“JingYi . . .” Her name was a prayer, a plea. His scent—spruce and iron—erupted around her, wild and desperate.
She ventured deeper, relaxing her throat. She found a rhythm—suck, release, swirl of the tongue—watching his responses. The twitch of his thighs under her hands. The choked gasp when she flicked her tongue. The helpless thrust of his hips he tried to stifle.
“I can’t—I’m losing—” he babbled, voice stripped raw.
When he tried to pull back, her hands on his hips held him firm. He sobbed in relief, surrendering to her hold.
She took him deeper, her pace turning hungry. He was chanting her name now, his control in tatters.
“I’m going to—please?—”
One of his hands tore from the bed frame to cradle the back of her head, fingers tangling in her hair. She took as much of him as she could, holding him there, swallowing around him, and felt the moment he broke.
A raw cry tore from his throat. His body locked. His climax hit—hot and pulsing—onto her tongue. He shook through it with ragged moans.
Even as he finished, he didn’t pull away. His hand loosened in her hair, his touch softening to a caress. He lingered, spent and shuddering. She soothed him with gentle laps until a final shudder washed over him and he slipped from her lips.
He collapsed to the side, body heaving, face buried in the pillow beside her head. The only sounds were the creak of the settling bed and his shattered breath.
She turned onto her side and slid her palms over his back—muscles flexing beneath his skin, ridges of old scars she didn’t yet know. He turned his head, eyes wrecked, stripped of all defences. He kissed her again, deep and searching. She pressed her hips against him, already slick and humming from bringing him to his knees.
His body answered instantly, growing harder against her thigh, an insistent heat. The Alpha in him would not rest until his Omega was sated.
“Tell me what you need,” he rasped against her lips.
His hand slid between her legs, fingers stroking her, feeling the proof of her desire. She was slick, hot, and she arched into his touch with a sharp cry. Her hand slid down, wrapping around him.
“You,” she said, her voice husky. “Just you.”
A feral sound ripped from his throat. He moved over her, a study in barely leashed power.
“On your side, Wife,” he told her.
He guided her so her spine pressed against the solid wall of his torso, her head tucking just under his chin. The feeling was one of absolute containment—a warm shelter so complete it felt like the world ended at the edges of his skin. His hands were all over her, possessive, mapping the fuller curve of her hips, the dip of her waist, the softness of her belly that hadn’t been there when they first met. Then, he carefully drew her right leg up over his hip, cradling it, keeping her safe. One arm banded around her waist, locking her against him. With his other hand, he guided himself to her entrance, the head catching on her slick folds.
She whimpered when he pushed into her—a gradual, stretching fullness, a sensation so profoundly familiar yet completely new. There was no pain, only the intense, consuming feeling of being filled by him. Her mind, so often a whirl of worries and memory, wentsilent. There was only this: the heatof him, the solidity, the shocking rightness of being opened and claimed. He sank deeper, and she gasped, her body adjusting, remembering him, welcoming him. Halfway in, he stilled, his whole body going rigid, reading her every breath.
“Don’t stop,” she breathed, her voice shaky, nails scratching at his forearm.
The rest was no slow, gentle glide. He pulled his hips back and drove into her in one deep, claiming thrust. JingYi cried out, head snapping back against his shoulder. The stretch of him stole her breath—full, overwhelming, anchoring.
He stilled there, in the deepest part of her. Both of them shaking.
Then, he began to move. This was nothing like their first joining. That had been in the frantic, blinding grip of her Heat—a necessary collision driven by scent and instinct. This was achoice. Each powerful thrust was a desperate reclamation. A vow.
I am here.
With you.
Always.
Each drive of his hips struck that same deep place over and over until her thoughts scattered. It was too much, yet her body answered with frantic eagerness, pushing back, fluttering each time he reached that point, as though trying to anchor him there.
His control was fraying, his thrusts more urgent. His hand slid around her hip, his fingers finding the aching center of her pleasure, twisting, circling. Her climax broke over her, a silent, searing wave. Her body bowed against his, a broken cry caught in her throat as pleasure claimed her, white-hot and absolute. She shook with the force of it, muscles fluttering around him.
The pulses of her release began to subside, leaving her boneless and spent. Yet, within her, he remained unyieldingly hard, a thick, persistent presence. A delirious thought surfaced:He’s not done.But before she could process it, he began to withdraw.
A ragged sound, nearly a growl, tore from her throat at the loss, her body clutching instinctively at his retreat. A pure, undiluted need.
