Chapter 12 #2
“Wait,” she managed, tugging at his hair.
He pulled back immediately, concern flashing across his features. “Did I hurt—”
“No.” She tugged again, urging him up. “Come here.”
Alaric rose with fluid grace despite the clear reluctance in his movements, his lips wet from her, his pupils blown wide. She cupped his face in her hands and kissed him hard, tasting herself on his tongue, absorbing the groan that rumbled through his chest.
When she broke the kiss, she pushed him backward toward the bed with gentle insistence. He sat without protest, watching her with an intensity that made her powerful despite the bruises and the aches. Despite everything they’d survived tonight.
Sera knelt between his legs, settling on the plush carpet, and his hands immediately found her shoulders. Not restraining. Steadying. Always steadying her even when he was the one about to come undone.
“You don’t have to—”
“I want to,” she said simply, settling her hands on his thighs. She looked up at him, held his gaze. “I need to.”
Something shifted in his expression, vulnerability flickering there before he could hide it.
His muscles were rock-hard beneath her palms, tension radiating through every line of his body.
She stroked upward slowly, watching his face as she did, cataloguing the way his jaw clenched, the way his breathing turned shallow and rough, the way his fingers tightened on her shoulders.
He was beautiful like this. Not the cold, constrained businessman the world saw. Not the calculated strategist who played twelve moves ahead. Just a man who wanted her, who was trying to hold himself together and failing.
When her hand wrapped around him, his head fell back with a sound that was half-groan, half-surrender, and an answering reaction pulled low in her belly.
She took her time. She explored him with hands and mouth, learning what made him tighten his grip on her shoulders, what drew those harsh, demanding sounds from his throat.
He was hard and velvet-soft at once, heavy on her tongue, and the taste of him—salt and heat and pure Alaric—made her ache with renewed need.
She took him deeper, hollowing her cheeks, working him with measured skill. His whole body went rigid above her.
“Sera—” Her name was a warning and a plea, forceful and broken.
She hummed in response, the vibration making him pulse against her tongue, and his hand flew to her hair. Not pulling her away. Not yet. Just holding on like she was the only thing keeping him connected.
“Stop,” he ordered, and now there was genuine urgency in his voice. “I’m going to—”
She didn’t stop. She wanted this. Wanted to feel him lose it, wanted to give him this release after everything, wanted to taste his pleasure on her tongue.
His fingers tightened in her hair almost painfully, and for a moment she thought he might let her finish it, might let go of that iron control and give himself over to it. But then he was pulling her up with impatient gentleness, his hands shaking as they framed her face.
“Bed,” he managed, his voice wrecked. “Now.”
Sera let him guide her onto the mattress, watched him follow her down with the same attention he brought to everything, except now it was fraying at the edges. He settled beside her rather than over her, propped on one elbow, his free hand stroking down her side with exquisite care.
“Your ribs,” he said, like a reminder to himself.
“Are fine,” she lied, because she needed him more than she needed comfort.
He gave her a look that said he knew exactly what she was doing, but instead of calling her on it, he leaned down and kissed her forehead, right where the bruise was darkest. His lips were so tender it made her throat tight.
“We go slow,” he said against her skin. “And you tell me the second something hurts.”
“Alaric—”
“Promise me, Sera.”
She looked up at him, saw the need warring with concern in his eyes, and something shifted deep in her chest. “I promise.”
He kissed her then, soft and sweet and devastating, his tongue sliding against hers with lazy thoroughness while his hand mapped her body with careful attention.
When his fingers finally slid between her legs, she was already wet and aching, and the touch made her arch into him despite the protest from her ribs.
“Easy,” he murmured against her mouth, circling her clit with maddening lightness. “Let me.”
Sera tried to hold still, tried to let him set the pace, but it was torture. Delightful, perfect torture. He worked her with patient skill, building the pressure until she was trembling and breathless, until she was so close she could taste it.
Then he stopped.
Her eyes flew open to find him watching her with dark satisfaction, his fingers still resting against her but not moving.
“Not yet,” he said quietly.
