"Good," he gasped. "So good. Don't stop." I didn't stop. I stroked him slowly, learning what made him gasp, what made him curse, what made his hips buck up seeking more friction. He was gorgeous like this—flushed and desperate and completely undone.
"I want—" He reached for me, and the first touch of his warm hand on my cock made me groan. "Can I—"
"Yes. Anything. Everything."
We moved together, hands finding rhythm, mouths trading desperate kisses. The contrast of temperatures—his warmth against my cold—made everything sharper, more intense. Every point of contact felt electric, his heat seeping into my frozen skin while my cold made him shiver and gasp in ways that had nothing to do with discomfort.
"You feel incredible," I breathed against his throat, my hand working him faster now, thumb sliding through the wetness gathering at his tip. "So warm. So alive."
"Taz—" His grip on me tightened reflexively. "I'm close. I'm—"
"Let go." I kissed him hard, swallowing his moan. "I've got you."
He came apart in my arms, spilling hot over my cold fingers, his whole body shuddering as he pressed his face into my shoulder and made sounds that I would remember for the rest of my life. Beautiful sounds. Desperate sounds. The sounds of someone finally letting themselves feel safe enough to fall.
His hand never stopped moving on me, even through his own release, and the combination of his warmth and his touch and the way he whispered my name against my skin pushed me over the edge moments later. The cold that usually spread through me when I lost control stayed contained, locked down by something I didn't fully understand—my dragon settled and certain in a way it had never been before.
We lay there in the aftermath, breathing hard, limbs tangled together on his narrow bed. His head rested on my chest, and I could feel him tracing patterns on my skin, mapping the cold the way I'd mapped his warmth.
"You're still freezing," he murmured.
"I know."
"It doesn't bother you? Being this cold all the time?"
I considered the question, running my fingers through his hair. "It used to. When I was younger, I thought something was wrong with me. That I was broken somehow."
"And now?"
"Now..." I pressed a kiss to the top of his head. "Now I'm starting to think maybe I was just waiting for someone warm enough to balance me out."
He lifted his head, meeting my eyes with an expression so open it made my chest ache. "That's either the most romantic thing anyone's ever said to me, or the cheesiest."
"Can't it be both?"
His laugh was soft, genuine. "Yeah. I guess it can."
We cleaned up eventually—his bathroom was tiny, barely room for one person, but we managed—and then we were backin his bed, wrapped around each other in the darkness. I should have gone home. Should have given us both space to process what had just happened.
Instead, I stayed.
"Taz?" His voice was sleepy, muffled against my shoulder.
"Yeah?"
"Thank you. For tonight. For all of it."
"You don't have to thank me."
"I know." He shifted closer, his warmth seeping into my cold bones. "But I wanted to anyway."
I held him tighter, my dragon purring contentedly beneath my ribs, and for the first time in thirty years, the cold didn't feel like a curse.
It felt like coming home.
Cinder
The flight was smoother than the last one—or maybe I just felt smoother, still wrapped in the memory of Taz's cold hands and cool lips and the way he'd looked at me like I was something worth having.