He was warm, his eyelids were closed, and his chest was rising and falling in a smooth, soft motion.
Wincing when I moved my legs, I felt a sharp twinge deep inside my body.
It was enough to wake Arokan, who jolted from sleep in an instant, making me tense.
He made that deep, rumbling sound in his chest again and his yellow-rimmed eyes tracked over my face, studying me.
His eyelids lowered slightly and I gasped when his hand moved beneath the furs, moving to cup my sex, his intentions clear.
My breath hitching in alarm, I grabbed his wrist and held it in place. Biting my lip, I whispered, “I’m sore.”
He blinked, clarity returning to his gaze and he sat up in the bed, removing the furs off our bodies, exposing our nudity to the chilly air.
I resisted the urge to cover myself from his seeking eyes, but I forced my hands to remain in place, knowing that he’d seen every part of me, that there was no use or purpose for my modesty anymore.
I bit my bottom lip when his finger traced over my sex and inner thighs. When I saw his jaw clench, I looked down and froze when I saw the mess we’d made. Blood and seed coated the furs underneath me and my inner thighs, which were beginning to show the telltale signs of fresh bruises.
Arokan murmured something in Dakkari, his tone sounding…angry. Then I jumped when he barked something out towards the entrance of the tent.
He pulled the covers around me before the tent flaps opened to reveal two Dakkari males, once again bringing in the bathing tub and buckets of hot water.
Arokan rose from the bed in his full nudity, rounding towards my side once the males left, leaving a steaming bath in their wake.
I gasped when he gently lifted me into his arms and walked the short distance to the bathing tub, lowering us both inside.
A sigh of unexpected pleasure escaped me when hot water wrapped me in a cocoon of soothing heat, loosening my sore muscles, relieving some of the ache between my thighs.
“Better?” Arokan grunted, shifting me so that I was situated between his legs, until I felt his half-hard cock resting against my lower back.
“Yes,” I whispered, surprised by how shy I felt with him that morning. Last night returned to me in vivid flashes, of searing pleasure and dominating thrusts. Of Arokan’s dark eyes, of his filthy, exciting words that only spurred me on, of his heat and his vibrating bump and the way his hands moved over my body with a familiarity that alarmed me.
The tent smelled like…sex. And after last night, after experiencing the consuming, frightening need and desire I’d felt with him, I was worried that I would never be the same, that I would never look at Arokan the same now that I knew what he was capable of, now that I knew what he was capable of unleashing within me.
Whoever that woman had been last night—that needful, lustful woman who had met his thrusts and wanted more—it wasn’t me. She was a stranger to me, someone I’d just met.
All of my fears had come true. I’d liked it. And now I was changed because of it.
Arokan gently stroked my body, gently washed between my thighs until I was cleaned of the evidence of our mating.
“What happens now?” I whispered, feeling confused and strangely on the verge of tears because of how gentle he was being. I could handle it if he was rough or cold with me, but this Arokan…this male I couldn’t handle.
Arokan didn’t answer me. He just continued to wash my body, threading his fingers through my hair. Finally, he undid the heavy necklace, massaging the marks it made against my neck, and tossed it to the floor of the tent.
When the water began to cool, he carried me out and dried off my body. He went to the chests on the far wall of the tent, but then hesitated. Instead, he grabbed the pants and tunic I’d made and helped me dress in them.
I was more thankful for that than he probably realized. When I was bathed and dressed in my familiar clothes, I felt like I could breathe again.
“We will get new markings this day,” he told me, his voice rumbling out as he pulled on a fresh pair of pants that looked to be made of leather, molding to his thick, muscular thighs. The golden cuffs around his wrists gleamed as he