The bond surges in response.
Not just warmth now.
Need.
It floods through me again, but this time it isn’t edged with pain. It’s smoother and heavier. Like my body’s finally caught up and stopped fighting it.
Varek exhales against my mouth, a coarse, unsteady sound that I feel as much as hear.
“You feel it,” he murmurs, the words barely there between breaths.
“Yeah,” I manage, dragging in air that doesn’t quite feel like enough. “Hard not to.”
The heat rolls through me again, deeper now, settling low and coiling.
His hands shift, careful even now, sliding along my back, mapping me like he’s finally learning something he’s waited far too long to touch. There’s a tension in him still, but it’s different—less restrained, more focused.
“You will not be harmed,” he says quietly.
I huff a breath, pressing my nose briefly against his neck. “That your version of reassurance?” I inhale, goose bumps breaking out when I take in his scent.
How the hell does he smell so damn good?
“Yes.”
“Right,” I mutter. “Good to know.”
I should ask more. Should slow this down.
Should—
I don’t. Because my body has already made the decision, and maybe, for once, I’m not fighting it.
I press a kiss against his neck, then angle up, catching his mouth in another kiss—slower this time, deeper, letting myself feel it properly. The heat between us builds with every second.
I slide my hands up his chest, feeling the strength there, the firmness of his skin, the faint pulse of those markings that seem more alive now than before.
“Lube?” The question falls free from my lips. It seems like the only important question at the moment.
Fuck worrying about how he’s going to fit or what being knotted is going to feel like. I was made for him, right? And him for me? That means that this—us—we have to work. Have to fit.
Varek stills beneath me for half a breath, then his gaze softens in a way I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. “I will take care of you,” he says.
There’s no hesitation, simply that same grounded certainty he brings to everything.
Tension in my chest loosens at that. “Yeah?” I murmur, breath still uneven, pulse still hammering.
“Yes.”
The word settles deep.
His hand slides down my side again, slower this time, deliberate. Not just touching—assessing. Like he’s learning me properly now that I’ve let him.
The heat between us shifts again. I feel it more clearly now. It threads through my body, pooling low, responding to him in ways that make my thoughts feel a little slower, a little less important.
My body already knows. Already trusts.
“Here.”
