Her throat tightened.He was real.He was here.And in her mind, tomorrow was already a knife.She forced herself back intonow.
She kissed him.Slow. Deep.Her hands moved to his belt, unfastening it with fingers that didn’t shake. She slid the leather free, set it aside. She worked the button and zipper, easing fabric down his hips.He helped, stepping out of his pants, and then he was bare above her, firelight turning him into something stripped-down and elemental, all intensity and quiet restraint made visible.
Sera let herself look.Let herself take in the breadth of his shoulders, the powerful lines of his body, the way he held himself even when he was exposed.
His gaze held hers.He reached for her hand and brought her palm to his mouth.He kissed the Brand there.
Sera’s breath caught.The pulse under her skin surged, not heat exactly, but pressure, like something inside her was pushing outward.His mouth stayed against her palm fora long moment.
Then he looked up at her.”Are you sure?” he asked.The question was quiet.Not doubt.Not resistance.A check.A final chance tostop.
Sera swallowed.She could have lied.She could have said yes and meant the opposite.Instead, she told him the only truth she could afford.
“I need you.”
Chapter 17
ALARIC LEANED IN AGAINand kissed her. This time there was a hint of something darker beneath the tenderness.As if he sensed the edge of what she wasn’t saying.He laid her back on the rug, slow and careful, his hands supporting her shoulders, herhead.
Sera watched him hover above her.Firelight behind him.His eyes on her like she was the only thing in the world. Her chest ached.She reached up and touched hisface.
He closed his eyes briefly under her fingertips.Then he kissed her again.His mouth moved down her throat, her collarbone, her chest, each kiss unhurried. His hands explored with familiarity and attention, not rushing toward anything, taking time as if time could be gathered andkept.
Sera’s body responded anyway.Heat building.Need sharpening.Her breath hitching.She arched into his touch, fingerstangling in his hair.And every second of it was as though she carved him into her memory.
He lifted his head.Their gazes locked.He didn’t smile. His expression hardened into something unmistakably male and focused, all decision and possession held under ruthless restraint. Intent. Present. As if he’d decided that whatever else existed outside this room no longer mattered.
He shifted, settling between her thighs, his body warm against hers.Sera felt all of him, the strength, the controlled power held in check.Her Brand pulsed again.Demanding.Not soothing.As if it wanted to mark this moment in blood andfire.
Alaric’s hand slid down her body and then up again, slow, tracing, touching as if he were learningher.
Sera’s breath trembled.”Alaric,” she whispered.
He kissed her mouth.”Here,” he murmured against her lips. “Stay here with me.”
Sera’s throat tightened. She could stay here. This room. This fire. This moment. If she could, she would lock it in place, suspend it exactly as it was and never let the world move forward again. Just this circle of warmth and skin and breath. Just the weightof him above her, the certainty of his focus, the quiet intensity of being seen and wanted without condition or consequence.
She wanted to preserve it the way you preserved something fragile and rare, knowing it could never survive exposure to the air beyond these walls. She couldn’t promise anything beyond it. Couldn’t reach for tomorrow without shattering what existed right now. So she nodded. And she stayed.
They moved together slowly, bodies fitting, the intimacy building in waves rather than a rush. Alaric’s touch remained careful even as it grew more urgent beneath the tenderness, his mouth and hands speaking a devotion he would never say aloud.
Sera met him, gave herself to it, to him, to the firelight and the warmth and the raw truth of being wanted.She clung to him.Not out of desperation.Out of need to remember.
Her thoughts flickered back to the cemetery.The cold earth.The sound of dirt against wood.The finality.She forced them away.Tonight was not for that.Tonight was for the living.For the man above her.For the way he held her face in his hands and kissed her like he couldn’t afford to loseher.
Sera’s breath broke.She moved under him, meeting every slow, deep motion, letting sensation build, letting it take her.The pleasure came with ache braided through it. Love and grief at the knowledge that this might be all she was allowed, that this night might stand alone and unrepeatable, tangled together until she couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.
Alaric’s discipline slipped in small ways.A sound in his throat.The tightening of his arms.The way his forehead pressed briefly to hers as if he needed the contact to stay in place.
Sera held him.Held him as if she could keep him from breaking.Even though she knew tomorrow might do it anyway.When release finally crested, it wasn’t explosive.It was consuming.A wave that rolled through her, leaving her trembling, clinging, eyes stinging with something she refused toname.
Alaric followed, his body tensing, his breath shuddering out against her neck.He stayed over her for a long moment afterward.Not collapsing.Hovering.As if he couldn’t bear to moveaway.
Then he eased down, rolling them carefully so she was tucked against him, her back to his chest, his arms wrapping around her like instinct demandedit.
Sera pressed her palm against the rug.The fibers were warm now.The fire burned softly.Her body became heavy and loose, tension drainedout ofher.
Alaric’s breath slowed behind her.His mouth brushed her shoulder.A kiss.Another.His hand slid over her stomach, her ribs, holding her there as if he were making a decision with his body even if his mind hadn’t caughtup.
