Page 171 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

“Fuck,” he cursed, tensing his cock and pressing his head into the tree.

Stars burn him. He had to release an extensive breath, unable to speak the words that he had never been treated so gently before. Not by anyone his entire life. Not like this. “I love … this. I love,” fumbling over the foreign words as he closed his eyes and moaned, “yo—your warmth.”

That heat pulsed into his hair, across his chest, down his neck. Not serpent skin.Blazing heat. When he had been cold for so long, she was the warmth he dreamed of.

Liquid lined his eyes. His hands tried to reach her, to pull her close because the agony of not feeling her heartbeat with his could end him.

Alora’s gaze fell to his reddening wrist. Leather groaned as she pulled Soulstryker from the sheath.

Something relaxed against his scarred wrist, his arm jolted forward an inch.

He snapped his head and found one of the ropes cut. Silver darkened as he snarled,“Don’t.”

Another fell to his right.

“I am warning you.Do not cut me loose.”

“What will you do, mighty prince?” A wicked taunt. Alora’s hand brushed down his scars to his belt and rested on the metal, gently gliding her fingertips along the cold of it. Waiting.

Garrik met her piercing stare and could not bear it any longer. “Take off my belt, Alora.” Saying her name to make clear who was allowed to touch. Who would only ever touch him again.

Her other hand, warm and pulsing with embered heat, carefully fell lower, lower, and lower. Fingertips bumping over the intoxicating swells and dips of his abdomen, that perfect V, over his scars as she explored.

When his abdomen retracted, she kissed his neck.

He did not tremble at this touch. Not when her hand steadied there for a moment atop the raised ridges before resuming her downward exploration.

Her hand rested on the cold buckle. Metal clinked when the prong popped from the punch hole. Leather slipped through loops until freed. And she finally tossed his belt to the grass.

“Can I touch you?” Alora questioned with an air of delicate caution.

“Starsdamn,”Garrik groaned. “I might seek out death if you don’t.”

And then she was touching him. Garrik’s cock met her hand, painfully hard and needing. Twitching at the first brush against the leather restraining him.

Her breath was short of a gasp as she stroked him—at the sheer size. At how he filled her palm enough through the leather to know exactly how much he would fill her inside. Fully—if not painfully more.

The whites of her eyes widened with every stroke, moving her fingers to greedily fill her hand with as much as the leather allowed.

An edge set in Alora’s eyes before her fingers glided to the first snap. Waiting until Garrik nodded before popping it from its tie and separating the fabric with the broad tip of him. That hungry edge glistened, and she released another and another until all were loose and his cock was fully bared.

Garrik breathed a desperate curse as her warm palms wrapped around him. Her thumb pressed into the head and slit, swirling it in the bead of liquid there, her fingertips barely able to touch as she stroked. He buried his face in her neck, trembling.

My choice.The words echoed in his head. This was his choice … for the first time in decades …

His body washis. Not commanded and stolen and forced.

It was his.

His.

As if she knew his racing thoughts, knew the darkness of his past was surging, carrying him to that dark place he lived in. Her hand threaded into his hair, and he felt every bit of comfort and gentleness and love she offered.

Slowing the stroking, Alora spoke softly, “I’ll untie you.”

“No.” His voice more raw than he meant it to be. “Leave me like this. I want to finish this way.”

With her name on his lips, Garrik tensed when she squeezed. Inside her hand, the rougher strokes turned his body to fire. A surge of release gathered in his spine and forced him against the tree.

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