Page 256 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

Because icy lips delicately brushed below her ear.

Alora may have whimpered at it. May have bowed a little, pressing herself into something hard.

She wondered if she’d imagined it. Drowsy from the first real sleep in days. Not fighting to keep her mind alert as she rested, where one insignificant scratch of a branch or whisper of wind roused her. Not waking just to fight and run.

There was no mistaking the strong legs entangled with hers or the freezing hand tracing over her death mark. The intoxicating lips kissing her smooth skin.

Sinking into the pillow, Alora stretched her neck, greedily offering him more.

A low hum tickled across her flesh, pebbling it with cold breath. She wanted to open her eyes, but the touch was too close to a Stars Eternal dream. All she managed was a whimper.

“Groan like that again, and I may reconsider my plans for today.” Garrik’s deep, honeyed voice vibrated into her. It wasn’t sleep-roughened; he’d been awake for some time. And given the icy chill of her neck, this wasn’t the first kiss he had laid there. Only the first she woke to.

She groaned, arching into him.

Garrik cursed, tensing behind her. Flexing his hips so she felt him hard as steel against her, and rasped, “Are you trying to unravel me?”

“Yes,” came that breathy voice, more than she meant it to be. “What of your plans today?” she wondered. “Did you get enough sleep?”

That exploring hand slipped down the column of her neck. Tracing his fingertips, withexpertattention, lightly between her breasts. “I can think of far better things than sleeping right now.” Garrik swirled a finger around her peaked nipple, his other hand palmed her thigh between the bed.

Heat pulsed between her legs. Alora ground into him, widening her legs ever-so-slightly, aching for the palm on her leg to travel higher.

Garrik tauntingly hummed, hovering over her neck. Wholly satisfied by what his touch was doing, but not giving in.

The mighty bastard.

He chuckled. The sound only threatened her sanity more. She managed to curl her fist into her pillow, cradling it to her head as the other intended an exploration of its own. Trailing down her stomach to her navel, then brushing along the scars on his wrist.

When he didn’t move, she clasped his hand, sifting her fingers between his knuckles and those powerful rings. Smiling as she did so. Smiling when he allowed her to graze the juncture at her thigh with his hand.

“Mmm,” Garrik groaned. “Greedy.”

She didn’t deny it. Her answering moan when his fingers traced a tantalizing stroke down her center was proof enough.

His breath chilled the shell of her ear. “What will it be, my wife?” A finger slipped inside her. Garrik rumbled at the pleasure of the wetness waiting for him—and she may have gasped at that too. “My fingers.” A teasing stroke. “Or my mouth?”

Both.Alora arched her against him, angling her head over her shoulder to take his lips. And she didn’t need words for him to understand. She shouted it across their tether before his thumb brushed her bundle of nerves, setting her blood molten.

Garrik met the rhythm of his strokes with his lips. Parting hers, sinking his tongue inside as a finger did as well. Curling, meeting that spot that had her chasing oblivion. She bucked her hips against him, helpless moans echoed into his mouth as he stroked and stroked her beyond words. Beyond the kingdom they were sheltered in. Beyond the Wall, and the realm, and any lingering terror and pain from the last few days.

He rushed for nothing. As if he felt those very things, too.

Stroked and kissed her until she shattered and floated amongst the stars he always sent her to.

Garrik laid her on her back, taking his time to kiss every inch of her skin. Up her thighs, her hipbones, her abdomen. Drawing out every panted breath and sound that belonged to him before he suckled and rolled her nipple between his lips. Until his intoxicating touch delicately placed a kiss on her mate mark.

He didn’t need to ask, but she knew why he did. Why he settled himself between her legs, not daring to sink into her before he knew what had happened in Ladomyr’s bedchamber wouldn’t cause her pain now.

Alora slipped her hand between them, stroked his cock, and marveled when it twitched. At the sound he made. And smiledwhen his eyes fluttered closed, whispering, “I’m okay.” She meant it. She needed him to know it. “I’m okay, Garrik.”

I need my mate.She sent across the tether binding their hearts.

Garrik made no move for urgency. He carefully lowered his hips as if it was their first joining, feeling him sink inch by glorious inch inside her until he was fully seated. Until she was breathless against him, toes curling in the furs.

“I never want to forget this. How you feel…” Garrik rasped, easing his hips in slow, drawn-out waves. “Stars, Alora. I cannot stop thinking about you like this. In every breath I breathe. When I catch a glimpse of morning light. You areeverything, Alora. Every-starsdamned-thing.”

And mine. My perfect, strong mate,he thought, and she imagined she might ignite into flames and shadows at what tore through her. At the feeling of having him in her arms again. Healed. Unbroken. Moving together without a thought of threat or illusioning themselves to be anything more than just …this.

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