Page 163 of Ironling
“Say it.”
“Yours! I’m yours!”
He purred with pleasure, and his mouth claimed her in a hungry kiss, his tongue thrusting into her mouth as surely as his cock into her greedy cunt.
Their bodies met again and again in a litany of wet slaps, the sound and smell of sex filling the room. Noises escaped her lips, mewls and groans and pleas for more, harder,yes. She demanded everything and she received it, her halfling taking her with a relentlessness that left her breathless. His body was always in motion, rolling like the tide against her.
Slick and spend leaked from where they joined, easing his way. His thrusts grew quicker, his rhythm breaking apart. A tendon in his neck stuck out in stark relief, his arm muscles bunching as he held himself above her and pistoned his hips in mindless, decadent mating.
Aislinn clutched at his great chest, digging her fingers into the meat of muscle. His heart pounded beneath her hands, and his purr vibrated across her palms.
“Hakon!”
“Come for me,vinya.Let me have this until I can strip you from your wedding gown tonight.”
The image and the promise of it pushed her over the edge into perfect pleasure. She writhed with it, milking his cock anddrawing him impossibly deeper. Her fingers clung to him like talons as she came apart at the seams, vision going blurry and heart pounding so hard, it surely would break from her chest.
Folding his arms around her, he dropped his chest to hers and pounded inside. He didn’t spare her from the onslaught of his need, and she wrapped her legs around his hips, taking, wanting it all. He moaned her name into her neck as he came, lashing her with ropes of hot, sticky spend.
Aislinn groaned, cunt clenching him tight with aftershocks as he gave her his release.
When he was spent, he slumped into her, and she gladly took his weight. She enjoyed the crush of his great body, liked feeling totally and utterly surrounded. He was her protection, her buffer—and she didn’t think she could go without him ever again.
As their bodies cooled and came down from the heights of pleasure, Aislinn gently ran her fingertips along the side of his head and pressed a kiss to the other.
“I love you, Hakon.”
With a rumbling purr, he picked up his head to gaze at her, his eyes gone soft.
“I love you, Aislinn, my heart, my everything.”
“Are you ready to marry me today?”
“Nothing will stop me.”
Many hours and layers of fabric and hair pins later, Aislinn stood just inside the doors to Dundúran Castle with her father. The people of the Darrowlands had gathered in the castle courtyard, spilling out into the city itself, having come to see the wedding of the heiress and blacksmith.
Her stomach knotted with nerves, but they didn’t overwhelm her. The emotions were all good—and she knew, in a few short moments, she’d be with her halfling.
From outside, they heard a great boom of applause start up.
“Almost time,” said Merrick.
Aislinn drew alongside her father, tucking her hand into the crook of his elbow. He covered it with his own.
“He’s not what I imagined for you, kit,” Merrick admitted quietly, “but he’s everything I’d hoped.”
She smiled up at her father, effervescent with joy. They had gone through so much together. Even before Jerrod disgraced himself, it often felt like it was just the two of them. It was why, for so long, she thought her father could do no wrong. That he was perfect and she had to hold herself, and Jerrod, to his standard.
Aislinn understood now that her father was a man—one who made mistakes. She loved him the more for it, even if there was a part of her that had yet to forgive him for his last campaign. He’d promised her never again, and every day he held to that promise. It would take time and trust to heal the heartbreak, but she had more than enough love for her father to see it through.
It helped that they were now a family of three. Hakon was the partner she could have only dreamed about. To be sure, they had their days of disagreements. He hadn’t taken immediately to the work of future lord consort, and it’d required effort to find a balance between supporting her and continuing his work. He was truly talented at the forge and didn’t wish to give it up.
Now, he focused on teaching the apprentices. Two more had been added to the castle smithy, and it was his duty to ensure they were taught properly, allowing the other smiths more time to see to other business.
He also worked with Captain Aodhan and the garrison on shoring up the Darrowlands’ defenses to ensure nothing like Jerrod’s coup happened again. He forged good relations with the guild-masters, particularly the smiths and stonemasons. He acted as an envoy with the growing otherly village founded on the land he’d bought, bringing their news and issues directly toAislinn.
All of it, though, had taken time and sacrifice. He was perhaps even more uncomfortable than her in courtly functions. He’d needed thorough teaching about manners, customs, and tact, and Aislinn wasn’t the best tutor, as she hardly understood them herself. There were times during banquets that she used his hand-talk under the table to help him understand the conversations around them.
