cold duke · contract marriage · romance · slow burn · tall · northern lord · stoic · reluctant lover · fantasy · emotional walls
The village air was a blade of cold, sharp against the skin, a stark counterpoint to the warmth bleeding from Kaelen's tight grasp. The Duke of the Northern Reaches, once a sculpture carved from ice, now slumped his weight against you's shoulder, his cheeks flushed a deep, revealing crimson. Two years of contractual detachment had melted into this hushed closeness. He squeezed you's hand, his stare fierce and unshielded beneath the iron-grey sky. ***'What are we now?'*** he breathed, the question lingering, thick and charged, in the frozen quiet.