I can’t explain why, but something about it only makes me want himmore. Something has me reaching back and tangling a hand into his hair, pushing his mouth harder against my neck until his control slips a little more—until there’s no mistaking or denying the sharpness between us, because I feel it break the skin a moment later.
A warm trickle of blood slides down the side of my neck. A moan slips out of me, a mixture of pleasure and pain that makes his heart pound harder against my back, his hands turn rougher, and then I’m writhing against him, begging him not to stop until finally,finallyI come with a soft, whimpering cry.
“My new favorite sound,” he says, his hand still caressing gently, drawing the last shivers of my orgasm out. “Next time, it will be louder.”
I’m still floating so high above everything that I forget to argue for once, to tease him about his bold assumptions regardingnext time. I sink fully against him and close my eyes, trying to stay in this peaceful place for as long as I can.
The feel of his hand against my neck, sliding my hair away from the tiny trail of blood, is what eventually brings me back down to the physical realm. Even after I sit up and turn to face him more fully, his gaze lingers on that tiny mark he left.
“It didn’t hurt,” I assure him.
“It could have.”
There’s something deeper to the words, to the heavy gaze he fixes on me. It isn’t this tiny bit of blood he’s worried about. It’s everything it represents—the wars we’re fighting, both inside and out, the roles we’re expected to play, and all that comes next for us now that we’ve broken down walls and crossed lines.
All of this could hurt.
It’s hard to imagine a scenario where it doesn’t end in hurt—where the two of us live happily ever after with no complications.
“It could have,” I repeat softly. “But it didn’t. And I’m not afraid of you, either way.”
He studies me with the same intensity as earlier, when I swore I wasn’t pretending anymore. Like he’s still trying to catch me in a lie.
There’s still no lie there for him to see.
He realizes it, too, because his chest rises and falls with a deep sigh. “Foolish, stubborn woman.”
“You’re supposed to be sleeping,” I remind him. “Speaking of stubbornness.”
A corner of his mouth slowly rises. “I would have been sleeping, had I not been distracted by someone.”
He slips out of the bed before I can reply—but he’s only gone long enough to collect a damp cloth, which he uses to clean and inspect the bite on my neck despite my protesting.
After this is finished, we finally crawl under the covers.
I stay awake long after he drifts off, running my fingers through the waves of his hair, thinking. Studying the wounds his brother left behind. The medicine he concocted does seem to have worked some magic, making the newest marks look halfway healed already. They didn’t seem to hurt when we were tangled up in each other earlier, either.
But the image of them raw and bleeding is still burned in my mind, along with all of the things that preceded it.
And I wonder, again, if he’d let me help him carry any of these nightmares.
Maybe this is as close as we can get for now—his head cradled against my chest, his arms around my waist, both ofus anchoring one another. His hold is so tight I can barely move within it. Not that I want to.
“Not claiming me,” I muse. “Whatever you say.”
Heat climbs into my cheeks as he stirs and mumbles a response—not entirely asleep, it turns out.
“It’s the other way around,” he tells me.
I stare down at him, heart fluttering. “What do you mean?”
“You’re the one that’s conquered me.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Three days pass, and each one arrives heavier than the last.
Arlo is recovering slowly, but fully, the healers say, though he remains under careful watch, forbidden from leaving his bed.
