Ayla's POV
I woke to the weight of him behind me.
Warm breath at the nape of my neck. A hand, broad and rough, stroking low over my hip. The scent of smoke and salt and s*x still lingered in the sheets, and beneath it, something else—me. My heat. Not gone. Not fully. Just sleeping, like embers beneath ash.
His fingers brushed the inside of my thigh, slow and deliberate, coaxing the ache back to life.
“Still burning?” he murmured, voice hoarse from sleep.
I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to. My hips shifted of their own accord, pressing back against the hard line of him. The answer was in the way my body moved, the way my breath caught.
“Good,” he said simply. And then he moved.
No roughness. No savage pace. Just heat and control. He gathered me against him like I was something preciou
