I pull my hand away and push into her. One thrust, deep, and it’s like sliding into heaven. She’s tight, hot, her body clenching around me, and the sensation is so intense my arms nearly give.
“God! Oh, my God!” Her legs wrap around my hips. Her heels press into my lower back. She wants the weight of me, the force, the man who’s been held down and held back and is finished being careful.
I move. Hard. Deep. The bed frame protests. The headboard bumps the wall, and neither of us cares. Her nails rake my shoulders, my back, and the sting of it mixes with the heat of her until I can’t separate pain from pleasure. I don’t want to.
The hum builds. The low vibration from before—the one that flickered the lights and trembled the glass—rises with every thrust. I can feel it spreading through my body into hers, through her body back into mine. A feedback loop that amplifies everything. Every nerve. Every point of contact. Every sound she makes that I swallow with my mouth on hers.
She breaks the kiss. “I can feel it,” she gasps. “That thing you do. It’s…”
“I know.”
“Don’t stop.”
I don’t.
I pin her wrists above her head. Because she told me to take, and the wolf wants her held, wants her pinned, wants her knowing who she belongs to. Her eyes go wide. Her pulse jumps under my fingers where I hold her wrists, and the scent that rises off her skin isn’t fear.
“More,” she says. “I want to feel more of you.”
I drive harder. Faster. The angle shifts when I lift one of her legs higher on my hip.
“Oh! Fuck!” she gasps. “Deep… You’re so deep.” Her back arches, breasts thrust out, nipples brushing against my chest like hard little nubs.
The vibration swells between us. The bedside lamp flickers. The water in the bathroom stops dripping, and the silence underneath is filled with the hum…the frequency we make together, the sound of two bodies tuned to the same note.
I’m close. She is, too. I can feel it in the way her body tightens around me, the way her breathing goes short and sharp, the way her wrists strain against my grip.
My mouth finds her throat.
My teeth find the place.Thatplace. The junction of her neck and shoulder. The place where the wolf marks what belongs to him. The skin is thin over the muscle, her pulse hammering underneath, and the instinct is so strong my jaw locks. My teeth sharpen and press into her skin. The pressure builds. One more ounce, and the skin will break, and the bond will seal, and she will be mine in a way that nothing can undo.
She tips her head. Baring her throat. Giving me access. She knows what this is. She wants it.
“Yes,” she breathes. “Yes. Do it.” Her body is taut against me, tight with anticipation.
I pull back.
The effort of it nearly tears me apart. My jaw aches from clenching. My teeth leave red marks on her skin that don’t bleed. The wolf howls…a sound inside my chest that has no outlet, no expression, just the raw grief of wanting something and choosing not to take it.
Sable’s eyes fly open. “Why—?”
“Not yet.” My voice is shredded. I’m still inside her, still hard, still shaking with the effort of stopping. “When I do that. When I mark you. I want it to be mine.”
“Itisyours.”
“Not yet.” I press my forehead against hers. “There are pieces of me that are still missing. Things she put in my body that I haven’t found yet.” My hand releases her wrists, finds her face, cups her cheek. “When I mark you, I want to know it’s me choosing. Not something she left behind. Not something broken.”
Sable’s jaw tenses. “You’re not broken.”
“I’m not whole yet either.”
“I don’t care—”
“I do.” I hold her eyes. “You deserve the man choosing from certainty. Not the wolf marking from fear.”
She stares at me. Her throat is red where my teeth pressed. Her hair is wild around her face. Her body is still wrapped around mine, still trembling with the orgasm she was about to have.
“That’s the most infuriating thing anyone’s ever said to me in bed,” she says.
