I reached down, my fingers wrapping around his thick, heavy length. He was scorching hot, solid as stone, and utterly his. He watched my face as I guided the impossibly broad head of his cock to my entrance.
This wasn’t a simple reunion; it was a negotiation between our bodies. I braced my hands on his chest and began to lower myself. The initial pressure was immense, a breathtaking fullness that bordered on overwhelming. A sharp gasp escaped me, and I paused, my body stretched taut around the very tip of him.
Instantly, his hands were on my hips, not to push, but to support. “Kael?” he murmured, his voice a low thrum of concern. “Tell me.”
I shook my head, my eyes fluttering closed as I focused on the feeling. It wasn’t pain. Not this time. It was the honest, shocking truth of his size. It was the feeling of being claimed so completely, there was no room for anything else. “No,” I whispered, meeting his gaze. “It’s… good. Just… slow.”
I moved my hips in a small, exploratory circle, letting my slick heat ease his passage, coaxing my body to yield to the impossible. He let me lead, his jawtight with the heroic effort of his control. With a deep, shuddering breath, I finally sank down, taking him inch by deliberate inch until he was fully, impossibly buried inside me. A low groan of pure satisfaction escaped my lips. This was a homecoming, not because it was easy, but because my body recognized his as the other half of itself, a key forged for a lock it was willing to reshape itself for.
A guttural groan was ripped from his throat. “Gods, Kael…”
I set the pace, a slow, rocking glide, controlling the depth. It was powerful. It was mine. A grin touched my lips. “Is this to your liking, General?”
His eyes flashed with raw fire. “You are going to be the death of me, little warrior.” His hands clamped onto my hips, not to control me, but to steady me. “More.”
I gave him more, picking up the pace, my body learning the rocking motion that drew the deepest groans from him and sent coils of pleasure tightening in my own belly. I leaned forward, my breasts swaying with the movement. A flicker of old shame, old habit, made me falter. I was so used to binding myself, hidingthis part of me. The jiggling motion felt exposed, vulnerable.
He sensed the shift instantly. His hands tightened on my hips, stilling me. He looked up, his gaze intense, searching. “What is it?”
I shook my head, embarrassed. “Nothing. It’s…”
“Kael.” His voice was soft, but it was a command. “Do not hide from me. Not now. Not ever.”
I swallowed, the truth coming out in a whisper. “My breasts… they’re…”
He stared for a moment, and then a look of pure, unadulterated adoration softened his harsh features. “They are perfect,” he rumbled, his thumbs stroking the sides of them with impossible gentleness. “The most beautiful thing I have ever seen. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You are a woman.Mywoman. Let me see you.”
His words were a balm, extinguishing the last flicker of my old insecurities. A tear escaped my eye, and he reached up to brush it away with his thumb. Then his hands returned to my hips, his eyes burning into mine. “Now, ride me, mate. Show me all of you.”
And I did. I let go completely, bouncing on him, taking all of him, my body moving with a glorious,uninhibited freedom. He let me have my control for a few more moments before his primal nature took over. With a roar, he flipped us, caging me beneath him without ever breaking our connection.
He drove into me, and it felt like the final piece of my fractured soul clicking into place. He moved with a slow, deep, powerful rhythm that was as much about emotion as it was about flesh. He stared down at me, his eyes dark with a possessive intensity that should have been terrifying but felt like the safest place in the world.
“Mine,” he grunted with each deep thrust. “I will fill you. Fill you with my seed. I want to see you swollen with my child, Kael. Your belly round with my heir.” He increased his pace, driving me higher. “This is what our bodies were made for. To join. To create.”
His words, his raw, possessive need, shattered the last of my control. I cried out, a raw, keening sound that was pure pleasure, my body clenching around him as my climax ripped through me, violent and beautiful. My inner muscles gripped him, milking him, trying to wring every drop of sensation from the moment.
But he didn't stop. He didn't even falter. He met my convulsions with his own powerful thrusts, fuckingmethroughthe storm, his hips slamming into mine with a conqueror's rhythm. A guttural growl tore from his chest, a sound of pure, masculine triumph. "Yes," he snarled against my ear, his voice ragged. "Take it all for me, mate."
My vision swam, my nerves screaming with an almost unbearable sensitivity as he continued to move within me. He was still buried to the hilt, still impossibly thick and hard, stretching me, filling me even as the last waves of my release shuddered through my limbs. That final, tight clench of my body around his seemed to be his undoing.
His control finally snapped. He pulled back to the brink, his muscles bunched and straining, then drove into me one last time, a final, deep surge that felt like it branded his claim on my very womb. Only then did he let go, pouring his heat into me as he roared my name like a battle cry.
Afterward, we lay tangled in the furs, limbs entwined, the morning sun now streaming brightly into the longhouse. I lay with my head on his chest, listening to the steady, slowing thunder of his heart, my fingers tracing the carved wolves on the bracelet on my wrist. It felt like it had always been there.
He brushed a strand of hair from my face, his touch impossibly soft. We shared a quiet smile, a perfect, unspoken understanding.
Chapter 17
Korvak
The peace of a new world, a new life, lasted for a day and a half.
It was a stolen, precious time. A bubble of impossible domesticity. We woke tangled in the furs, our bodies still aching in the most pleasant of ways. We ate. We talked, the words easier now, flowing between us like a current that had finally found its path. I found myself telling her stories of my youth, of learning the axe from my father. She, in turn, offered small, fragmented glimpses of her own past—the stifling expectation of a woman’s life, the harsh camaraderie of the barracks. I was learning the map of her life as I had learned the map of her body, and every new discovery was a revelation.
I followed her scent through our longhouse, a constant, grounding perfume of heather and iron now permanently mingled with my own. The sight of the carved wolf-bone bracelet on her wrist sent a jolt ofraw, possessive pride through me every time I saw it. She was mine. This fierce, intelligent, impossible woman was mine.
The bubble burst on the second morning, shattered by the urgent pounding of a warrior’s fist on my door.
