Page 56 of The Werewolf’s Study Date

“Look at me,” he whispers.

I do. I keep my eyes on his while I suck him, while I lick along the underside, while I take him deep enough that my eyes water. The sapphire flashes every time I brace my left hand on his hip. He notices. A broken sound leaves his chest.

“My mate,” he says, almost to himself. “On her knees for me in the moonlight. Wearing my ring.”

I moan around him and the vibration makes his hips jerk. He stops them immediately.

“Sorry. Sorry. I don’t want to hurt you.”

I pull off just long enough to say, “You’re not.” Then I take him back into my mouth and work him with more purpose, twisting my fist, sucking hard on the upstroke. His breathing turns ragged. His other hand cups my jaw like I am something precious, even now.

“Maisie. Baby. I’m close.”

I don’t stop. I want him like this. I want him shaking above me, looking at me like I hung the moon, giving me everything before he ever lays me down.

He groans my name and comes on my tongue, pulsing hot, his whole body going rigid. I swallow him and keep him in my mouth until he eases, until his hand gentles in my hair, until he hauls me up off the floor and kisses me like he can taste himself and does not care.

“Come here,” he says against my lips. “Please. I need to be inside you.”

He sheds the rest of his clothes and comes down over me. The mattress dips. His heat soaks into me immediately. He laces our fingers together and presses our joined hands into the quilt so the sapphire sits against his palm.

He kisses me again while he lines himself up. When he pushes inside, it is slow enough that I feel every inch. My breath catches. His does too. His forehead drops to mine and he stays there, buried deep, not moving yet.

“My mate,” he whispers.

“Your mate,” I whisper back.

He starts to move. Deep. Rolling. Unhurried. Each thrust fills me completely and then eases back like he cannot stand to leave. His eyes never leave mine. When they start to shine, he does not hide it.

“My future wife.” He kisses the words into my mouth. “I waited so long for this. For you. For a night that ends like this instead of me watching you walk away.”

I hook my heels into the small of his back and lift to meet him. “I’m not walking away.”

“I know.” His fingers tighten around mine. The ring digs gently into his skin. “Say it anyway.”

“I’m yours, Boone. I’m yours.”

A sound leaves his throat, low and broken. He buries his face in my neck and drives deeper, still controlled, still reverent, like he is afraid of hurting the moment even as he claims it. Pleasure builds in a thick, shaking wave. I cling to his hands and his name comes out of me on a gasp.

“I’ve got you,” he says. “Let go. I’ve got you.”

I come first, crying out against his throat, my body locking around him. He follows with a guttural groan that vibrates through my chest, holding me tight as he spills into me and stays there, pulsing, shaking, kissing my temple over and over.

He does not pull out. He does not roll away. He just gathers me closer, our hands still tangled, the sapphire warm between our palms, and breathes me in like he is memorizing the quiet too.

“I love you,” he says into my hair. Simple. Certain. “I’m going to love you every night like this. Until you are sick of hearing it.”

I smile against his throat, wrecked and full and safe. “Say it again anyway.”

He does. Then he kisses me, slow and deep, and the house stays silent around us while moonlight holds the room.

Afterward, we lie tangled under the heavy patchwork quilt, the mountain wind howling softly against the cedar shingles outside. Boone curls around my back, his massive arm locked around my waist, pulling me flush against his furnace-like heat.

I lift my left hand into the silver moonlight, watching the deep blue sapphire catch the light.

"You really called your parents about feline kidney tissue in October?" I murmur, smiling into the dark.

Boone presses a warm, lazy kiss to the mating mark at the base of my neck. "I was looking for an excuse to talk about you."