“Maybe that’s all we’re good for,” I shoot back, the words crueler than I intend. “Fighting and fucking.”
Her jaw tightens. “Maybe because we never gave ourselves a chance to be anything else. You left, and neither of us was brave enough to break the silence. I thought you moved on, got over me?—"
“I was never over you!” I shout, the confession tearing out of me. “That’s the problem! I tried to be, God knows I tried, but I never was!”
Her anger deflates, replaced by something softer, something sadder. “Griffin…”
I step closer, my hand finding its way to her throat, my fingers tracing the bite mark I gave her all those years ago. “Were you marked by someone else?” I ask, and it sounds dangerous. ‘Did you let him mark you?”
“No,” she whispers, her eyes wide.
“Good.”
And then I kiss her.
Her lips part under mine, and I know I’m lost. I’m completely and utterly lost.
The kiss is a collision, a crash of three years of unspoken things. It’s not gentle or sweet; it’s teeth and tongue and desperation.
Her hands are in my hair, her nails scraping against my scalp, and I’m pulling her closer, trying to erase the space between us, trying to crawl back inside her where I once belonged.
The frantic buzzing that’s been living under my skin since I saw her at the door—the anxiety, the anger, the confusion—it all just stops. It goes silent, replaced by a singular, overwhelming need.
My hand finds her ponytail, the soft strands wrapping around my fingers. I twist it around my wrist, a makeshift leash, and pull her head back just enough to break the kiss.
She gasps, her eyes fluttering open, dark and unfocused. Her scent hits me then, stronger than before, but underneath it, something else. Something warm and familiar, like coming home after a long, hard winter.
It’s the scent of her magic, of her Omega nature, and it sparks a tension deep in my gut, a pull that feels ancient and undeniable. It’s bond tension, a phantom limb of a connection that was supposed to be severed. It confuses me, muddies my anger.
I don’t give myself time to think about it. I lower my head to her neck, my lips tracing the frantic pulse beating there. I can feel the faint, raised ridge of the bite mark, the one I gave her on a night thick with youthful passion and the kind of certainty that only a fool possesses.
I run my tongue over it, a lick that tastes of salt and her skin. She shudders against me, a full-body tremor that has nothing to do with cold.
“Griffin,” she breathes, my name a prayer and a curse.
I don’t answer. Words are useless now. I lift her, my hands under her thighs, and she wraps her legs around my waist without hesitation. It’s an old, familiar dance. I carry her the few steps to the kitchen counter, setting her down on the cool granite. The long T-shirt she’s wearing bunches around her hips, revealing the soft, pale skin of her thighs.
I can’t look away. I can’t breathe.
I drop to my knees in front of her, the glass from the broken bottle crunching under my boots. I don’t care. All that matters is her. I push her thighs apart, my hands gripping her hips, and I look up at her. Her head is thrown back, her neck a long, elegant curve, her hands braced against the edge of the counter. She’s already breathing hard, her chest rising and falling with each ragged breath.
I don’t wait for an invitation. I lean in and press my mouth against the thin cotton of her pajama shorts, right where she’s hottest. She makes a sound, a choked little gasp, and her hips buck against my face.
I hook my fingers in the waistband of her shorts and, with her help, pull them down, tossing them aside. And then she’s bare, open to me, and the sight of her almost undoes me completely.
I’ve always been good at this. I learned early on how to read her body, how to translate her gasps and shivers into a language I understood. I use that knowledge now, my tongue tracing circles, my fingers finding the sensitive bundle of nerves just above her entrance. I’m not gentle. I’m not teasing. I’m claiming. I’m reminding her, and myself, exactly who she belongs to.
Her hands fly from the counter to my hair, her fingers tangling in the strands, holding me in place. Her legs tighten around my shoulders, her heels digging into my back.
“Holy fuck,” she cries out as the first orgasm hits her.
I don’t stop.
I can’t.
I push her through it, my tongue and fingers working in tandem, drawing out her pleasure until she’s shaking, until she’s begging me to stop, until she comes again, this time a deeper, more powerful release that floods my senses.
I feel myself swell, a painful, urgent ache in my pants. As her second orgasm wracks her body, as she cries out my name like a litany, I come too, a hot, messy rush that soaks my boxers.
