Chapter 38
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
ADDIE
Even after the physical tie of the knot finally receded, the ghost of it remained.
I felt heavy, anchored, and utterly full.
It had been a twenty-minute climax—a biological siege that left my muscles humming and my nerves frayed in the best possible way.
No woman, shifter or otherwise, could be expected to walk after that.
Vidar gathered me into his arms, his touch proprietary and firm.
He took the steps slowly, listing a bit near the top of the staircase.
His hold on me never once wavered. I expected him to drop me at my door in his wing of the house.
But he bypassed my room without a glance, pushing open his own bedroom door with a heavy shoulder.
He kicked the door shut and laid me in the center of the dark silk sheets.
Then he took care of me first, undressing me with careful slowness.
He didn't rip the plum silk this time; he peeled it away, along with what was left of my bra and panties.
His gaze, still the gold of the wolf, drank in every inch of my skin as if he were seeing it for the first time.
His eyes didn't wander to my breasts or my hips first; they went straight to my neck.
The mark was raw, a dark, pulsing brand that throbbed in time with my heart.
With that mark, no one would ever dare touch me again. Every wolf in the city would smell him on me before I even entered a room. It meant I clearly, undeniably belonged to Vidar Blackwood. It meant I was safe. From my father. From every pack. And every wolf.
Watching my husband—my mate—strip out of his own clothes was one of the most erotic moments of my life. The moonlight caught the scars on his back, pale lines etched across muscle that shouldn’t have been there on a man who claimed to be the mind behind an empire.
He was the strategist. The one behind the desk. So where had those come from?
My gaze followed the movement of his body, lower, tracing the sheer power in his thighs as he stepped free of his clothes. Thick. Controlled. Built for force, not stillness. Not for hours spent behind a screen or at a boardroom table.
Nothing about Vidar Blackwood added up.
I realized that I didn’t know very much about my husband at all. Not really. Not beyond the version he chose to show the world: the polished executive, the calculating mind, the man who had outmaneuvered me at every turn.
And yet…
This was the same man I had just let mark me. The same man whose teeth had sunk into my skin, whose presence had rewritten not only my name, not only my body, but my soul. I was in love with Vidar Blackwood.
Nell would tell me I was trauma-bonding. She might be right. But I knew that this feeling inside me was so big that it wouldn't fade away in the morning light. These feelings for Vidar were gonna stick with me, just like his mark.
He crawled onto the bed, his movements too smooth to be anything but stalking. There was no rush in him. No hesitation. Just intent.
His hands parted my thighs. Then his head dipped, his breath tracing a path along my skin, his nose following the line of my leg as though scent alone could map me. Heat followed—mouth, tongue, teeth. Man and animal, layered together in a way I couldn’t separate.
Taking. Learning. Claiming.
I could have moved. I could have pulled away, shifted, resisted. There was no reason to run. I let myself go still beneath him, caught by something far more dangerous. Willingness.
Vidar rose over me then, the weight of him controlled, measured, never careless. Even in this, he held back just enough to remind me he was choosing restraint.
He moved with that same precision—steady, unhurried, as though he was testing the edges of control rather than losing it.
His big body descended slowly, he fucked me slower.
I didn't dare call it lovemaking—not even in the silence of my own head.
I was his, but I knew his heart was still a vault I didn't have the key to.
As he moved inside me, steady and deep, I didn't care about the vault.
I reached the peak once with him on top of me.
A second time with him behind me, my fingers digging into the mattress as I shook beneath him.
Just like on the couch, the knot took hold. We lay entangled on our sides, his chest pressed to my back, his arms wrapped around me like iron bands while his body locked us together. The aftershocks were bigger this time, rolling through me in waves that made my vision blur.
Twenty minutes later, when his body finally set me free, I felt him go heavy against me.
His breathing evened out into the deep, rhythmic pull of sleep.
I waited a moment, my heart still fluttering, and began to shift toward the edge of the bed.
I needed my own space. I needed to process the fact that my world had just fundamentally shifted.
The moment I moved, his arms clamped down around me, hauling me back against his heat.
"I was heading back to my room," I whispered, my voice thick.
Vidar didn't open his eyes. A low, warning growl vibrated in his chest. The sound was more wolf than man.
"You told me you don't like to sleep with anyone," I reminded him, my hand resting on his forearm.
He didn't argue. He didn't even speak. He simply rolled me over until I was face-first against him. He tucked my head into the hollow of his chest and threw a heavy leg over mine for good measure. He anchored me there, a silent command that I wasn't going anywhere.
Within seconds, he was asleep again, his heartbeat a steady, thrumming rhythm against my ear. For the first time in ten years, the howling in my head was quiet. I closed my eyes and placed my hand on his heart. The organ thumped against my fingertips.
Fuck, was I in trouble.