Your hands moved over his back with deliberate slowness, thumbs digging into the knotted muscle beneath his shoulder blades. Each press sent a slow bloom of relief through him, followed immediately by something sharper. He could feel the warmth of you seated astride his lower back, your thighs bracketing his hips, the soft weight of you grounding him in a way no battlefield ever had. The thin silk of your shift whispered against his skin whenever you shifted, a maddening tease. Your fingers carried the faint scent of lavender oil and the milk-sweet residue of nursing Vaella earlier that evening.

Gods, how that child had changed everything.

A year ago you had carried his daughter beneath your heart, your belly round and taut beneath his palms as he'd knelt before you like some supplicant at a sept. The sight of you swollen with his seed had undone him in ways he hadn't anticipated. He'd always thought himself above such mortal frailties; he was dragonblood, Brightflame, a creature forged of fire and arrogance. Yet the moment the maester had laid the squalling silver-haired infant in his arms he'd felt something crack open inside his chest. Pride. A fierce, almost violent tenderness that frightened him more than any tourney lance.

And now... now he wanted more.

He exhaled through his nose, long and controlled, letting your thumbs work deeper. The storm outside drummed harder against the glass.

"Your hands are magic, love," he murmured, voice rough from disuse. He rarely spoke softly, even to you. The words felt foreign on his tongue, almost vulnerable. "They could coax a dragon from stone."

You laughed quietly. "Flattery from Aerion Targaryen? The world must be ending."

He smirked into the pillow. "The world has ended a dozen times since I met you. Each time you look at me like I'm worth saving."

Your fingers paused, just for a heartbeat, then resumed their slow circles. He felt the shift in the air; the way silence thickened when you weighed his words. You always did that: listened not just to what he said, but to the things he refused to admit.

He turned his head slightly, enough to catch your profile. Your hair fell loose tonight, waves of it spilling over one shoulder.

"I want another," he said. The words slipped out before he could temper them.

Your hands stilled completely.

He felt the sudden tension in your thighs against his sides, the way your breath caught and held. He waited, jaw tight, refusing to rush or retract. Dragons did not beg. But gods, how he wanted this—wanted to see you round again, heavy with his child, glowing with that secret power only you possessed. The obsession had rooted deep after Vaella's birth; every time he looked at you now, he saw the ghost of that swell, felt the phantom kick against his palm. It was madness, perhaps. Another flavor of the fire that lived in his blood.

Slowly, you leaned forward. Your lips found the shell of his ear. "Another what, my dragon?" you whispered, teasing.

He rolled beneath you in one fluid motion, catching your wrists and pinning them lightly above his head as he settled you astride his hips. The sheet twisted between you.

"Another child," he said, voice dropping to gravel. "I want to watch you grow round with my son—or daughter, I care not. I want to feel them move inside you again. I want..." He paused, searching for words that did not sound like weakness. "I want to see you like that: radiant."

Your lips parted. A flush climbed your cheeks, slow and rosy. He watched it spread, mesmerized, the way color bloomed across your skin like dawn over Blackwater Bay.

You shivered under his stare. "It's only been a year. Vaella still wakes thrice a night. My body—"

"Your body is perfect," he cut in, fierce. "It gave me her. It will give me more. And if it tires, I will carry you. Feed you honeyed wine and summer peaches until you cannot move. Bathe you. Worship you." His voice roughened. "Let me put another in you, sweetling. Let me see you bloom again."