Page 172 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

His hips thrust up, seeking more friction with her hand.

Shadows drifted down his arms to his bonds.

Alora’s lips crashed against him, warm and wild, keeping him from torturous memories.

Then Garrik came with a ground-rattling roar, splitting a deep crack up the tree and rupturing the top in an explosion of splinters. Her mouth weathered the brunt of it, yet she did not remove her lips as he thrust with uncontrollable waves of pleasure, leaving his darkened world irrevocably shattered.

He panted, heaving breaths as she cleaned him. But his eyes remained closed, unable to think of a single thing beyond breathing. Beyond the feeling of what he had let his body do after so long of belonging to another.

Worried sapphires searched his face. Alora placed a hand on his cheek, circling her thumb, and asked, “Are you okay?”

“No,” he rasped.

Concern—shame—rippled across her enchanting face. Alora stiffened, pulling away.

But before she could run, Garrik continued, “Because I have had a lot of time to think about what I would do should you ever take me. Starting with tearing your clothing off piece by piece.”

She hitched a breath. Her thumb stopped, hand falling to his shoulder.

“I would claim you …slowly. Allow my shadows to worship you while I watch you writhe and moan my name until you shatter.”

Her breathing quickened. “Is that it?”

“Is that it?” Garrik darkly laughed. “I have a starsdamned book. Hell, alibrary. And none of them involve me tied to a tree unable to touch you.” His gaze fell primal. A shadow escaped his tense shoulders and brushed across the fabric of hers. Another brushed the leather covering her thigh, and her eyes shifted, watching it climb.

“You asked if I like to watch.” A likeness of his hand whirled to her chin, made of swirling ash and shadow, and pulled her to look into his ravenous eyes. “Yes, Alora. I want to watch my shadows fuck you.”

Her body instantly cracked against itself as he commanded a tendril to seep into her leathers and thrust inside her. Alora fell against his chest. A deep-throated moan echoed in the forest behind.

“I have barely started.” Garrik controlled another to flicker on her bundle of nerves. Trailing his eyes down her. Mouth dry, he groaned, “I need to taste you.”

Alora buckled at the next stroke, clasping her hands around his shoulders.

Garrik pulled at his bonds, the coarse ropes burning raw skin. “But I will settle for watching you come for me like this.”

Her eyes rolled as he lifted his knees to catch her from falling. Writhing uncontrollably. Alora released another moan and bucked against his cock, which hardened again.

A growl reverberated from his chest. “That’s my clever girl. Come for me.”

Every stroke of his shadows had her falling apart. And Garrik witnessed her undoing, her glorious body yielding to his shadows. They quickened their pace, pounding into her, dancing in silken tendrils around her bundle of nerves until her body tensed.

“I’m—” she gasped, digging her fingers into him with a pleasured moan.

The sight of her, the sound, had him pulling her to his chest by shadows. It wasn’t enough just to see it. He wanted to feel it, the release against him. Feel her as she shattered into the stars.

Alora fisted her hands into his hair, and her lips sealed against his as she cried out. Erupting. Detonating. Exploding into oblivion as her climax rattled through every part of her.

Garrik did not stop kissing her. Lips claiming her, he did not stop even when she collapsed against him. Then his shadows tenderly pulled her body, panting with bobbing eyelids, to rest on his muscled chest.

Silence fell.

He didn’t know when the ropes had shadowed away or when he stretched out beside her on a bed of blankets under a shade tree. But as sleep overcame Alora, his arms wound around her, tucking her into his chest. Feeling more like home and life and every redeeming thing than anything before, Garrik’s eyes closed, and he slept too.

Her entire being narrowedto the spots where Garrik’s body touched.

Facing each other, his eyes were closed, but his warm finger danced along her thigh wrapped in his legs. She watched it trace bruised skin under the leathers. Watched him create a pattern that swirled and formed perfect points and curves until she easily imagined the shape.

A sleep-heavy smile ghosted her face.A pearlsea.

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