9
IRIS
Iwake up warm.
Too warm, really—but not in a bad way. It’s the kind of warmth that sinks deep into your muscles and makes you never want to move again. The kind of warmth that smells like honey and firewood and sex.
Andhim.
Garrik’s arm is slung heavy across my waist, his hand splayed low over my belly like he’s holding me in place even in his sleep. His whole body is pressed to my back, skin to skin, and I can feel the steady rise and fall of his chest against me—slow, grounded, calm.
I blink blearily at the unfamiliar ceiling, dazed and floaty and deliciously sore in a way I’ve never felt before.
Oh…ohfuck.
Last night wasn’t a dream.
I press my hand over Garrik’s, marveling at the size of it—how it swallows mine, how it fits like it’smeantto be there. My thighs ache, my lips are swollen, and I’m absolutely covered in tiny sticky spots where the honey never got cleaned off properly. It should be uncomfortable. It’s not.
If anything…it’s perfect.
His breath ghosts against my neck, slow and even, and I realize I don’t want to move. Not yet. Not if it risks waking him. Not if it risks breaking this little pocket of perfect, suspended time.
So I stay still.
And I remember.
The way he kissed me like it was the first and last time he ever would. The way he touched me like he’d been memorizing how for years. The way herefusedto fuck me last night, no matter how much I begged—just kept coaxing me higher, softer, deeper, until I couldn’t even remember my own name.
And the way he looked at me afterward.
Like I was something sacred.
Like I washis.
A small, stunned sound escapes my throat before I can stop it, and behind me, Garrik stirs. His arm tightens slightly around my waist, and I feel the shift in his breathing—slower, then deeper, then still.
“I know you’re awake,” I whisper, smiling.
“Only barely,” he murmurs, voice low and rumbling against my skin. “Could stay like this forever.”
Same.
I don’t say it. But maybe he hears it anyway, because a moment later he presses a kiss to the nape of my neck—slow, lazy, like he’s got all the time in the world.
“Morning,” I breathe, not quite ready to shift yet. “You sleep okay?”
He hums in response. “Best sleep I’ve had in years.”
I smile. Close my eyes. Let myself melt a little deeper into the warmth of him, the way our bodies fit, the steady pulse ofyesthat’s still humming between us.
“Are you sore?” he asks after a pause, voice a little rough with concern.
I laugh softly. “A little.”
His hand strokes lightly over my stomach, then down to my hip, fingertips tracing the curve of it with gentle reverence. “Good kind of sore?”
I nod. “Very good.”
