Page 36 of Keep My Alpha

I kick the door shut with my heel, and then I’m pushing him against it, up on my toes, kissing his jaw, his neck, the rough patch of stubble under his ear. His tool bag hits the floor with a thud. His hands come up to my waist, big and warm and automatic, steadying me even when I’m clearly not steady.

“Soren—“

I bite his earlobe. Not gently.

“Sor—“

“Don’t talk yet.” My voice is too sharp. “I just need you before I start thinking myself in circles.”

His hands tighten on my waist. His fingers span almost all the way around, and that fact does something filthy to me every time. “Hey. Hey.” He catches my chin, tilts my face up. His eyes search mine in the dim hallway light, and I watch him get it. The manic energy. The buzzing under my skin I can’t turn off.

“What happened?” Low and serious. His quiet-alpha voice, the one that goes soft instead of loud when something is wrong.

“Nothing happened. I’m fine. Kiss me.”

“You’re shaking.”

“I’m fine.“ I pull his shirt over his head; he lets me, arms up, because Wren always lets me take what I need, and press my mouth to his collarbone. Salt and warm skin under my lips. His hands slide into my hair, cradling the back of my head, and the gentleness of it cracks something behind my ribs sideways.

I don’t want gentle right now. I want to be so full of him there’s no room for anything else. No room for the empty bench, the silent shelf, or the terrible, greedy thought that I got my fairy tale and still ended up grieving. If I can get him close enough, deep enough, maybe the noise will stop.

I grab his belt and pull him toward the bedroom. He follows, of course he does, steady and sure-footed even when I’m a complete disaster, but his hand catches the doorframe as we pass through.

“Soren. Talk to me.”

“After.” I tug him to the bed. The nest swallows us: blankets, the flannel I’m wearing, the quilt Milo’s mom sent. The seven birds watch from the shelf. A tiny wooden audience. I shove a pillow aside and pull Wren down on top of me, hooking my leg over his hip, grinding up into him before he’s even settled.

He groans, low in his chest. His cock hardens against my thigh. He’s always so responsive, always ready for me, like his body has a standing policy about saying yes to mine. Usually that makes me feel powerful and chosen.

Tonight it just makes me want to cry.

I kiss him harder, biting his lower lip. He kisses me back, deep and thorough, one hand braced by my head. The other slides under the flannel to my bare waist and his thumb traces my hipbone. I arch into it, chasing the contact, starving for it.

His calluses catch on my skin. Rough, working hands, broad-knuckled and calloused, smelling faintly of sawdust, and heat goes through me. My body answers with a rush of slick, sudden, and embarrassing, soaking straight through my joggers. I press my face into his throat so he won’t see how fast I’m unraveling.

“I need you inside me before I can think,” I say against his mouth, rougher than I mean it to. “Wren. Please. Before I think.”

His forehead drops to mine. He’s breathing hard. “I’m here,” he says. Low and sure, the way he always says it. Like gravity. Like the floor.

“Then stop being patient and touch me.”

His eyes change. Not the soft, careful Wren, but the other one. The one who stopped Derek with a look. The one who growled mine against my throat while his teeth broke skin. The one who goes quiet and wild instead of loud.

He flips me onto my back so fast I gasp. His mouth finds my throat, the claiming bite, and he drags his lips across the mark, not biting, just pressing, and the sensation zings through me like I grabbed a live wire. My back arches off the bed.

“Like that?” he murmurs against my neck. He already knows the answer. He’s known it since that hallway. It’s almost unfair how quickly he learned me.

“Yes—yes—come on—“

His hand slides down my spine, under the waistband of my joggers. His fingers find me slick; my body doesn’t wait for permission with him, just opens up and gets wet, and the sound he makes is low and hungry and possessive. His middle finger drags through the mess, slow and deliberate, circling my hole without pushing in.

“You’re drenched,” he says, voice rough, frayed at the edges.

“Don’t say drenched. That sounds like a weather report.”

He laughs against my neck, a real one, surprised out of him, and pushes one finger inside me. I’m so slick it slides in without resistance, the obscene wet sound loud in the quiet room. My hips jerk up. There’s no stretch to speak of. I’m too open, too ready; my body has been ready since his knock. But the feeling of being entered, of having something of his inside me, makes my vision swim.

“More,” I say against his jaw.