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Twisting away from her, Aren slung his legs over the edge of the bed and rested his elbows on his knees.It was just a joke. She’s fine.
The bed shifted as she crawled across it, her arms wrapping around him and her face resting against his shoulder. “Are you angry?”
He shook his head, words feeling beyond him, his heart still racing.
Lara was silent for a long moment, then said, “I… I’m just tired of being treated like an invalid.”
He could understand that. Knew that it was against her nature to lie in bed, idle for days at a time, but… “I’ve seen you without breath in your lungs, your heart still. I don’t ever want to see that again.”
Lara exhaled a long breath. “There are moments I forget that. Or it feels like it happened to someone else. A story. Not my reality. Or yours.” She buried her face in his neck, her grip tightening around him. “I’m sorry.”
The last thing he wanted was for her to feel guilty about more things than she already did. Reaching around, Aren caught her by the waist, ever mindful of her healing injuries as he pulled her into his lap. “Not everyone can be funny, Lara,” he told her gravely. “But it’s all right—I love youdespiteyour comedic failings. No one is perfect.”
Except to him, she was perfect. She was everything.
He sensed her considering a retort, but instead of flaying him with her wit, his wife only twisted a lock of his hair around her index finger and said, “Clearly my humor needs some exercise. I’m getting up and leaving this room today, else I’ll lose my wit entirely.”
Though he’d known this moment was coming, Aren still stiffened. “This joke isn’t any funnier than the last. You need to get your strength back.”
“Agreed. Which is why I need to start moving around.”
She wasn’t wrong. But in this room, he could keep her safe. Not just from those who sought her death, but from the dark looks. Whispered words. The hate. “Not yet.”
“Just how do you think you’re going to stop me?”
She rose to her feet, and though nothing showed on her face but defiance, Aren didn’t miss the way her leg quivered beneath her weight. He gave it a pointed look, then rose himself, lifting her in his arms as he did. Ignoring her protests, he put her back on the bed, pinning her wrists to the pillow and wishing he wasn’t quite so keenly aware of her body beneath his.
And that his own body wasn’t so quick to react.
“Well,” Lara purred, the corners of her mouth turning upward. “If this is how you plan to keep me here, then here I will remain.”
“Lara…” He dropped his face to her throat, still gripping her wrists though he was careful to keep his weight on his elbows. “We can’t. Nana said—”
“Are you really going to allow yourgrandmotherto dictate what you can and cannot do with your own wife?”
The intelligent answer wasyes, but the blood fueling his brain was rapidly abandoning it for other parts of his body. Especially as she wrapped a leg around his hips, her nightgown riding up to her waist. Leaving nothing between them. “You’re still injured.”
“I think you’ll find the parts of me required for this particular activity are in the peak of health.”
“I don’t think that’s how it works.”
“Well, I disagree.”
She rubbed her sex against his cock, and God help him, she was already wet. Clearly wanted this as much as he did, but he was supposed to be the voice of reason. Except reason was abandoning him along with intelligence as his wife arched her back, nightgown pulling down to expose her breasts. “You’re not supposed to exert yourself.”
“Then you do the hard work.” She dug her heel into his back, grinding against him and erasing all thought from his head.
“I’m tired of waiting,” she said. “I need you in me.”
His control shattered like glass, and he claimed her mouth, parting her lips with his tongue so that he could taste her, resisting the urge to plunge into her body and make her his again. He knew every inch of her body, had touched it and tasted it nightly until her cursed father had invaded and everything had gone to shit, and Aren wanted her back. Wanted to kiss each curve and line of her beautiful body, to claim her with his mouth before he buried his cock in her. Wanted to hear his queen scream his name as she climaxed.
Releasing her wrists, he trailed his fingers down her arms, the whimper that exited her lips sending a jolt of desire through him. He kissed the rapid pulse in her throat, the delicate line of her collarbone, then dropped his lips to her breast, drawing her nipple into his mouth. Lara gasped, her back arching beneath him. “Don’t stop.”
Aren wasn’t sure he was capable of stopping. From the moment he’d set eyes on her, he’d wanted her, but it was because he loved her that he couldn’t deny her. Catching her other nipple between his teeth, he nipped at it, smiling as she buried her fingers in his hair. His own fingers trailed down her side, down the hard muscle of her leg, then up the inside of her thigh. She quivered beneath him, her nails digging into his scalp, her breathing rapid as she pulled his lips back to hers. “Please,” she whispered as she kissed him. “I need you.”
There was a tightness to her voice, an edge that made Aren pause because he’d heard that tone from her before. After he’d stitched her up following the battle for Gamire Island, then proceeded to fuck her with no regard for the fact she’d lost a quarter of her blood to the wound on her leg.
Then he’d left her.
