In case you like music when you learn, attempt “Might I” by Buying and selling Yesterday. It is Gar and Rika’s music, and what I used to be listening to whereas writing these chapters!

*****

RIKA

One thing inside her trembled with a complicated combine of pleasure and concern.

She nonetheless had her eyes open and she or he watched Gar kiss her, however she could not resist it. Each brush, each contact… it was as if the fireplace he’d lit beneath her pores and skin months earlier had sunk to glowing embers—intense warmth and lightweight, however little flames—and he was blowing on them.

When he traced her mouth along with his, teased at her along with his tongue, she could not assist however reply—following him when he eased again. However he’d by no means let her take it deep and quick.

She arched when he let his fingers path slowly down her again and sucked in a breath when he gripped her thighs. The flames wished to roar, however as a substitute of pulling her in opposition to him, Gar pressed one hand again up her backbone to slip his fingers into her hair and grip the again of her head.

The kiss deepened. However every time she tried to make it quicker or extra frantic, he slowed additional, forcing her to deal with the featherlight slide of his lips, on the tingling trails he left on her arms with mild fingers, on the quiet sighs of her title that saved rumbling from his chest.

She could not escape the rising heat in her stomach that responded to the achingly gradual method he rocked in opposition to her, nonetheless totally clothed. However as a substitute of turning it into an exhilarating, determined pawing at clothes and screaming launch, Gar slowed and stroked and sighed… drawing out the contact till her very pores and skin appeared to vibrate.

The acquainted concern that chittered in her head started to lift its voice—but proper alongside it, she noticed his face, the fearful method he’d sat up and grabbed for her when he thought she may depart.

She knew the sensation he described, lived in that place extra typically than she’d prefer to admit. She’d acknowledged the glazed look in his eyes, the shuddering have to really feel separate from the sentiments. However for her, that had at all times meant she wanted bodily house. Distance from folks and their noise.

Till him.

These days, she’d discovered herself falling into him, not away from him, when issues bought troublesome. And that second when she’d discovered him—understood what he felt and been so prepared to offer him the house he wanted as he’d executed so typically for her—solely to search out him pleading together with her to remain.

It was as if he’d instantly stepped over her partitions and are available to reside inside them, together with her. It left her shaking and breathless and terrified and…

Oh expensive lord. She felt her entire existence soften.

As Gar drew his fingers up her sides and whispered her magnificence, her hips started to roll in gradual circles.

As he kissed her, open-mouthed, the flat of his tongue discovering hers, she felt her joints loosen.

And when his fingers fisted in her hair and he shivered, elevating his hips to grind slowly in opposition to her, her head tipped again of its personal accord.

Gar’s fingers shook, however his fingers discovered her buttons and slowly popped them one after the other till he slid his palms to her ribs and helped her shrug it off, sucking in a breath on the sight of her and rolling in opposition to her so their chests brushed and her pores and skin pebbled with goosebumps, her nipples rising to arduous peaks.

However nonetheless, he moved so slowly.

Even when he lastly reached for her leathers, he did not hurry, dropping his lips to her shoulder and mouthing her pores and skin as he labored at her buttons, then sitting again, swinging her up and off his lap and standing.

Rika was nearly used to those strikes now—his immense energy and confidence, the way in which he might simply take her if he wished to.

And he wished to. However he so not often did—at all times conscious of her concern.

However this time it did not really feel like a risk. It felt like a thrill, her abdomen dipping in that shuddering, nervous method when one thing good was occurring, as he carried her by means of the room, up the steps to the bed room after which laid her on the mattress like she was treasured cargo.

“Gar—”

He took her mouth to shush her, teasing along with his tongue, his lips full and unfastened on hers. Then he reached down and, kissing his method down her neck, her chest, her abdomen, slowly drew her leathers off and tossed them to the facet.

When he straightened, his eyes had been shiny and sizzling. However there was nothing predatory in his gaze.

As a substitute of glowing along with his lion, they glowed along with his love.

Rika sucked in a breath as he shucked off his personal leathers, then climbed up onto the mattress together with her, crawled over her, however did not decrease himself to cowl her.

They sat there for a second, Gar on all fours, his fingers braced to her sides, his knees between hers, they usually stared at one another.

He reached with one hand flat to her chest and stroked down, between her breasts, to her abdomen, then her thigh, then cupped the again of her knee and pulled it up in opposition to him.

The transfer lit a fireplace in her stomach—not simply the heated want he at all times impressed in her. However one thing extra. One thing that curled and coiled and tightened, wrapping round her coronary heart and thrumming, pulsing with a shiny, heat mild.

“Gar?” she whispered.

He nonetheless hadn’t lowered himself onto her, however his contact was so mild and so… obligatory.

“God, I really like you, Rika,” he croaked, his eyes barely vast and instantly pleading—as if he feared she may reject him.

Gasping, Rika pushed as much as sit, taking his face in her fingers and looking out his eyes. “I really like you, Gar. I’ve by no means beloved anybody the way in which I really like you. Please… it is true—”

She’d barely bought the phrases out when he took her mouth with a groan, his hand in the back of her neck once more, cradling her, his arm laying down her backbone, pulling her nearer.

They kissed, lengthy and deep, curled collectively that method and she or he sucked in in opposition to the questions that wished to rise, in opposition to the determined eagerness that she’d at all times fallen again into.

One thing inside her trembled as if she stood on a precipice. She opened her eyes for a second to search out Gar sighing her title, his good-looking face twisted with want and pleading.

Pleading.

He feared she’d say no.

She by no means wished him to assume she ever wished to say no.

With a tiny cry, Rika clung to his shoulders, however let her head fall again, and for the primary time in her life, she let herself go—lastly. She put herself fully in his fingers and surrendered to no matter he may convey. As a result of she beloved him, and he beloved her, and she or he’d by no means felt safer with anybody.

She could not battle it anymore.

“I really like you, Gar,” she whispered, tears of pleasure pricking beneath her lashes.

And as he groaned the mating name and dropped his chin to style her throat, one thing inside her bloomed to life.