It was everything they had been starving for.
A rediscovery.
A homecoming.
Alex began to moan loudly and grind her pussy down onto Erin’s face, taking her pleasure in the way that she used to, years ago, when everything was easier. Erin reached her right hand between her own legs, finding her swollen clitoris slick with need.
It was seconds later when Erin felt Alex explode in her mouth, gushing on her tongue, tipping Erin over the edge into her own powerful orgasm.
It was a quiet, fierce kind of love-making that left Erin breathless and Alex trembling and both of them tangled in each other like dawn might break them apart.
It wasn’t about release.
It was about returning.
About choosing each other again.
And when Alex finally collapsed beside Erin, boneless, chest heaving, more beautiful than ever — Erin pulled her into her arms, holding her close.
They lay tangled under the covers as the fire crackled low.
Alex pressed a kiss to Erin’s jaw. “We’re going to be okay.”
Erin turned her head and kissed the top of Alex’s soft blonde hair. “We’re better than okay.”
Alex curled closer. “We found our way back.”
Erin held her tight. “We always will.”
And with snow falling softly outside and moonlight drifting across the bed, Erin let herself drift to sleep with her wife curled against her, their hands still intertwined.
For the first time in months, Erin slept easy.
She’d come home.
EPILOGUE
Boxing Day evening at Balmoral was always softer than Christmas.
Christmas demanded things. Appearances, timings, traditions. Boxing Day… exhaled. The air itself seemed looser, slouching into twilight with a satisfied sigh, as if the castle had run a marathon of festivity and now finally had permission to sit.
Outside, snow lay thick and undisturbed across the grounds, soft as wool. The sky was a deep, velvety blue, stars pricking through at the edges. In the great sitting room—the family room, as Alex stubbornly called it, despite the antique portraits and priceless rugs—a fire crackled steadily in the wide stone hearth, sending flickers of golden light dancing over familiar faces.
Everyone had gravitated there, as they always did.
The dogs, of course, found the prime spots first. Bran and Sorcha had claimed the rug nearest the fire, stretched out long and content. Juno, the ever-overexcited cocker, alternated between pacing and collapsing in strange, boneless heaps against whichever human limb presented itself.
On the floor in front of the hearth, a nest of cushions and blankets formed an untidy ring around a low wooden table. The table itself was buried under the remnants of dinner—crumbs, a half-finished cheese board, abandoned satsuma peels—and the battered box of a party game that had clearly seen several Christmases already.
The children sat closest to the table, cross-legged or sprawled in various stages of post-holiday exhaustion and revived energy.
Matilda cross-legged and upright, tinsel still somehow wound into her plaited blonde hair. Frank half on his side, one sock missing, dark brown eyes bright with the unwavering commitment of someone who fully intended to win. Florence outstretched on her stomach, chin in hands, taking it all in with quiet delight. Hyzenthlay perched on a cushion with a notebook balanced on her knees, a pencil poised, expression serious and curious all at once.
Behind them, on the sagging sofa that had hosted generations of royal backsides, Alexandra sat curled into the corner, her legs tucked under her, blanket over her knees. Erin sat beside her, back comfortably leaned against the armrest, one arm draped along the top of the sofa in a way that made it extremely easy—and entirely unconscious—to rest her fingers against the nape of Alex’s neck.
On another sofa to their left sat Vic and Julia. Vic’s clipboard was nowhere in sight. It lay, for once, abandoned on a sideboard, closed, its corners safely out of reach of the present moment. Right now she was wrapped in a cardigan too big for her, wavy brown hair pulled into a loose bun that had surrendered hours ago. One of her legs was stretched out; the other was drawn beneath her. She looked… soft. Not an adjective many people used for Vic, but one that fit perfectly tonight.
Julia had one arm along the back of the sofa, her hand resting lightly on Vic’s shoulder. She looked every bit as composed as always, but there was an undeniable looseness to her posture too—something easier in the face and eyes. Like a bowstring that had finally been allowed to slacken.
