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"You're bald."

"My mother insisted I wax since puberty. She's spent my entire life keeping me smooth and doll-like to sell me off."

The dark amusement drained from my chest. It was replaced by a fierce spike of anger. Not at Rosalind. At the woman who had spent twenty-something years treating her like a show pony.

"Your mother doesn't have a say in your life anymore, Rosalind."

I watched her closely. In the dim, pale moonlight, I caught the split-second break in her icy armor. A flash of raw, disbelieving vulnerability flickered across her features, so brief and fragile I almost thought I’d imagined it, before she buried it back under layers of stone.

"Tell me what you want, Rosalind." My thumb stroked once, carefully, over her smooth folds. "Not what your mother wants. Not what the pack wants. Tell me what you want."

Rosalind swallowed hard. Her chest rose and fell as her face hardened back into an unyielding mask. She stared up at me through the black tint of her sunglasses, lifted her chin, and said:

"I want you to put your dick in me."

CHAPTER SIX

ROSALIND

My mother had controlled every single breath I drew, but she hadn't controlled my sexual hunger. No, instead of controlling my libido, she let me have free rein. With guardrails. With the guards.

When it came to the Lobo guards, Sorsha had encouraged my dalliances under one strict, non-negotiable rule: they were never allowed to penetrate me. My mother needed a technical virgin to sell to an Alpha family. So, when I was old enough, she sat me down and explained the birds, the bees, and the best use of men's tongues. Since I was eighteen, I’d had plenty of orgasms beneath the eager, desperate tongues of my guards. But my final, sacred barrier had remained untouched.

At first, as Gunnar reached beneath my pink silk dress, the slide of his thick fingers was familiar. Good, even. Despite the crude spit he’d used to coat his palm, my body betrayed me, slicking with its own natural lubricant as his calloused touch traced my inner thigh.

Huh. It never occurred to me that I might actually take pleasure from my husband. I'd never known my father. My mother had gotten rid of him after I was in her belly. Or so the gossip went. She never spoke of Nikos Ironwood, the third son of the now decimated Ironwood pack. I didn't think for a second theirs was a love match, not when she wrinkled her nose anytime anyone spoke of that emotion. She got the status she wanted from him, the pup in her belly to legitimize her power, and before I was born Nikos lost his usefulness.

My husband pressed the broad, heavy head of his cock against my clit. The friction made my breath hitch. It felt undeniably good—broad, firm, and warm, mimicking the slick pressure of a tongue. My wolf let out an eager purr against my ribs.

Gunnar dragged the crown of his cock lower down my slit, arriving at the tight opening where no man had ever ventured. An ache flared in my depths. In the past, whenever a guard’s tongue had worked me into a frenzy, I had felt this exact clawing urge to be filled, to have something heavy and solid stretch me open. Now, finally, it was happening.

"You okay?" Gunnar asked. His voice was soft, which was at odds with — well, everything about him.

His hands were big. His voice was big. His body was big.

I hated the gentleness in his voice. I hated the cautious, protective weight of it. He was supposed to be the mindless brute of the Blackwood pack. I needed him to be a monster. I needed him to be crude and cold. So I could hold on to my rage. So I could use him like a tool without a single flicker of hesitation or guilt.

"Just do it," I gritted out through my teeth.

Gunnar didn't shove inside me like I expected him to do. Instead, with maddening, agonizing patience, he began working his thick cock head into my small opening, millimeter by millimeter.

My eyes fluttered behind my black lenses. It felt incredible. A heavy, stretching fullness that sent a jolt of liquid heat straight up my spine and made my toes curl. An instinct I didn't know I possessed surged through my limbs, tempting me to tilt my hips up, to arch into his massive frame, to demand that he drive himself deeper.

My pulse hammered against my throat. My fingers dug into the sheets. I bit my bottom lip to keep from moaning at the pleasure of it. Maybe this wouldn't be a chore after all. Maybe⁠—

Gunnar pushed forward another inch.

The pleasure vanished instantly. My body locked around the intrusion before my mind caught up with what was happening. Pain burned through my pelvis so sharply that my thighs tried to snap closed around him.

Every muscle below my waist went rigid. I tried to relax. Tried to breathe through it. That only made me more aware of the pressure, of my body refusing to yield no matter how badly I ordered it to.

My hands flew up to slam against his broad shoulders. A white-hot burning sensation burst between my legs. He was too fucking big. There was no way in hell his thick, monstrous size was going to fit inside my body.

Gunnar stopped dead in his tracks, his heavy muscles locking beneath my hands. "You okay?"

I gritted my teeth so hard my jaw creaked. I refused to back down. I refused to look weak in front of him.

"I'm fine," I lied, my voice strained.