Page 26 of Innocent Until Proven Witch

"Bedroom," she breathes against my mouth. "Now."

I don't need telling twice. I get her up the narrow lighthouse stairs with her legs wrapped around my waist and my mouth on her throat, her fingers tangled in my hair, both of us laughing breathlessly when I nearly clip my shoulder on the doorframe. The room at the top is small and round, lit only by the slow sweep of the beacon outside the window — and when I finally set her down on the bed and she looks up at me, sea-glass eyes blown dark, I feel the bond pull tight in my chest like a livewire.

"You really want this?" I ask, even now, my hands braced on either side of her.

"I've never been more sure of anything." She pulls me down by the collar. "Stop asking and touch me."

I peel her dress over her head,and the sight of her steals whatever restraint I had left. Freckles scatter across her collarbone. Faint silver blue lines trace along her arms where her magic sits just beneath the surface. They are lit faintly now with how worked up she is.

I bend to taste her throat, her collarbone, working lower while her fingers dig into my shoulders and her breath comes faster with every inch.

"Finn—" My name turns into a moan when my mouth finds her breast through thin fabric. "Don't stop. Please don't stop."

I don't. I strip the rest of her clothes with hands that aren't quite steady, and she works at my belt with the same urgency, both of us shedding the last of our clothing in a tangle of impatient hands and breathless laughter until there's nothing left between us but the storm-light sweeping slow circles across the ceiling.

"Last chance," I breath against her stomach, working lower, my voice rough with want. "Tell me to stop."

She gasps, fingers fisting in my hair as my mouth finds exactly where she needs it, "Don’t stop…”

My tongue traces a fine line from her neck to her chest, carefully circling around her nipples. Her voice breaks as I claim one of them, suckling on it until I hear her gasping for breath. I chuckle against her skin and don't stop — not until she's shaking apart beneath me, crying out into the small round room with the beacon light sweeping over her like she's something the storm itself is trying to illuminate.

I give myself just long enough to settle between her thighs, my grip becomes firmer, the wolf in me close enough to the surface that I can feel the low growl building in my chest before I let it out.

"Last chance," I say again, hoarse, even now. "Tell me to stop."

"I don't want you to" she says, and drags me down by the back of my neck.

I sink my hard dick into her on one slow, unbroken stroke, and the moan that escapes — half my name, half something wordless — goes straight through me like lightning finding ground. She's tight and slick and trembling around me, her back arching off the mattress, her nails biting into my shoulders hard enough that I know I'll feel it tomorrow and won't mind at all.

"Finn." Her voice cracks around my name. "You feel — I didn't know it could feel like this⁠—"

" Let's see if you can handle it." My own voice comes out wrecked. The mate bond is roaring between us now, gold-bright and electric, every place our skin touches feeling less like sensation and more like recognition— like some part of me has been waiting years to finally come home to exactly this.

I feel it too. I feel all of it but I refuse to let it overwhelm me

I start pumping, slow at first, savoring the way her body stretches to take me, the way her breath catches every time I push deep and still. She meets me on the second thrust, hips rising to match my rhythm with a desperation that mirrors my own, and the small round room fills with the sound of her gasping breath and the low creak of old timber and the storm-light sweeping endlessly over both of us.

"More," she begs, heels digging into the backs of my thighs. " Give… I need more⁠—"

I give it to her. I brace one forearm beside her head and drive deeper, harder, the headboard knocking softly against the curved stone wall with every thrust.

The sound of her gripping my dick like a vice excites me. Her moans break into fragments, my name dissolving into pure sound every time I bottom out inside her, and when I hook her knee higher against my ribs and change the angle, she cries out loud enough that the sound echoes up into the empty lamp room above us.

"Right there," she chokes, body clenching tight around me. " Heavens… right there⁠—"

The wolf is close to the surface now, gold-edged and growling low in my chest, every instinct narrowed down to the woman beneath me — gasping my name, clawing red lines down my back, tightening around me with every stroke like she never wants to let me go. I drop my head to the curve of her throat and graze my teeth against her pulse, not quite biting, just enough pressure that she shudders hard beneath me.

I growl against her skin, unable to control myself.

She gasps back, like she's been waiting for permission to say it. "Finn, I'm so close⁠—"

"Let yourself get there." My control is fraying down to nothing, the link between us pulling tighter with every thrust, demanding completion, demanding her. "I've got you. I'm not letting go."

That's what breaks her. She shatters around me with a cry I swallow against her mouth, her whole body clenching so hard it drags me over the edge right behind her. My own release follows immediately after, following waves of pleasure that envelopes me in layers I can't describe.

We fall back together, tangled and breathless, the beacon still sweeping its slow gold arc across the ceiling above us. I don't move for a long time. Don't want to. I just lie there with her wrapped against my chest, listening to her heartbeat slow against my ribs, feeling something settle into place that's been restless in me for years.

"So," she says eventually, voice muffled against my skin, "this doesn't change anything about us working together. Right?"