“If you stop now, I will end you and it won’t be metaphorical.”
He pulled the lace down her legs. Pressed his mouth to the inside of her knee. The inside of her thigh. She trembled. His breath was hot and he could smell her arousal now—rich and sharp beneath the vanilla, a scent that made the wolf rise to the surface and his vision narrow.
He parted her thighs. Settled between them. Pressed his mouth to the center of her.
Her hips bucked. She gripped his head—gripping, guiding, holding him where she needed him. He tasted her—salt and heat and the intimate sweetness that was purely Lumi—and made a sound into her that vibrated through them both. She was wet. Swollen. Responsive in ways that told him everything about what she needed without a single word.
He gave it to her. His tongue traced her—slow, exploring at first. Learning the map of her pleasure the same way he’d learned her creative process: with patience and total attention. He found the places that made her thighs clench around his head. The rhythm that made her breathing fracture. The pressure that made her hips lift off the bed.
“Zeir—” His name came out broken. “Right there, don’t—don’t you dare?—”
He didn’t dare stop. He held her hips with one hand, steadied her, and worked her with his mouth until her whole body tightened like a drawn bow. Her thighs shook. Her grip fisted inhis hair. She came with his name on her lips and her back arched clean off the mattress.
He didn’t stop immediately. Eased her through it—lighter now, gentler, kissing the trembling skin of her inner thigh while her breathing came in ragged gasps. She pulled at his shoulders.
“Get up here.”
He rose over her. She kissed him—deep, tasting herself on his tongue and not caring, which cracked his composure at the foundation. Her hands found his belt. Worked it open. The zipper. She pushed his remaining clothes down and wrapped her hand around him and his vision went white at the edges.
“Lumi—”
“I’ve got you.” Her grip was firm and certain and she stroked him—long, slow, her thumb dragging over the sensitive head in a way that made his arms buckle. She watched his face while she did it. The same analytical focus she brought to every page she’d ever drawn, now applied to taking him apart.
He caught her wrist. “I need to be inside you.”
“That’s the most direct thing you’ve ever said.”
“I’m done being indirect.”
She guided him. The first press of him against her entrance—slick, hot—made them both stop breathing. He pushed forward. Slow. Watching her face for every flicker. Her lips parted. Her eyes widened. She exhaled a long, shuddering breath as he filled her, and the sound she made was so intimate and unguarded that it carved itself into his permanent memory.
He held still. Buried inside her. Their foreheads touching. Her breath came fast and shallow.
“Hi.” Barely a breath.
“Hi.”
“This is the part where you stop being careful.”
He pulled back. Thrust forward. Her gasp filled the room.
The rhythm built slow and then it wasn’t slow anymore. Her hips rose to meet every stroke. Her legs wrapped around him, ankles crossed behind him, pulling him deeper. The angle changed and she cried out—sharp, surprised, the kind of sound that rewired his nervous system. He drove into that angle again. Again. She bit his shoulder to muffle the noise and the sting of her teeth pushed him closer to an edge he was fighting to hold.
She was vocal. Honest. Directing him with her body—her hips tilting, her hands gripping his ass, pulling him harder into her. When he slowed to regain control, she raked her nails down his spine and whispered “Don’t you dare” into his ear in a voice that left no room for restraint.
He gave her everything. The controlled precision that defined him came apart and what replaced it was raw and rhythmic and focused entirely on the sounds she made and the way her body tightened around him every time he hit the place that made her forget English.
“Zeir—I’m—” Her voice cracked.
He could feel it—her body coiling, her breathing fracturing, the way she gripped him from the inside. He braced himself over her. Rolled his hips—deep, deliberate, grinding into the spot that made her arch. “Let go.”
She shattered. The orgasm ripped through her in waves—her body clenching rhythmically around him, her nails scoring his shoulders, her cry buried in the curve of his neck. He watched her face through it. The abandon. The vulnerability. The naked, unguarded pleasure of a woman who trusted him with the most undefended version of herself.
The wolf surged. Not the shift—he held that. But the heightened senses that amplified every sensation until her body felt like the only reality. Her scent flooded him: arousal and salt and the sweetness beneath. And beneath it all, the deep biological certainty that this woman was his.
His lips found the curve of her shoulder. The muscle between neck and joint. The place where every wolf in every generation had known to mark.
“Lumi.” Her name on her skin. A question and a warning.