“Alaric—”
He kissed her before she could form a coherent protest, deep and claiming, while his hand resumed its devastating rhythm. He brought her to the edge three more times, each one sharper and more desperate than the last, until she was shaking and incoherent beneath him.
“Please,” she finally gasped against his mouth. “Please.”
He shifted then, settling between her legs, his weight supported on his forearms so none of it pressed on her ribs. Even now, even trembling with need, he was thinking of her comfort, her pain, her bruises. The tenderness of it made her chest ache almost as much as her injuries.
The head of his cock brushed against her entrance, and they both froze, breathing hard. The moment stretched between them, heavy with promise and possibility and everything they’d been through to get here.
“Tell me if I hurt you,” he said again, and this time it sounded like a prayer. Like the most important words he’d ever spoken.
Sera wrapped her legs around his hips in answer, careful of the bruises on both their bodies, and pulled him closer. “I trust you,” she whispered, and watched something in his eyes go soft and fierce all at once.
He entered her slowly, so slowly it was almost unbearable, his gaze locked on her face, watching for every flicker of pain or discomfort.
She stretched around him, experiencing the exquisite pressure of being filled, of him pressing deeper and deeper until she didn’t know where she ended and he began.
When he was fully seated inside her, they both exhaled in unison, the relief and rightness of it washing over them like a wave.
“Okay?” he asked, his voice strained, every muscle in his body taut with the effort of holding still.
She nodded, unable to form words, and lifted her hips experimentally. The movement sent sparks of pleasure racing up her spine, sharp enough to make her gasp, and she watched his pupils dilate in response.
Alaric pulled back and thrust in again, gentle but thorough, and the pressure built impossibly fast. He set a rhythm that was sweet and devastating at once, each stroke measured, each one angled to hit exactly where she needed.
He moved like he did everything else, with absolute precision, total focus, as if her pleasure was the most important problem he’d ever solved.
His mouth found hers, swallowing her moans, while his hand slid between them to stroke her clit in time with his thrusts.
The dual sensation was overwhelming, perfect, and she climbed toward a release with frightening speed.
Every nerve ending was on fire, every cell in her body focused on the point where they were joined, where he filled her so completely she couldn’t imagine ever being empty again.
“Look at me,” he commanded softly, and there was steel beneath the gentleness.
Sera forced her eyes open, met his gaze, and the connection there—the raw intimacy of it, the vulnerability and trust and need—sent her over the edge.
She came with a sharp cry, her body clenching around him in waves that seemed to go on forever, pleasure crashing through her in pulses so intense she forgot how to breathe.
He followed moments later, his control finally shattering as he buried himself deep and groaned her name against her throat. His whole body shuddered above her, inside her, and she held him through it, her hands stroking down his back, picking up on each tremor that ran through him.
They stayed like that for a long moment, breathing hard, hearts pounding against each other in a rhythm that was like coming home. Alaric shifted carefully, still mindful of her ribs even now, even in the aftermath, and pressed a kiss to her temple that was so tender it made her eyes sting.
“Okay?” he asked again, softer this time, and she heard the real question beneath it. Are we okay? Are you okay? Did I hurt you? Was that too much?
Sera smiled against his shoulder, boneless and sated and alive in a way that had nothing to do with simply surviving the night. “Better than okay.”
He made a sound that might have been relief or satisfaction or both, and gathered her closer, arranging them with infinite care so her head rested on his chest and his arm wrapped protectively around her.
She could hear his heartbeat beneath her ear, still elevated but beginning to slow, and she matched her breathing to its rhythm.
His free hand traced idle patterns on her shoulder, the last of his discipline settling back into place. But it was different now. Softer. As if some wall between them had finally, irreversibly come down.
Outside, the night pressed in, full of danger and uncertainty and violence waiting in the wings. Tomorrow they would have to deal with whoever had tried to kill them. Tomorrow they would have to be strategic and careful and watch every shadow for threats.
But here, in this room, in his arms, Sera was safer than she had any right to be.
And when sleep finally claimed her, it was with Alaric’s heartbeat steady beneath her ear, a reminder that they’d survived.
That they’d chosen this.
That they’d chosen each other.
And that was worth fighting for.