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He didn’t answer right away, so I let my gaze drift out of focus, thinking only of the way his hands felt as they explored my body.

“For my prize…” he finally answered, his touch trailing back between my thighs, fingers circling through the dampness, “…I want to taste you. Totrulytaste you, and show you that my hands are not nearly as capable as my mouth.”

I’d thought I was finished, utterly spent and satisfied from what he’d already done—but his words sent a fresh shock of desire through me. My heart immediately began to race again. My breaths grew ragged and shallow.

Before I could find the words to reply, his strong hands closed around my hips. He lifted me onto the edge of the bed, slightly higher than the bench that he then kneeled on, perfectly aligning his mouth between my legs.

His tongue was gentle at first, wide and flat, the measured strokes interspersed with puffs of warm air as he carefully teased my sensitive places back into arousal. Those places still pulsed with the blissful feeling that walked the narrow line between pleasure and pain. He was patient, easing up when I whimpered, but never waiting long before returning with a slow, rapturous lick.

As soon as my sounds became more pleasure than pain, his hunger truly revealed itself. He became insatiable, hooking his arms around my thighs, gripping them in a dominant hold that he used to pry my legs farther apart so he could properly feast between them.

“So fucking sweet,” he panted, coming up briefly for air. His low voice vibrated over my skin. “So fucking delicious. You taste like the first orgasm I gave you. Which is perfect,” he added, in between quick, torturous lashes from the tip of his tongue, “because it means you taste likemine.”

Because I am, I wanted to reply.I’m yours,I’m yours, I’m yours—

But before I could speak, he had buried his face completely between my legs once more…and I could no longer form words.

I could only gasp as his hands reached high along my inner thighs and pressed my legs more firmly into the mattress, opening me more fully for him to devour.

I writhed beneath him as he ate, the waves of my second orgasm building quickly to crescendo. His strength was uncompromising as I rocked within those waves, holding me hostage until his mouth had sucked every last ounce of satisfaction from me.

The bed felt like it was shifting. My body tingled everywhere, floating in a state of perfect bliss. Yet, I was aware of him moving between my legs, positioning himself above me, sliding his pants lower and letting his cock spring free. Then my hands were moving, too, circling around the hard, impressive thickness of him. Feeling it throb beneath my grip as he drew close, so close—

His head tipped back. With a low, rumbling cry, he reached his climax, painting my chest with hot cum, the feel of it dripping over my tingling skin drawing out one last aftershock of my own orgasm.

As the last drops of his release trickled over me, he leaned down, his body still shaking slightly, and pressed a soft kiss to my forehead.

I used a throw blanket draped nearby to clean myself off. Then, exhausted, I curled onto my side and closed my eyes. They didn’t stay shut for long, though; as soon as I felt him moving again, I was wide awake once more, tracking his every motion as he went about cleaning himself up. Entirely, undeniably aware of him. I felt like a foolish, lovesick girl, but I just wanted to keeplookingat him.

He came back to bed and laid down on his side, facing me. My hand found his, holding tightly to it until the room stopped whirling around us.

I don’t know how long we laid there.

I think I drifted off at some point, only stirring when I felt him shifting, his body nudging closer to mine.

“I don’t want to leave this room,” I whispered. “I don’t want to face the people outside.”

He slid an arm around my waist and rolled onto his back, pulling me against his bare chest, and said, “I’ll keep them away for as long as you want me to.”

It was what I wanted to hear. That was why he’d said it. And I also knew it was impossible—nothing would keep the monsters we faced away forever. He might have been willing to protect me from all of the questions and dangers pressing toward us, but he couldn’t slow the passage of time. And he couldn’t change the complicated history of us and our respective worlds, or the battles that had started raging long before we came into being.

Nevertheless, I let myself rest in our comforting lie for a few more minutes, listening to the quick pounding of his heart, imagining a very different sort of life for us both.

But then I slipped from his embrace and sat up slowly, taking deep, steadying breaths as I started to put myself back together.

He reluctantly followed my lead, rolling from the bed and going to the linen cabinet, returning and offering me a towel from it.

I cleaned myself more thoroughly. Put my dress, and everything underneath, back on properly. Pulled on my stockings and boots. Redid my braids.

Aleks watched me without speaking, without moving to put himself back together. His shirt remained in a crumpled heap on the floor. His pants still hung low on his hips. He ran a hand through his hair, smoothing it somewhat, but most of it still fell in disheveled waves around his face. A thin sheen of sweat glossed his chest, and all his edges were aglow from the bit of daylight creeping through the drawn curtains…or maybe fromhis own magic, stirring beneath his skin; it was hard to tell him apart from the sun in that moment.

I wanted to pull him back into the bed with me.

As much as he’d accomplished with his hands and tongue, I could only imagine whatotherparts of him could do.

But there were other things we had to focus on, so I swallowed hard and said, “Hand me my knife, please.”

He picked it up from the floor. It had nearly slipped free of its casing, and as his fingers pressed against the bit of exposed steel, he froze, his gaze briefly glazing over.