fogged glasses.
He reached and slid them off gently, set them on the mantel, because he couldn’t stand anything between him and that gaze.
“I dreamed about wolves,” she’d said.
His wolf rose like a tide inside him, hungry, aching.
“You’re frozen,” he said instead, voice rough. “Come here.”
He took the old wool blanket from the chair and wrapped it around her shoulders, pulling her close to the hearth.
The scent of her—paper and winter air and a sweetness that hit him like a memory he’d never lived—filled his lungs until restraint felt like a joke.
Snow rattled against the window. Her teeth chattered once, then stopped as the heat began to seep in.
“Alaric,” she said, lifting her eyes to his. “I didn’t come to be handled like a patient.”
“Not a patient,” he said. “A guest. Who walked through a storm.”
“A guest,” she repeated, soft and skeptical, and the corner of her mouth curved. She let the blanket slip an inch, exposing the pale line of her collarbone. “Does every guest get your blanket, your fire, and that look?”
“What look?” The question came out lower than he meant. Wolf-low.
“Like you’re starving and I’m dinner.”
He swallowed. “Elara.”
She stepped closer, the blanket falling looser around her, heat painting her cheeks. “Tell me I’m wrong.” She searched his face, the faint scar along his jaw, the steel-gray that he knew went predator-dark when he was fighting himself. “Tell me you don’t feel this and I’ll go and sit down.”
He did something he didn’t do. He told the truth.
“I feel it,” he said. “I feel you.”
Her breath caught, a small sound that felt like victory and doom.
When she lifted her hand to his cheek, her cold fingers shocked him into stillness.
Then he was moving, because stopping was impossible.
He slid an arm around her waist and drew her in, blanket and all.
Her body fit to him like it had always been meant to, her curves meeting the rigid planes of his chest and hips, and his wolf shoved against his ribs with a single word: Mine.
He bent, slow enough to give her time to pull away, and pressed his mouth to hers.
The first taste wrecked him. She kissed like she was learning the secret language of him.
Curious, hungry, a little defiant. Her lips were warm, the faintest tremor there until he cupped the back of her head and deepened the kiss, tongue stroking into her mouth the way a wolf nosed into a den he knew was safe.
She made a sound then, needy and surprised, fingers clutching his shirt, and he walked her backward until her hips bumped the edge of the couch.
“Blanket,” she whispered against his mouth, breathless and smiling. “You’re going to cook me.”
He eased it off her shoulders, slow, careful, watching the way heat raised color across her chest. Practical sweater, practical jeans—she’d armored herself in sensible choices, and he wanted her unraveled.
He tugged the sweater hem, pausing long enough to meet her eyes.
She nodded, lips parted, and lifted her arms. He stripped the sweater away.
The fire caught on her skin, gilding the slope of her shoulders, the delicate bra she wore, the faint line of gooseflesh rising under his gaze. She shivered.
“Still cold?” he asked, voice gone hoarse.
“Only where you aren’t,” she said, and it undid him more thoroughly than any kiss.
He slid his palms up the sides of her arms, learning her shape by touch, callused thumbs skimming soft skin until her breath turned choppy.
He mapped her ribs, the flutter of her heartbeat under his hand, the perfect weight of her breast when he cupped it through lace.
Her nipple tightened against his palm; she gasped his name—“Alaric”—like a discovery, and he closed his eyes to hold on to the sound.
“I’m going to touch you,” he said, because saying it anchored him. “Tell me to stop if you want me to.”
“I don’t,” she said, fierce and sure. “God, I don’t.”
He kissed the line of her jaw, the sweet place below her ear, the hollow of her throat, tasting salt and winter and her.
She arched, offering, and he dropped to his knees between her legs because reverence demanded it.
He unbuttoned her jeans, slow enough to watch the way her pupils blew wide, and drew denim down over her hips, down her thighs, breath catching at the sight of damp cotton clinging to heat.
The scent of her rose, clean and sharp and addictive, and his wolf bared its teeth in a grin only he could feel.
“You’re beautiful,” he said against the inside of her knee. “You know that?”
