Chapter 18 Alaric #2
“Good,” she said, and wrapped her mouth around him again, deeper this time, cheeks hollowing as she worked him, slick and sweet and unafraid.
He tried to think of the storm, of Council orders, of anything that wasn’t the sight and feel of her, but it was useless; pleasure gathered low and tight, insistent.
He warned her again; she moaned around him like she liked the warning, and his control frayed to strands.
He pulled her off gently at the last second, because the line he couldn’t cross wasn’t climax—it was what might snap loose in him with it. Not here. Not like this. Not without her choosing the truth of him first.
“Come here,” he said, hauling her up and onto the couch with a growl he couldn’t bite back.
He dragged the blanket over them and lay back, settling her astride his hips.
He was thick and hot against the slick heat of her, the soft hair at the root of his cock catching on the wet slide of her pussy as she shifted.
Her eyes fluttered closed at the contact.
“Alaric,” she whispered, rocking once. “Oh. That—”
He gripped her hips and guided her. Slow, soft, dragging her slick over the length of him until she was gasping again, rubbing her clit against the hard ridge and shuddering at the friction.
He thrust up not to enter but to meet her grind, cock sliding along her, heavy and leaking, wet with her.
The sound of them filled the cabin—fire crackle, storm hiss, the low, filthy slick of need.
“Say something,” he said again, because he needed to hear it.
“It feels like…,” she said, breathless and honest. “Like I’m going to fly apart if you stop. Like I want you inside me so bad it hurts.”
He bit down on a curse. His control thinned to a knife-edge. “I want that too,” he said, and it was the truest thing he’d ever confessed. “More than is good for either of us.”
“Then why—” She rocked harder, chasing the edge; he felt the tremor run through her. “Why aren’t you—”
“Because once I’m in you,” he said, voice a rasp, hands shaking on her waist, “I won’t be able to keep anything back.”
She looked down at him, searching for something she couldn’t possibly name. “Keep what back?”
He kissed her instead of answering, lifted his hips to give her the grind that made her gasp and clench around nothing.
He slid a hand between them and pressed his fingers to her clit, tight circles, precise and firm the way he’d learned she liked from his mouth.
She crumpled over him, bracing on his chest, breath coming in broken sounds.
He brought her up hard and fast, swallowed her cry as she came again, shivering and hot, slick soaking his cock.
The sight of her eyes wild, lips swollen, hair messy, the taste of her still on his tongue kicked him to his own edge.
He panted, fighting the urge to flip her under him, to thrust home and lose himself in heat and everything it promised.
He didn’t. He couldn’t.
She slumped against him, humming, cheek to his shoulder, heartbeat racing against his. He held her and breathed, let the storm pull the heat out of his head until he could think again. His cock throbbed angrily against her belly, slick and desperate, but he kept himself leashed.
“Did I—” She drew back enough to see his face. Confusion flickered across her features, then concern. “Did I do something wrong?”
He closed his eyes a second, because there were a dozen answers, none he could give.
If I come inside you, I might mark you. If I mark you, you’ll be mine in ways you don’t understand yet.
If you’re mine, you should choose it with everything you are, not fall into it because the storm was loud and the fire was warm.
He opened his eyes and gave the only answer he could manage.
“No,” he said softly, brushing a thumb over her kiss-swollen mouth. “You did everything right.”
He lifted her gently, set her beside him, then rolled to sit on the edge of the couch and scrubbed a hand over his face.
He was shaking. He could smell himself on her, the sweet musk of her on his mouth, and it made holding the line feel like lifting a house.
He stood abruptly, dragged in a breath of cold air from the door, and forced his voice even.
“I should… check the generator,” he said, which was ridiculous—he could hear the low steady hum in the background—but it was something to do that wasn’t turning back to her and giving in. “Make sure the lines don’t ice.”
She pulled the blanket tighter around herself, confusion knitting her brows. Hurt, too, and that cut him in a way no blade ever had. “Right. Sure. Go… check the generator.”
“Elara.” He turned back, words burning his tongue. He wanted to promise her everything and nothing, wanted to name what he was and what she was becoming to him. Instead he said the one thing he could keep. “Stay by the fire. Warm up. I’ll be right back.”
He stepped into the bitter air and let it claw at him, let it freeze the heat under his skin until he was sure his control would hold. Inside, the fire popped and she was a silhouette against it, wrapped in his blanket, watching the door like she couldn’t decide whether to follow or to run.
If he stayed, if he laid her back and slid into her, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to resist the animal truth that would tear through him at the moment he came—a truth with claws and vows and marks that didn’t wash away.
So he didn’t stay.
He closed his eyes against the snow and chose the cold, because it was the only thing that didn’t feel like her.