Page 85 of The Heart of Winter

Nice of him to say, but it only made me feel even more… responsible. I clenched my jaw. My entire personality, everything I had built over the years, resisted this. And yet…

Suddenly, I felt my dad’s hand squeeze mine hard, snapping me out of the negativity.

"Hey… Winter! Follow what makes you feel alive. I hate seeing you so tightly tangled inside, almost frozen." His eyes were almost pleading.

I looked at him for a long moment, thinking.

"What is it like, Dad… to love like that? So intensely?" I whispered, embarrassed.

Emotions softened his face. He let go of my hand and took a sip from his cup.

"I didn’t know what love was before I met your father. I thought I wasn’t destined for it. But it means… everything, Winter. It’s here." He pointed to his chest. "It’s my heart. It beats with his melody. Your father’s."

His mouth was moving, but I didn’t understand a word he said. It sounded like poetry, something two-dimensional my brain couldn’t shape into anything palpable. And I had never liked poetry, preferring long lines of code.

But instinctively, against my better judgment, I lifted my hand and touched my chest, where the muffled thuds could be heard. Just a piece of flesh, how could it have any influence over my relationships? I couldn’t fathom it.

"Follow your heart, Winter. Always," my dad repeated in a whisper. "It will save you."

I hoped that one day, I’d understand what those words really meant. The irony was, very soon, I was about to find out.

***

The next day, I was woken up by the sound of a text message. I expected it to be Finn, with a follow-up on the Liam situation, but with some slight shock, I discovered it was from Sariel.

It didn’t have any words, just a drawing in his favorite manga style, depicting the elven prince, aka me, and him. Normally, it wouldn’t have been anything new.

Except this time, the characters were… making love.

Both naked, with shameless detail, and to his credit, I was on top, and he was bottoming. His stiff manhood also drawn, and it was quite… sizable. Yep.

My cheeks flushed hot as I stared at the details, for far longer than I probably should have, my own hand wandering toward my crotch, grasping my length.

Fuck. Should I? Probably not.

Or maybe?

The drawing was so… well done, so vivid—our faces deep in pleasure, our bodies melded in wild, intimate entanglement, that I just let it happen.

Embarrassed, I kept going, my eyes locked on the picture, my hand speeding up the movements…

It didn’t take long. Not at all.

After the sweet wave pierced my loins, bliss spread throughout my body, I lay there for a while, not even bothering to clean up, just basking in the heavy relaxation and… the delicious taste of something forbidden.

And then, just as I started to drift, my screen pulsed again with one more message.

"You jerked off, didn’t you?"

Fuck! I couldn’t stop myself from chuckling. So very… Sariel!

And then I sent back, "Yes."

A grinning emoji soon popped up on my screen.

***

Before the holidays ended and two days before my flight to Japan, I packed up to return to my apartment.

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