35. Willow
WILLOW
M orning crept in slow, the pale light of dawn spilling across the sheets, tangling with the scent of sex still thick in the air.
Willow stirred, struggling against the weight of sleep, her body sore in ways that reminded her exactly how the night had gone.
Heat crawled up her neck at the memory—his hands, his mouth, the way she’d clung to him as though she might die without his cock.
It had been reckless. And now here she was, lying in his bed with his arm heavy across her waist, his chest rising and falling steady against her back.
Willow swallowed hard, her throat dry. She knew she should roll away, put distance between them, rebuild the wall she kept patching together only for him to tear down again.
This was dangerous. Getting too close, letting herself soften, giving a crime lord she didn’t even trust pieces of her heart she wasn’t sure she could ever reclaim.
But she didn’t move.
Her fingers twitched against the sheet, aching to curl into his hand where it rested possessively on her lower belly.
The quiet was suffocating and soothing all at once, her thoughts caught between regret and yearning.
She hated how easy it felt. How natural.
As if she belonged here, as if she hadn’t been dragged into this life kicking and screaming.
Willow shut her eyes, willing her heart to still, but it betrayed her anyway—beating faster, syncing with his as though her body had already chosen.
Milo stirred behind her, the shift subtle at first, becoming heavier as he drew in a long breath. His chest pressed closer, nose grazing her hair. Willow squeezed her eyes shut, trying to even her breathing like she was still asleep.
It didn’t work.
“You’re thinking too loud,” he murmured, voice rough with sleep, words dragging low across the nape of her neck.
Her heart leapt. She swallowed, unsure what to say, unsure what she even felt. “I wasn’t,” she whispered, defensive by instinct.
Milo’s arm tightened around her waist, pulling her flush against him. “You were,” he countered, softer now, like he could feel the panic rising in her chest. “Whatever it is, you can always share it with me, Willow.”
She turned her face into the pillow, heat stinging at her eyes. She hated how much she wanted to believe him, how badly she wanted to just let herself sink. “It was just…” she muttered. “Last night. I wasn’t thinking. ”
“Maybe not,” he admitted, and she felt the rumble of his voice against her back. “But we’re getting closer to the full moon, Willow. You’re going to start experiencing some… new things.”
She went still. His hand splayed wide against her lower stomach, warm and grounding, as he continued.
“The full moon matters, but not the way humans think. We don’t sprout fangs and eat people.
What it calls out in us is something different.
It’s tied to our fertility, our breeding.
When the moon hits her peak, every instinct in me is to breed my bitch under that light, to bind us in the way nature demands. ”
Willow’s mouth went dry, her mind fumbling over what he’d just revealed. She blinked hard, as if that might help her catch up, but it only left her more flustered. And then, like a trapdoor swinging open beneath her, an awful suspicion slithered in.
“Milo… what’s a knot?”
The silence that followed told her more than she wanted to know. He just stared, broad shoulders stilling, before the corner of his mouth curved into that infuriatingly crooked smile. It was obvious he was fighting laughter.
Heat flared in her cheeks. “Don’t be mean to me,” she groaned, smacking his chest with the back of her hand. He was solid as a wall, barely budging, and the huff she let out only made him grin wider.
After a moment, Milo finally sobered, his chest rising and falling with a long, measured sigh.
“A knot is a kind of bulb at the base of my cock. When I start to come, instinct pushes me to, uh, shove it inside of you. It physically ties us together for up to an hour.”
The silence was deafening.
“That’s… absolutely horrifying,” Willow said at last, her voice slow, deliberate, like she was trying to parse his words. On the surface, it was grotesque, something out of a horror movie. But low in her belly, something twisted.
Not fear.
Not revulsion.
Desire .
The realization made her flush hot, her skin prickling as though she’d just knelt in a confessional. What he wanted to do to her, it was fucking unholy. It sickened and fascinated her in equal parts.
But then, the want bloomed in her like it had back when she was a virgin, before she’d ever been touched, before she knew anything beyond the hunger yawning in her core. That nameless, impatient need for something to be inside of her.
Willow hadn’t known what it was to have something in that aching place. And yet, somehow, she just knew she needed that exactly.
She felt the same way about his knot.
Her thoughts were spiraling, tangled up in places she didn’t dare go, when Milo cleared his throat. A sharp cough, like he knew exactly where her mind had wandered and wanted to yank her back before she twisted herself up any further.
“You hungry?” he asked casually, his voice threaded with amusement, like he wasn’t really asking at all. “Because I know the kittens are. They’re going to start crying soon.”
Willow blinked, grateful for the interruption.
A small smile tugged at his lips as he pushed off the bed and offered her a hand. “Come on, then. Let’s feed your little mistakes before they tear the place apart.”
Willow gasped and threw a pillow at him.
“Milo!”
