Page 85 of Final Drive

“Bo.”

“I got you.”

He puts his mouth between my legs and stays there past the point of reason. Long slow passes of his tongue, building, easing off, building again, one enormous hand splayed flat across my stomach to hold me down. When I finally come it takes forever to arrive and longer to finish, rolling through me in waves that leave me boneless and swearing.

He wipes his mouth on his forearm and looks up the length of my body at me. There’s nothing patient left in his face.

“Now,” I tell him.

His jeans hit the floor. He pushes into me bare, one long stroke, and the stretch of it punches the air out of my lungs.

“Look at me,” he says.

I do.

He starts slow, deep grinding strokes that press me down into the mattress, holding my eyes the whole time. Then his control goes. His hands lock under my shoulders as he drives into me hard enough that the headboard cracks against the wall, and the sounds coming out of him are low and rough, nothing that belongs to whoever was heating soup an hour ago.

“Harder.”

“You sure?”

“Bo. I’m not asking twice.”

He gives it to me, and every hour he spent standing behind me today with his mouth shut, in the lobby, in the truck, in that kitchen, comes out of him at once.

“I’m gonna knot,” he says against my ear.

“Do it.”

“Reese.” His rhythm stutters. “If I knot you I’m biting you.”

“I know.” I get a fistful of his hair and turn my face into his neck. “I’ve known since the truck. Do it.”

He pulls out of me. Before I can ask what’s wrong he’s got a hand on my hip and he’s turning me over onto my stomach, dragging me up onto my knees, and there’s nothing careful anywhere in it. He puts one palm flat between my shoulder blades, presses me down into the mattress, and pushes back in.

“Bo.”

“I know.” His voice has gone to pieces. “I know.”

He sweeps my wet hair off the back of my neck with his free hand and fucks me in short deep strokes that don’t let up, the headboard knocking against the wall on every one, his grip on my hip promising bruises by morning.

The knot swells and locks, and the pressure tips me over for the second time. I clench around him, shaking, and his hand comes off my back to fist in my hair.

His teeth sink into the nape of my neck, right over the top of my spine, and hold.

The bond goes into me like a stake into ground.

There’s no light in it, no wave or flood, nothing the others were. It’s weight. It’s a house settling onto its foundation, every board finding its place, and underneath it I get him. The mother he drives four hours to see on a weeknight. The father who died when he was thirteen and left him the truck. The bone-deep, unglamorous terror of being the biggest man in every room and knowing exactly how much damage he could do if he ever stopped choosing not to.

Under all of it there’s nothing complicated at all. He’d get between me and anything, and it would never once occur to him to mention it.

“Oh,” I say.

He holds the bite while his knot pulses inside me, one arm banded under my ribs, and he lowers us onto our sides by degrees, careful not to pull. Every muscle I’ve been holding since this morning lets go at once.

When his teeth finally come free he presses his mouth to the mark and stays there.

“Hey.” His voice has gone to gravel.