In the firelight, his body looked sculpted from something older than stone—marble tempered across centuries of battle. Veins threaded beneath corded muscle like rivers of lightning. Each brush of her fingers sent hisrunes flickering white, and a voiceless song answered her ache with a rhythm so primal it sank into her chest like a second heartbeat.
Mesmerized, she leaned closer.
Closer.
Until her lips grazed his ear, until the smell of him surrounded her—rain after a storm, battlefield steel, the sharp tang of glyphing oil he used on his blade. Wild. Untamed.
Resh’s palms moved slowly, reading every inch of her like sacred text. His hands skimmed her waist, fingers spreading heat across her back.
“You’re trembling,” he murmured, voice low and ragged. “Is it fear…or want?”
“Want,” she breathed.
Stars, his voice. Rough as gravel, smooth as rays of sunlight. He spoke like a man with experience in the unmaking of a soul. And she ached for it.Needed it.
Her hand trembled against his arousal. Her thighs pressed together, heat building until her knees threatened to buckle.
“It’s impossible,” she whispered, cheeks burning. “You’d…break me.”
He laid his hand over hers, lips brushing her temple in reassurance. “Not unless you wished it,” he promised. “And even then…I would take you like worship. Never conquest.”
He gave her a moment to absorb the meaning of his words. To believe them. Trust them.
“I’ve waited for your touch,” he confessed, voice rumbling against her skin. “Every day. Every breath. Do you think I’d harm the only soul I’ve ever truly wanted to protect?”
His hands traced upward. One cupped her shoulder blade; the other found the delicate tie at her gown. He stilled, forehead resting against her chest, his fingers lingering on the knot.
“You can still say no, Auryn. I’ll never—”
“I want you to,” she said, her voice steady at last. “I want you to see all of me.”
With one slow tug, the knot unraveled. The gown sighed open, slipping down her back like falling water. It pooled at her feet in a ripple of white. She stood bare before him—unflinching—firelight and river air kissing luminous skin.
Resh gathered himself, then looked up.
“By all the stars,” he whispered. “You are…”
But words failed.
Anything less than worship would fall as desecration to the sight. His hands rose, tracing her ribs, her breasts, the dip of her neck. Each touch asked a question. Each shiver gave an answer. Her fingers slid into his hair as she yielded, and he sank to his knees. He kissed the inside of her thigh. Her hip. The hollow of her navel.
“You were forged of skyfire,” he murmured, lips brushing upward. “Born of stars, of courage, of defiance.”
Her nails grazed his scalp when his tongue swept the underside of her breast. He rose then, impossibly tall, chest brushing hers, arms enfolding her like a vow.
“And if you break, then break in my embrace. Let me be the place where you come undone.”
Guiding her back step by step, he sat on the cot and drew her astride him. Her thighs bracketed his, the living pulse of her body yielding against his length. His arms enclosed her—one hand sheltering her head, the other steady at her waist. He buried his face in her throat and breathed her in.
Lavender. Parchment.Wanting.
“Kailorien,”she whispered.
Void help him. That name, spoken inthat tone, succeeded in breaking him where centuries of war had failed. He lifted his head. Her silver eyes glowed molten with devotion and surrender. He slid his hand down between them, brushing her center. She gasped, clung, hips jolting as his fingers found her slick and swollen.
“You’re safe with me. I have you.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she whispered.
