CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Amber
The first thingI register is warmth.
Not the heat. That fire is gone, reduced to a banked ember deep in my belly. This is a different kind of warmth.
It’s all-encompassing and smells like cedar, sex, and the scent of Alphas.
I pry my eyes open. The room is dim, sunlight filtering through the high windows in dusty beams.
I’m lying in the center of the bed, buried under a mountain of blankets. A heavy arm is banded around my waist, a leg thrown over mine.
Eli.
I shift slightly, and a dull ache radiates from my center. I wince, a sharp intake of breath that I try to stifle.
“Amber?”
Eli’s voice is a sleepy rasp against my ear. He tightens his arm instantly, pulling me back against his chest.
“You okay?”
“I think so,” I whisper. My voice is wrecked—hoarse and thin from three days of screaming. “I’m just... sore.”
“Let me see,” he murmurs.
He rolls me over gently, onto my back. The movement sends a fresh wave of aches through my hips and thighs. I gasp, my hands clutching at the sheets.
“I know,” he says softly, brushing the hair back from my face. His eyes are soft, filled with a tenderness that makes my chest ache. “Let me help.”
He slides a hand down my stomach, over the curve of my hip, until his fingers brush against the sensitive skin of my inner thigh. I whimper, my hips twitching away from the contact.
“Shh,” he soothes. “I’m just going to clean you up.”
He spreads my legs gently. The air is cold against my wet, heated skin.
I feel... used. Ruined. There is a sticky mess between my legs, a combination of days of slick and release.
I slide my own hand down, needing to feel the damage. My fingers brush against my entrance, and I gasp at the pinch.
I’m swollen so tight the flesh feels taut, like an overripe fruit.
And then I feel it.
A thick, wet slide of fluid leaks out of me, coating my fingers. Come.
I stare at my hand, transfixed. There’s so much of it.
“Hey,” Eli says gently, catching my wrist. He pulls my hand up to his mouth.
My heart stutters as I watch him. He parts his lips and sucks my fingers inside, one by one.
The sensation is strange and intimate. He licks the release from my skin, his tongue swirling around my knuckles, cleaning me with a reverence that makes tears prick my eyes. When he’s done, he presses a kiss to my palm.
“Still sore?” he asks.
“A little,” I breathe.
