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“I have dreamed of all the things I would do to you when I had you back,” he growled against my skin, his voice heavy with desire. It made my breath hitch.

“Then show me,” I insisted.

He looked up and met my gaze, as if he needed to brand this moment into his memory, into his flesh somehow.

Then, holding my eyes captive with his, he lifted me slightly and slid into me, slowly.

I cried out at the full, stretching pleasure of it.

He paused, allowing me to adjust to him, and I lowered myself further.

His size made the position nearly overwhelming at first, but I began to move, working my hips slowly in a languid roll.

The sound he made with his exhale was a breathy groan, dripping with hunger.

“Fuck, Halja, you are… this is…” he growled as words were lost to him.

I could only moan in response as the ache within me grew, already yearning for release.

He leaned in and kissed me, holding me close as we breathed together. The intensity of it, the fullness, was almost too much to bear.

“Good girl, nice and slow,” he murmured into my mouth.

The sound of his voice alone threatened to unravel me, and I slowed my pace. We moved like that for a while, holding each other and savoring the depth of our union at long, long last.

Finally Byrgir stood, lifted me from the tub, and carried me to the bed, laying me back carefully.

Then he descended, kissing his way slowly down my body until he was kneeling before me.

He pulled my legs up over his shoulders and lowered his mouth to me, kissing softly across my inner thigh. My skin quivered beneath his touch.

“I meant what I said, you know,” he murmured. The depth in his voice made an ache more potent than lust crack and bleed within my chest. He kissed my thigh again, higher now. “I will be your Keeper, Halja. Your protector. The guardian of your heart, your soul.”

He kissed me again, softly, carefully, so close to where I was longing, begging, screaming for his touch.

“If you’ll let me earn it. If you’ll forgive me,” he added.

I sat up, my eyes met his. The pain in them, the hope, the longing.

All the invisible wounds he had suffered since I was taken laid bare in his eyes now.

There was a haunted hollowness in them that I know mine reflected.

The ache in my chest became a sharp pain, spreading to meet the roar of lust lower in my core, twisting together inside me so tightly I didn't think I could unravel them.

This hunger inside me was not just lust, no, this was the feeling of my soul reaching out for his.

I reached down and took his bearded jaw firmly in my grasp, lifting his chin to meet my gaze directly. “There is nothing to forgive.” My words were firm, but I fought the tremble that rose in my voice and my hand.

“Then let me earn you,” he answered. He tilted his head down and kissed my palm, a tingle of pleasure sliding up my arm at the touch.

He bowed his head again, kissing gently at the apex of my thighs, at the center of my desire already slick with longing for him.

I moaned and gripped his dark brown hair in my hands.

He took it as encouragement and flicked his tongue across me, slowly at first, then faster.

I pushed my hips into him and his tongue licked across me in perfect rhythm, igniting me with pleasure with each stroke.

My hips followed his movements, uncontrollable now.

When I moaned, he growled back, his mouth full of me.

Too soon, he stopped, crawling back up to kiss me.

“Please,” I whispered.

“What do you want?” he breathed, an echo of that question he had asked me so long ago in the firelight of Litha.

What did I want? His cock. His body. His love. Every breath he drew, every ounce of strength in his muscles, every beat of his heart. I wanted the very marrow of his bones. I wanted him, wanted his faults, his memories, his past, his future. I wanted it all.

But all I could utter was, “Everything.”

“Everything you need, my Little Lamb. I will give you everything,” he said.

He turned me onto my stomach, pulled me back onto my hands and knees, then pushed himself into me again with a soft groan.

I cried out with each thrust as the energy within my body built.

He leaned over and reached around me, his skillful fingers finding just the right spot.

I pushed back into him, moaning, meeting every thrust. He leaned down and kissed the back of my neck, wrapping an arm around me, holding me close against his body with one hand around my throat.

I rolled to face him as he pulled back, wrapping my legs around him and savoring the blissful fullness as he pushed into me again and I took all of him.

I gripped his shoulders and moaned as his gaze met mine, wildness and greed in his eyes.

He thrust faster, harder, interlacing his fingers with mine and pinning my hands down.

He was animalistic, hungry, feral almost. His overwhelming need for me, the consuming desire to be deep inside me was palpable in every movement, every look, every breath.

His yearning for me brought my own to a raging inferno.

I was entranced by his desire, elated by his need to dominate me.

I moaned, louder and louder as I lost control of my own responses.

I pushed back into him, meeting the intensity of his claim over me, matching the ferocity of his passion.

I was desperate to feel him, to let him take me.

Desperate for him to conquer me, hold me, know me.

Desperate for him to drive all the pain, all the horror from me, as if I could be cleansed by his touch, his love.

I wanted him and only him. He pulled me close and kissed my neck with deep hunger; I tipped my head back and arched into him.

The world fell away around us until nothing existed but this moment and the feeling of him inside me.

Finally, release came. The great shuddering, crashing wave of my climax ripped through me.

I arched into him and cried out, the pleasure tightening me around him, Byrgir keeping his pace as long wave after wave found me.

Then he found his own release, slamming deep into me and groaning, filling me with a delicious intensity,one hand gripping my hip in place beneath him.

When, at last, the waves subsided, I pulled him in close.

I felt the pounding of his heart through his muscled chest, felt the pounding of my own meeting it.

We held each other, as close as physically possible, still joined, for what could have been ages.

Eventually, he lifted his head and brushed my hair from my face. He kissed my lips gently.

“You are divine,” he said.

“Gods, I missed you,” I replied.

“I missed you nearly more than I could survive.”

He pulled me under the covers and I tucked myself beneath his arm. My head on his chest, I listened to his beautiful heart beating.

“I thought of you,” I murmured against his tattooed skin, exhaustion already dragging me under. “Every day, I pictured your face. I heard your voice, your laugh. You got me through it, Byrgir. Knowing you were waiting for me.”

“Halja?” His low, sweet voice pulled me from the liminal dreams between sleeping and wakefulness.

“Hmm?”

“I have always loved you. I will love you until my last breath. I will fight for you with every ounce of strength I have.”

In that moment, in his arms, I felt the closest to whole I had felt in my lifetime. The contradictory, split parts of me were balanced at last.

“I love you, Byrgir. With every piece of my being until the day I die.”