Chapter 10 #2
Every thought in my head disappears. “You sure?”
“Zane.” Her fingers tighten in my hair. “Bite me.”
I turn my mouth back to her thigh and sink my teeth in.
She cries out, body jerking beneath me, and the bond opens so fast I lose my breath. Her pleasure is still there, bright and shaking, but underneath it is something that hits me harder.
Me.
Not the pack. Not an Alpha because she needs one. Me. She wanted me, and every stupid joke I’ve made and every week I’ve spent pretending I could wait as long as she needed collapses under that one fact.
I lift my head and find her watching me. Whatever she sees on my face makes her reach for me.
“Come here.”
I go, crawling back up her body as she grabs the hem of my shirt. I help her drag it over my head and toss it after her underwear. My jeans are next, or as much of them as I can manage with her pulling me back down every time I get more than six inches away.
“You’re making this difficult.”
“I thought you were impatient.”
“That’s not the same as wanting to fall off the bed with my pants around my ankles.”
“Very romantic.”
“I contain multitudes.”
I get the jeans down far enough and settle between her legs. Her hand wraps around me, and whatever I was about to say dies immediately.
Her eyebrows lift. “Oh.”
“Don’t.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You know exactly what you’re doing.”
“I thought you liked when I touched you.”
“I do. That’s the problem.”
She strokes me again and I close my eyes.
“I found the off switch.”
“Reese.”
She does it again, and I catch her wrist and pin it gently beside her head. “You’re enjoying this way too much.”
“I really am.”
I kiss her until that smug little look disappears, then line myself up and push into her.
Everything in my head goes blank.
Her mouth curves under mine.
“Don’t say it.”
“I’m not saying anything.”
“You’re thinking it.”
“I’m thinking you’ve been talking for fifteen minutes and that’s what finally shut you up.”
I push the rest of the way in, and her joke breaks apart on a gasp.
“Yeah,” I manage. “Who’s talking now?”
“Still you.”
“Fair.”
I stay there for a second, buried deep, trying to get used to the bond humming between us and the way I can feel her pleasure underneath my own.
Every shift of her hips sends it back through me twice, and when she wraps her legs around my waist and pulls me closer, I stop pretending I’m going to take this slow.
I draw back and thrust again. Her head tips into the pillows, and the sound she makes punches straight through the bond.
“That good?”
“Do it again.”
So I do.
The bed starts moving under us, projector light flashing across her face every time I lift my head.
I kiss her throat, her jaw, anywhere I can reach while she keeps pulling me back to her mouth.
She’s tight and hot around me, and every time I hit the angle she wants, the bond gives me the answer before the sound gets out of her.
“Right there,” she gasps.
“I know.”
“Don’t get cocky.”
“Way past that.”
She digs her heels into me and I drive deeper, her nails scraping down my back hard enough to sting.
I like that too. I like all of it. Her hair coming loose against the pillows, the dress bunched around her waist, the way she keeps saying my name like she can’t decide whether it’s a warning or a request.
“I’ve wanted this so fucking long,” I tell her.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.” I kiss her hard and thrust again. “I’ve been losing my mind.”
Her hand slides into my hair. “You hide it well.”
“I make jokes when I’m suffering.”
“You make jokes when you’re happy.”
“I contain—”
“If you say multitudes again, I’m kicking you out of bed.”
“That seems difficult from your current position.”
“Want to find out?”
I change the angle instead, and whatever she was going to say turns into a broken moan.
“That’s what I thought.”
“Asshole.”
“Yeah, but I’m your asshole now.”
The bond flares at the words, warm and immediate, and I don’t have anything to add.
Then something changes lower in my body, pressure building at the base of my cock in a way that’s impossible to mistake. My next thrust catches differently, and Reese feels it too.
I slow. “Reese. I’m going to knot.”
Her eyes open.
I don’t have another sentence ready. The need to keep moving is almost painful, but I hold still because this isn’t something I get to decide for both of us.
She reaches up and cups my face. “Zane.”
“I need you to tell me.”
“I want it.” She pulls me down until our foreheads touch. “I want you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. Now stop making me repeat myself.”
I let out a shaky breath. “There’s my girl.”
I kiss her and start moving again. It doesn’t take long.
I’m already too close, and the bond makes every sound she gives me feel like it’s happening inside my own body.
Reese tightens around me and I lose whatever rhythm I had left, thrusting harder as the pressure builds until I can’t hold it back.
My knot swells as I drive deep, locking us together.
“Fuck, Reese.”
The orgasm tears through me hard enough that my arms nearly give. I get one hand under her instead and hold her against me, face buried in her neck while my hips jerk through the last of it.
She comes with me. I feel it before I hear it, her pleasure surging through the bond and folding into mine until I can’t tell which part belongs to who. She clenches around me, shaking, and I hold on until both of us finally start coming down.
For a while there’s nothing but breathing. Then Reese’s fingers move through the hair at the back of my neck, slow and lazy.
“I’ve never heard you this quiet.”
I lift my head. “Rude.”
“Accurate.”
I look down at her, flushed and wrecked and smiling at me, and have absolutely no idea what to do with how much I like her.
“Hi,” I say.
Her smile gets bigger. “Hi.”
I shift carefully until I’m not putting my full weight on her. The knot keeps us close, and apparently I don’t hate that even a little. I brush the damp hair off her forehead and check her face.
“You okay?”
“Very.”
“Nothing hurts?”
“Zane.”
“Right. Sorry. Checking.”
“I know.” She reaches down and touches the mark on her thigh, then looks back at me. “You really bit me.”
“You told me to.”
“I did.”
“Just establishing the record because I know Tyler keeps documentation.”
That earns me the reaction I wanted, her face going warm and amused as she settles back into the pillow.
“So I guess we’re bonded now,” I say. “Officially.”
“Guess so.”
“Cool. Very cool.” I kiss the end of her nose. “Fair warning, I’m going to be insufferable about this.”
“Going to be?”
“Wow. New bond and you’re already mean to me.”
“You’ll survive.”
“I probably will.”
I find her hand and lace our fingers together while we wait for the knot to release. The projector is still throwing some frozen comedy across the wall, but neither of us has looked at it in a long time.
“Hey, Reese?”
“Hmm?”
“I know tonight was awful. Your parents and all of it.” I rub my thumb over her knuckles. “I’m really glad you came up here.”
Her fingers tighten around mine. “Me too.”
We stay tangled up until the knot releases and then a while longer than that. Eventually she’ll go to her own room. Eventually we’ll have to go downstairs and deal with the pack and the paperwork and whatever tomorrow decides to do to us.
She falls asleep before any of that, with her hand still in mine and my mark coming up dark on her thigh.