** *
The morning had drifted into something soft and slow, the rising heat making them both feel lazy. Breakfast had been messy—kittens darting underfoot, Milo teasing her about the way she burned the toast—but now the chaos had faded into this, quiet, easy stillness.
She lay curled against him in the hammock, his arm heavy around her shoulders, her cheek resting on the solid expanse of his chest. The hammock rocked gently with each lazy push of his foot against the grass, swaying them back and forth like the world had slowed just for them.
It was too comfortable. Willow told herself not to sink into it, not to let the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath her ear trick her into believing this was normal. There was a normal life she wanted to return to, when the danger was over, maybe…
And yet.
His hand stroked idly along her arm, fingertips brushing over her skin with absent reverence, like touching her was as natural as breathing.
He didn’t speak, didn’t fill the silence with heavy words or questions, and that silence did more damage to her defenses than any charm or charisma could.
Because she realized she didn’t need him to make those extravagant promises right now. She just needed him.
Willow’s throat tightened. She shouldn’t feel safe. She shouldn’t feel cherished. But with Milo’s warmth wrapped around her, the kittens watching from the slider, and the hammock rocking them in time with the breeze—she almost forgot to be afraid.
Almost .
“Careful,” he murmured eventually, his voice a low rumble vibrating through his chest. “If you keep looking at me like that, you’ll never look at a hammock the same way again.”
Her lips twitched, betraying her even as her heart tried to crawl into her throat. “I wasn’t looking at you any sort of way,” she sniffed, turning her nose up at him.
His chuckle was deep, dangerous, and unbearably fond. The kind of sound that made her wonder—terrifyingly, traitorously—what it would be like to hear it for the rest of her life.
Milo leaned his head toward hers, whispering into her ear, “I’m beginning to think that your first punishment isn’t going to be given over my knee.”
She flushed, eyes widening.
“Instead, Willow, I think you’ll have to choke on my cock until I come down your throat so you can learn to better watch your mouth.”
Her eyes fluttered shut, and the sound that escaped her throat was small, fragile—something she didn’t even know she was capable of making.
Milo’s laugh followed, low and rich. He pulled her closer, his strength swallowing her whole.
She didn’t want him to see it—the ache, the hunger, the way she craved him not gently, but brutally.
Violent.
Overpowering.
Dominating.
She no longer pined for candlelight under the stars. Not since meeting him. No, Willow wanted to be taken under a swollen moon.
Although, it did strike her as funny that he had, in fact, taken her already under the full moon, and her reaction had been less than thrilled.
As though he’d reached into her head and plucked the thought straight from her brain, Milo dipped his face to her hair, his lips brushing the crown of her head.
“Sweetheart,” he rumbled, voice carrying that dangerous tenderness that both soothed and inflamed, “we’ve got plenty of time to explore all of the ways in which we’re sexually compatible.
But right now…” His mouth lingered against her temple, a phantom kiss.
“Right now, I want us ready for the full moon.”
She sat with it for a long moment, turning the words over in her head, trying to piece together a clearer picture. Her throat worked, but her voice came out soft, almost hesitant.
“Is it… going to hurt?”
Milo’s gaze softened, though his answer carried weight.
“It’s… complicated. Yes and no. From what I’ve been told, it’s not pain in the way you think.
It’s overwhelming—stretching you further than you thought possible, holding you there for upwards of an hour, where you can barely move.
But every woman I’ve ever spoken to says the same thing.
” His lips quirked faintly, and his eyes never left hers.
“That it’s the most intense, earth-shattering pleasure they’ve ever felt. ”
Her breath caught at the blunt honesty of it, her mind scrambling. And then a thought struck her, sharp and sudden.
“Milo, are there female werewolves?”
The look he gave her made her feel like she’d just grown an extra head. “Of course there are.”
“Then why haven’t I met any?”
He tilted his head, humming low in his throat as though considering it for the first time.
“That’s a fair point. You haven’t. But this—” he gestured faintly to the walls around them “—is a bachelor house. My men won’t take mates until their alpha does.
That’s how all packs operate. It has to start at the top.
The alpha finds his match, and only then does the rest of the pack fall in line.
That’s how the next generation is born—new blood, new wolves. That’s how the cycle continues.”
She groaned, her head falling back so she could squint at the fluffy clouds hanging overhead.
“Werewolf culture sounds so complicated.”
“Don’t worry, sweetheart. You don’t have to think. You just have to grow my babies,” he growled into her ear. She gasped, whipping around to face him, eyes flashing with anger.
“I am not an incubator for your potential offspring, Milo,” she growled, baring her teeth at him.
His smile was absolutely wicked. “We’ll see how you feel come the end of the month. Bet you anything you’re begging for me to pump you full of cum before night even falls.”
She refused to dignify that with a response, even if she knew his nose would sense the one between her legs anyway.