Page 85 of Heat Lightning

He wanted me to like the mask.

“Yeah,” I said, cupping his face, snarling canine teeth and all, between my hands. “I like the mask.”

He knocked his forehead into mine, wordlessly saying so many things. Gently, he shuffled me out of bed to the bathroom, where he cleaned my face and hands with such tenderness it made my heart pitter-patter in my chest.

Then, as if needing to balance the moment, he tossed me over his shoulder, ass in the air, and threw me back in our nest.

“Just so we’re clear, I’m way better than any of those wannabes,” he growled, crawling over me to tickle my ribs until I squirmed and screeched in laughter. “None of them even come close.”

If I were being honest with myself, I wasn’t sure anyone would. I hadn’t felt so comfortable, so safe and at peace in years. Maybe ever.

That little light in me, the one that glowed in solidarity with the house across the lake, flared so brightly it was almost blinding.

TWENTY-TWO

MAX

Once we’d settled in, heat swept us away, pulling us both under its sticky haze for several days. It gave me a new understanding of why people chased the high of a heat with their mate.

I didn’t have anything to compare it to, so I wasn’t sure what to make of the way Atlas looked at me in the quiet aftermath of a wave. It was like he wanted to devour me whole. I also wasn’t sure whether the connection zipping between us whenever we touched was normal or something special, but it felt… primal.

Just like the delicious dream I was having.

Atlas had his face buried between my cheeks, lapping at my well-fucked hole until I dripped slick and saliva. His leftover cum mixed in, too, from the countless times he’d come with his knot in my belly.

The scent of heat and sex permeated the air, sewn into the sheets neither of us wanted to wash. I lay on my stomach, sleep-heavy and unmoving, with my cheek pressed into a soft pillow while he tended to me.

Heat burned in my belly, and my hole pulsed with need, ready to suck his cock back in where he belonged.

Sensing what I needed, he wordlessly crawled up until his thighs bracketed my own, mounted my hips, and pushed inside with little resistance.

He groaned quietly, draping his sleep-warm body over me.

I sighed into the perfect fit, both the most relaxed I’d ever been and soaring.

My alpha knew me; we were so in tune with one another that he sensed what I wanted, what I needed, even in our sleep, and woke up just to give it to me. He smelled the heat on me and gave me what I craved before any of the discomfort of being empty could touch me.

He was perfect. He was mine.

Please be mine.

The bed rocked me slowly into greater awareness, and I came to just enough to relish in a reality so beautiful I never wanted it to end. A wave really had started while we slept, and in our delirious, instinct-driven state, he’d jumped right into making me feel good.

His warm, hard body drove into me from above, practically smothering me with his weight.

“Mmph,” I said in greeting, before gasping when his cockhead bumped against my breeding gland. Fully ripe, it was like orgasming over and over every time he thrust deep enough.

“Morning, sweetheart,” he grumbled. Atlas’ gruff, sleepy voice was so unfairly hot it warranted writing a letter to my representative in complaint.

I squirmed, shifting my hips to tempt him into giving me more. No matter how many times he jammed into that button of pleasure, or how far inside I felt him, or how much cum he filled me with, I always wanted him deeper.

In response, he snaked an arm, covered in tattooed tentacles, around my neck to put me in a faux headlock, leaving my airway clear but immobilizing me. The other hand threaded through mine where I grasped the sheets for leverage.

Fully pinned, I could do nothing but take what he gave me.

Bicep jail, I thought with a hysterical giggle, before another thrust stole my breath. Fingers still interlocked, he dragged my hand underneath me and pressed it to my stomach.

I blushed. I was self-conscious of the way my belly had softened, almost forming a pouch to make room for my full womb. I’d caught him staring at it a few times and wondered if he thought it was gross.