Page 373 of Immune

I push even deeper, slow and deliberate. Her body takes me inch by inch, hot and tight and shaking. My forehead drops to hers, and I hear every breath. Every wet slide. Every small broken sound she tries to swallow and fails.

The bond between us stops being quiet pretty soon after that. Instead, it grows deep. Still calm at its center, but now it spreads through me as I move inside her, each thrust careful at first. Then less careful when she wraps her legs around my hips and pulls me closer.

Her mouth opens against my shoulder. “Xeon.”

I’ve wanted many things in my life. Safety. Silence. A place where the past can’t reach. But I have never wanted anything like this. Never wanted anything so badly. Not just her body, but her trust and choice and the way she looks at me while the others touch her, love her, hold her. She doesn’t have to worry about losing me in the room because the room itself is ours now. It belongs to us.

Ewan kisses along her arm, murmuring filthy praise between sweet nonsense until Dakota is laughing and moaning at once. Kaito’s fingers find her clit again, precise and merciless, and she clenches around me so hard my vision flashes white.Fletcher’s hand wraps around her throat lightly, not pressure, not control, only presence, and Dakota turns her face into his palm like she has chosen even that.

“Look at me, darlin’,” Fletcher says.

She does.

“Still yours?”

Her eyes shine. “Still mine.”

“Good girl.”

Dakota shatters apart around me not even a second later. The praise, the touch, Kaito’s fingers, Ewan’s mouth, me inside her, all of it folds together and sends her over. She cries out, body arching, walls clamping down on me tightly, and heat crashing through the pack bond so fiercely every Alpha in the room groans.

I follow after her, unable to help myself when my knot swells enough to brush the pulsing lock I desperately want to sink into. I just can’t hold back. Not from this. Not from her. The climax practically tears through me silently at first, then with her name against her throat as I spill inside her. My knot bulges until it aches right before her lock swallows me down, fusing us together tight enough that I see stars behind my eyelids.

Dakota’s gasp breaks against my shoulder and I go still. Every part of me goes still.

“Too much?” I ask, voice rough.

Her nails dig into my back. “Oh my god, no.”

Her words vibrate through the new bond, but not with fear or panic. It’s just pure want and unbridled need.Choice. Mine, hers,ours. The bond locks deeper, frost and steel pounded straight into warmth and wild honey and rain. It’s driven right into a pack that opens around us and doesn’t close like a trap.

I collapse carefully, shifting my weight off her as much as the lock allows.

Dakota grabs me before I can move too far.

“Nope,” she whispers.

So I stay.

Long enough for her to breathe against me.

Long enough for Ewan to kiss her shoulder and whisper, “There you are.”

Long enough for Kaito to press his mouth to the outside of her knee, reverent and careful.

Long enough for Fletcher to close his eyes like the sight of her breathing is enough to ruin him.

Then the heat pulls again and Dakota’s lashes lift. Her smile is tired and filthy and past the point of dangerous as she pants, “That was one.”

Ewan makes a wounded sound. “One?”

She looks at him. “So you can count. That’s cute. I believe in you.”

His grin turns wicked. “Probably a terrible choice for you to make, love.”

The rest of the night after becomes touch and sound and choice. Not just one moment, but many.

Dakota’s heat completely meddles with time. The room fills with moans and grunts and groans and every sound that drives us all mad. We’re all hands, mouths, panted breaths, and deep, helpless pulls of her lock clamping down on our knots until we’re spent and slick with sweat. Every knot gives her a moment to stop instead of panic. A moment to breathe. A moment to be held. A moment where Dakota decides if she wants more, less, water, a laugh, a kiss, or someone’s hand to squeeze until their bones start crying.