to make me feel alive.
My gaze trailed to his lips. My fingers curled around his neck.
Without hesitation, I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his.
A gruff sound emerged from his throat. His hands tightened on me.
And then he was stealing my breath straight from my lungs, angling himself so I could take from him freely. My head swam and I pressed closer, my eyelids falling shut.
Everything about it was familiar. Only this time, I wasn’t worried he’d push me away.
Warmth spread from my lips, down my throat. It rushed through my blood, warming my icy fingers and wind-stung flesh. Kiran radiated heat and I greedily lapped at it, taking what he offered.
I smiled when I made him groan, when I nibbled at his full bottom lip and sank into him. I felt him, hard and ready, beneath me. The dark cloud covering the moon shifted and blue light flooded us, making his golden eyes flash.
He ate at my mouth, his grip tightening, his lips becoming more demanding. And I gave him everything he wanted.
My hands went to the laces of his trews and he hissed when my hand found what it sought. My fingers were no doubt chilled as they wrapped around his cock but if anything, he seemed to pulse hotter at my touch.
“Get me inside you, seffi. Now,” he rasped. “Hanniva.”
Please?
My Vorakkar was begging now?
How could I refuse him?
Sliding up, I shifted my dress and positioned his cock between my thighs. Biting my lip, I sank down, rocking and wiggling my hips until I felt the pressure of him. Heat so searing it was almost painful.
But vok, I wanted it. I wanted him.
“Lysi,” he hissed, his throat bobbing.
When my lips returned to him, I didn’t close my eyes and neither did he. We watched one another as he thrust up into me, his strokes so powerful, and I gasped into his kiss. And our eyes watched it all.
I didn’t care that the guards at the gate might guess what we were doing. I didn’t care that it was the middle of the night and we were exposed on the wild lands with a dark storm coming.
I slid and ground down, this new position making me feel so full of him. My fingers dug into the back of his neck and he groaned, rough sounds I loved vibrating his chest, falling across my lips.
I wanted him.
And finally, I gave myself the freedom to have him without fear.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Later that night—or rather in the early hours of morning—Kiran’s hand was stroking down my naked spine, trailing his claws over the little bones.
The furs of his bed tickled my cheek. I was drowsy but sated, watching him on his side as he looked at me and touched me. Touched me like he couldn’t stop touching me. His hands had been on me since the lake and they hadn’t left.
Outside the voliki, the wind was howling. In the distance, I heard the frost sweeping over the land, drawing closer and closer. I wondered how my pattar was. I wondered if he was living with Laru and her husband now.
“What are you thinking of?” Kiran rumbled, his voice rich and thick.
I didn’t want to tell him the truth. I didn’t want him to know how much I missed home and my family, not when I’d just agreed to give this a chance between us.
“The storm,” I whispered, a half-truth. “And you.”
That was a full-truth. Because Kiran was always on my mind these days.
His grin stole my breath straight from my lungs. Kiran had always stolen things from me, the thief.
But as I felt that grin melt me from the inside, as his fingers made goosebumps spread across my arms and made a pleasurable shiver race down my spine, I thought that maybe he was giving things back to me now.
He’d hinted that he loved me earlier.
Did he mean that?
Or had they just been words?
His grin slowly died and those molten eyes trailed to my lips.
“I did not tell you before,” he murmured, “but I will need to leave the horde in a few days. Only for a little while.”
I frowned, blinking.
“Leave?” I asked, incredulous. “But the frost is coming. If it’s not here already.”
His hand went to my hair, brushing a strand off my cheek. He rubbed the curls between his fingertips and shifted closer, propping himself up on his elbow.
There was a peace about him, I thought. Something steady and calm. Certain. So much like the Kiran I’d once known, before