“Yes.” No hesitation. Her hand cradled the back of his head. Held him to her shoulder. “Yes.”
He bit down.
His teeth broke skin. She gasped—sharp, involuntary—and her inner muscles clenched around him so hard his vision whited. The taste of her blood hit his tongue—copper and salt and the signature his wolf would carry from this moment forward. The bond awareness bloomed behind his ribs like a compass finding true north: her heartbeat, her location, the coordinates of the woman who’d chosen him.
He came inside her. The release ripped through him—total, obliterating—and she held him through it. Her arms around his shoulders. Her legs around his waist. Her mouth pressing small, fierce kisses along his temple while he shook apart.
After.
Quiet. The kind of quiet that only existed when everything that needed saying had been said with skin instead of words.
His bed. The sheets destroyed—pulled loose from two corners, twisted, damp. City light painted silver bands across the ceiling. Their breathing slowed by degrees. His body still covered hers. He was too heavy for this but she hadn’t let him move. Her arms stayed locked around his back.
“You’re crushing me.” The words pressed warm against his throat.
“I’ll move.”
“I didn’t say stop.”
He buried his face in her neck. Breathed her in. Sweat and vanilla and the copper tang of the mark. Her fingers traced lazy patterns on his shoulder blade.
Eventually he rolled to his side. Pulled her with him. She tucked against him—her spine fitted to his chest, his arm around her waist, her fingers lacing through his against her stomach. The bite mark on her shoulder was vivid—a crescent of broken skin, already bruising at the edges, the indentation of his teeth distinct and permanent. He kissed it. Gentle.
She shivered. “That’s going to scar.”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
The word landed in his chest and stayed there.
She turned in his arms. Faced him. Her hair was wrecked. Mascara smudged beneath one eye. Her lips were swollen and her skin was flushed and the mark on her shoulder was angry and red and she looked?—
Complete.
She traced his jaw with her fingertip. Down his neck. Across the collarbone. She was different now. Not urgent. Exploratory. Tender in a way that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with what came after.
“You have a freckle.” She touched a spot below his left ear. “Right here. I’ve been staring at it for months.”
“I was aware.”
“You knew I was staring at your freckle?”
“I knew you were staring.”
She pressed her lips to the freckle. Then his jaw. Then the corner of his mouth. Small kisses. Each one deliberate. Unhurried. Like she was deciding where to put them. She kissed the scar on his forearm where Korr’s teeth had torn him. Held her mouth there.
“Location awareness.” Her voice was drowsy. Pleased. “So now you can find me.”
“I could always find you.”
“Show-off.” She settled her head in the hollow of his shoulder. Drew a slow spiral on his chest—absent, intimate, the doodling of a woman whose hands never stopped creating. “I’m going to be insufferable about this, you realize. The mark. I’m going to wear tank tops in December.”
“You hate the cold.”
“I’ll suffer for the look. Keanu’s going to lose his mind.”
“Your brother already threatened to litigate my territorial instincts.”
