Page 25 of The Steel Beast’s Heart

He stands. Strips what's left of his clothes. The length of his cock presses against my inner thigh and my hips rock forward before I can think about it. I pull him closer with my legs.

He pushes into me in a single slow stroke and the fullness of him makes my nails dig into his shoulders. The workbench shifts under us. He moves deep and steady, his hips rolling, his forehead pressed to mine, and every thrust drives a moan out of me that I don't try to muffle. My hand slides back to the break in his horn and the sound he makes shatters the rhythm, drives him faster, harder. His hand returns to my clit, circling in time, and the second orgasm pulls me under before I can brace for it, clenching around him in waves that drag a growl from his chest so raw it vibrates through the workbench and into my bones.

He follows me over. His hips drive deep once more and hold, and I feel him come inside me, his whole body shaking. His face buries in my neck and the growl dissolves into a purr that shakes through both of us.

We stay like that. His weight braced on his arms, my legs around his waist, my hand still on the damaged horn.

He finds his flannel on the floor and puts it on me himself, buttoning it slow, his fingers still unsteady. Then he pulls on his jeans and lifts me off the workbench like I weigh nothing, one arm under my knees, the other around my back. I loop my arms around his neck and press my face into his chest where the purr still rumbles.

The compound air hits cool against my bare legs. He carries me across the lot toward his apartment, and the purring doesn't stop, this low constant thing that vibrates through his ribs into mine. Jax steps out of the clubhouse door with a cigarette and his eyes drop to my legs and Thomas growls—short, guttural, nothing human in it. Jax lifts both hands and backs away without a word.

He carries me up the stairs and through his apartment and lays me down and follows, settling over me, his forehead dropping to mine. The purring fills the room, low and constant. I put my hand over the rough edge of his horn. It sits warm under my palm. He leans into the touch. After a while he rolls onto his back and pulls me into his chest, my head under his chin.

"Her name was Rachel."

I don't move. I don't know where this is going.

"She was my mate. Human. We had ten years. I asked her to marry me at a rest stop off I-5, she said yes but the ring didn't fit. I'd sized it wrong. She laughed, put it on her pinky, and said she'd wear it there until we got it fixed." His voice drops. "We were driving home and a logging truck crossed the center line on a blind curve and hit us head-on. Her side. My horn broke on the windshield frame. I came to and I couldn't get the door open. I could hear her breathing but I couldn't get to her."

His arm tightens around me. I feel the shake in his hands where they press against my back.

"The paramedics got her door open in three minutes but she had died ninety seconds before they even got there." He closes his eyes. "I became a medic because I held her and I didn't know how to keep her alive. At Bloodstone, I felt swelling in Knox's abdomen before he knew it existed. He's alive because I spent fifteen years making sure I'd never be useless again."

His voice cracks on the last word. I reach up and touch his face.

"I've been arriving on time for fifteen years. Saving people. Getting there first. And I couldn't believe any of it counted because the one time it mattered most—" He stops. His breathing goes uneven against the top of my head. "You're human. You know that terrifies me. Loving a human woman again, knowing what it cost the first time. How fragile you are, how easily I could lose you too." His arm tightens around me. "But I love you more than I'm afraid of losing you. And that's the first thing that's been stronger than the fear in fifteen years."

I lean up and press my lips to the jagged edge of his broken horn.

What comes out of him carries no word. The purr fractures and breaks apart. His face drops to my shoulder, his arms pulling me tight, and whatever he's carried alone since that highway pours out of him into my shirt, my skin and the quiet of the room.

"I love you too, Thomas," I say. "Life's too short and I'm done pretending I don't want everything with you."

His arms tighten. The purring steadies. His breathing slows against my neck.

Outside, the compound sits quiet. Somewhere in the makeshift enclosure, the barred owl sleeps with one wing tucked. She'll need a proper mews soon. I'll build her one. I'm good at starting over.

We'll start in the morning.

Chapter 12

Steel

Isla sleeps with her red hair across my pillow and her legs tangled in the sheet, breathing deep and even.

I lie in my bed beside a woman I told everything to and I let myself want this without building a plan around it. Her shoulder warm against my chest, the purring rolling through me.

I slide out from under Isla's arm. She shifts but doesn't wake. I ease the nightstand drawer open, lift Rachel's ring from the felt lining, and cross the apartment. The photograph on the bookshelf lies face down the way it has since I moved in. I stand it upright. Rachel's face, visible. I set the ring beside her.

"I've loved you for most of my life." I keep my voice low enough that Isla doesn't stir. "And you'll always be part of who I am. But it's time for me to stop carrying you like a wound and start carrying you like a gift. I think you'd want that for me."

I leave them there. Both of them in the room now, not hidden.

I pull the blanket over Isla's shoulder and head to the kitchen to make us breakfast, feeling lighter than I have in years.

Church runs short. Knox keeps it tight because he's still moving stiff from Bloodstone, half the table rode for hours yesterday and nobody wants to sit on a wooden bench longer than they have to.

Isla sits to my left. Knox asked her to come.