“Not like this,” she whispered, hand pushing into his hair. “Not the way you say it.”
He kissed the inside of her thigh, then higher, each press of his mouth a vow he wasn’t allowed to speak out loud.
When he finally mouthed her through the cotton, she jerked, a broken sound slipping from her.
He looked up at her wild green eyes, cheeks flushed and then hooked his fingers in the edge of her panties and pulled them down.
The fire popped; outside, the storm rattled its chains.
Inside, the world narrowed to the slick heat of her, the soft pulse at her center, the way she whispered his name.
He exhaled against her, then licked slowly, deliberately tasting her, learning the rhythm of her breath as he found the angle that made her thighs tremble against his jaw.
“Oh,” she said, and then, “Alaric,” and then his name again, fractured into something that made pride burn through him.
He held her steady, big hands secure on her hips as he ate her like a starving man, tongue tracing and stroking, lips sealing around her clit to suck gently until her spine bowed and the couch creaked protest.
“Talk to me,” he murmured, pulling back a fraction. “Tell me how it feels.”
“Like heat,” she gasped, fingers tightening in his hair. “Like I’ve been cold for days and you’re—god—lighting me up from the inside. Like I can’t think and I don’t want to.”
“Good.” He licked deeper, slower. “Don’t think. Feel.”
She did. He felt it in the way she softened and then sharpened under his mouth, in the way her hips rolled into his tongue, seeking more.
He gave it, circling and stroking, letting the wolf’s instinct guide him to the precise pressure that made her cry out and shake.
When she was close, (he knew the signs, the quiver in her thighs, the short, helpless sounds) he eased, drew her to the edge and away, teasing, learning every note she could make until she glared down at him, flushed and wrecked.
“Don’t you dare,” she said, breathless. “Don’t you dare stop now. ”
He smiled against her and didn’t. He sealed his mouth to her and worked her with tongue and lips until the tension snapped and she came hard, strangled cry breaking into a moan, her whole body bowing while he held her through it, let her ride his mouth until the last tremor ran out of her.
She sagged back, chest heaving, hair mussed and wild.
He placed a kiss to the inside of her thigh and stood, hands shaking with the effort it took not to haul her against him and sink into heat he wasn’t allowed to take.
Her eyes tracked up his body, caught on the thick line of his erection straining against worn denim. She licked her lips like a dare.
“Take these off,” she whispered, voice still trembling. “I want you.”
He should have said no. He should have told her the kind of want that lived in him had teeth and vows attached.
Instead he obeyed, because he was weak where she was concerned.
He stripped his shirt making her breath hitch at the sight of his chest, the scars that mapped the years he’d earned before he shoved his jeans and briefs down, cock springing free, heavy and aching.
The air hit him, cold; the fire hit him, hot. She just stared, transfixed.
“Alaric,” she said, quieter now. “You’re… god.”
He flushed, which was ridiculous for a man who’d faced down a dozen armed hunters without blinking. “Come here,” he said, rough. “If you want.”
She slid off the couch and sank to her knees on the rug where he’d been. Her hands, still slightly cold, wrapped around the base of his cock, and he swore because the sight of her there, green eyes lifted, hair messy from his hands, was a brand on his mind he would never erase.
“Is this okay?” she asked, and the softness in the question broke something open in him.
“It’s perfect,” he said honestly. “You’re perfect.”
She stroked him once, slow, thumb sweeping the bead of pre-come that leaked from the blunt head.
He twitched hard in her grip. She smiled like she’d learned a secret and leaned in to lick him—tentative at first, then bolder when he sucked in a breath.
Her mouth was hot silk around him, tongue flattening as she took him shallowly, hand working what she couldn’t swallow.
His head fell back; he braced one hand on the mantel, the other trembling in her hair, giving the slightest pressure so she’d know he liked it but never forcing, never taking.
She hummed and the vibration made his knees threaten to buckle.
“Elara,” he managed, voice gone gravel. “If you keep—”
She pulled off with a wet sound that should not have been as erotic as it was and looked up through her lashes. “Keep?”
He laughed once, broken. “You’re going to make me come.”