“Less talking.” She pulled at his shirt, buttons scattering. “More claiming.”
A growl rumbled in his chest—the predator rising to the surface. He lifted her, and she wrapped her legs around his waist as he carried her to the bed, laying her down with a reverence that surprised them both.
“This is permanent.” He braced himself above her. His eyes had gone darker, the beast bleeding through. “You understand what that means? Once I mark you?—”
“I’m counting on it.” She pulled him down. “Make me yours, Leo. I’ve been waiting long enough.”
Control.
He’d spent his entire life cultivating it. Worshipping it. Believing that discipline was the only thing standing between him and the chaos that had destroyed his father.
Now, with Junie beneath him—willing and his—he let it go.
He kissed down her throat, her collarbone, the swell of her breasts. She arched into him, making sounds that went straight to his cock, her hands dragging through his hair. He unclasped her bra, baring her to his gaze, and took his time with her breasts—his tongue circling one nipple while his fingers teased the other.
“Leo—please?—”
“Not yet.” He kissed lower, down her stomach, pausing at the waistband of her underwear. “I want to taste you first.”
He pulled the silk down her legs and settled between her thighs. One long, slow stroke of his tongue, and her entire body arched off the bed. He ate her with dedication, with focus, with all the obsessive attention to detail he’d once reserved for business deals. His tongue circled her clit, then dipped inside her, then returned to that sensitive bundle of nerves while two fingers slid into her wetness.
She came with a cry, her thighs clamping around his ears, her hands fisted in his hair. He worked her through it, gentling his touch as the aftershocks rippled through her body.
“Good,” he murmured against her inner thigh. “Now we’re ready.”
He stripped off his remaining clothes and crawled up her body. She watched him with dark eyes, her gaze dropping to his cock, standing thick and ready.
“I love you.” The words came out before he could stop them. He’d never said them before—not to her, not to anyone. “I love you, Junie.”
Her eyes went bright. “I love you too, you impossible man.”
He positioned himself at her entrance and pushed inside slowly, inch by inch. The sensation was overwhelming—not the physical pleasure alone, but the knowledge that this was real. That she’d chosen him. That after tonight, everything would be different.
He began to move. Long, deep strokes that made her gasp and arch beneath him. She demanded faster, harder, and he gave her everything she asked for. The rhythm built, relentless and primal, two people who’d spent their lives holding back finally letting go.
“Harder,” she demanded, and he obliged, driving into her with enough force to make the headboard slam against the wall. “Yes—god, yes—right there?—”
The creature inside him was close to the surface now. He could feel the shift pressing at his skin, the animal demanding what the human had been denying. The claiming. The bite. The bond that would seal them for life.
He felt his fangs lengthening, the predator bleeding through. His mouth found the curve of her shoulder—the spot he’d grazed their first night, the spot he’d been dreaming about ever since.
“Do it,” she breathed. “Make it real.”
The pleasure built to an impossible peak. Leo felt Junie tightening around him, heard her cries growing higher and more desperate. She was close—they both were—and the beast inside him roared with primal need.
At the exact moment she shattered beneath him, Leo sank his teeth into her shoulder.
The bite broke skin, drawing blood, his fangs marking her in the most primal way possible. Magic surged between them—ancient and wild, power older than language. Junie screamed, her body convulsing around him, and Leo came with a roar that shook the windows.
The bond snapped into place like a key turning in a lock.
For a long moment, there was nothing but sensation. Heat and magic and the taste of her blood on his tongue—not disturbing but right, the claiming instinct satisfied at last.
Then, slowly, awareness returned.
He was still inside her, still braced above her, his teeth finally releasing her shoulder. The wound was already healing, edges knitting into a scar that would never fade. His mark. Permanent. Forever.
“Junie?” His voice came out wrecked, barely recognizable.
