Page 263 of The Werewolf’s Wrong Mate

I pulled his shirt from his waistband.

He broke the kiss. “The door.”

“Locked.”

“Your neighbor.”

“Very impressed with you, but unlikely to enter.”

“The boxes.”

“I swear to God, if you are jealous of cardboard again, I will call Sava.”

That did it.

He picked me up and I made a deeply undignified sound and wrapped my legs around his waist on instinct.

“Ian.”

“Still choosing this?”

My heart caught. Every time, he asked in some way. Not always with those words, but always with that meaning. Still choosing. Still mine because you want to be.

Still here.

I held his face between my hands. “Yes. I choose this. I choose you. I choose us. I choose being carried to bed in my half-packed apartment by my ridiculous werewolf husband who is about to make me forget my own address.”

His eyes went dark. “Husband?”

I kissed him once. “Do not get smug.”

“I would not.”

The bond called him a liar. I laughed, and he carried me into the bedroom.

No council. No family. No blood. No death waiting beyond the door.

Just us.

He laid me on the mattress with a care that made my throat tighten, then covered my body with his. The weight of him was everything I wanted. Warm. Solid. Real. His mouth moved along my jaw, down my throat, pausing over the scar at my shoulder.

The mark warmed under his breath.

I threaded my fingers through his hair. “Do not look sad.”

“I am not sad.”

“I can feel you, remember?”

His mouth rested against the mark. “I remember every moment I almost lost this.”

“This is right here.”

“Yes.”

“I am right here.”

His hand slid under my shirt, palm spreading over my ribs. I felt the restraint in him again, the reverence, the fear that wanting too much could still become harm. I caught his wrist and guided his hand lower.