24.2

“Let me show you,” she whispered.
He didn’t answer with words, only watched her with a look so adoring it made her heart ache. She bent toward him slowly, lips brushing the curve of his collarbone, tasting salt and the faint hint of smoke from the fire. Her kisses were slow at first, exploratory.
Kalmin’s chest rose sharply under her touch. His muscles tensed when her tongue flicked along a sensitive place just beneath his ribs, and a low, broken sound escaped him—half a curse, half a moan. She smiled against his skin, soft and sure, as if she’d just discovered a secret.
Nuri trailed lower, dragging her lips down the ridge of his abdomen, pausing with every inch to map him with her mouth. Her hands followed, palms spread wide like she was learning every plane of him by memory. And in a way, she was. This wasn’t about repayment. This wasn’t even about desire—not fully. It was about devotion. About answering his tenderness with her own.
“Don’t hold back,” she whispered, breath warm against the line where muscle met hip. “Not with me.”
Kalmin’s fingers twisted into the pelt beneath him, jaw tight as he struggled to stay still. “I’m trying not to.”
She lifted her gaze to his, and whatever he saw in her eyes made something inside him crack open.
“Don’t try,” she murmured. “Just feel.”
She kissed the inside of his thigh slowly, almost lazily, until his hips shifted in quiet surrender. And then, without hesitation, she took him into her mouth, slow and careful and full of reverence. His breath hitched sharply. The hand he brought to her head wasn’t demanding—it was grounding, trembling slightly as his fingers threaded through her hair. He held her like she was holy. Like this moment might undo him.
And it did.
Every slow stroke of her tongue, every swirl and flick and subtle shift of rhythm, was meant to unravel him. She watched him fall apart for her—watched the control drain from his body piece by piece as soft groans slipped free, low and guttural. He wasn’t gentle now. Not in the way he gasped, or the way his hips jerked toward her mouth despite the way he tried to hold back. But there was never violence in it. Only need.
“Gods, Nuri…” he breathed, voice hoarse, reverent.
Her name in that tone undid her completely. She took him deeper, adjusting to every new sound he gave her, until his breath came in ragged bursts and his fingers fisted the pelt like he needed something to anchor him to this world.
She didn’t stop. Not until his body trembled beneath her. Not until his voice cracked around her name again, whispered like a vow. Not until he came undone in her mouth, raw and helpless and wholly hers.
Only then did she ease off him, gentle as ever, her lips brushing softly over his stomach before she crawled back up beside him. Kalmin caught her like he’d been waiting for her to return to him—one arm around her waist, the other threading shakily through her hair as he pulled her flush against his chest.
His voice trembled when he said her name. “Nuri…”
She nestled into him, her cheek against the warm curve of his shoulder, lips grazing his throat. “I meant it,” she whispered into the quiet between heartbeats. “You’re mine too.”
Kalmin exhaled hard, like something deep inside him finally let go.
Outside, the wind howled softly through the trees, a lonely lullaby to the night. But in the den, wrapped in shadows and the scent of fire and skin and something far more ancient than lust, they stayed. Tangled. Breathless. Whole.
Two souls, no longer lost. Just found—in each other.