5. Genevieve #2
“To kissing me.”
His nostrils flare.
“To taking me to that bed.”
“Genevieve.”
“I am choosing you.”
Something breaks across his expression: hunger, relief, fear.
His gaze drops to my shoulder.
“Will sex create the silver mark?” I ask.
“No.”
The answer is immediate.
“Petra said it might awaken the bond.”
“It might.”
“But the mark requires a deliberate claim.”
“Yes.”
“The bite.”
“Yes.”
“Would the wolf do that without you deciding?”
“No.”
Absolute. Hard.
“No part of me will mark you without your clear consent.”
I search his face. “What if you lose control?”
“I will not.”
“You said you were not certain of your restraint.”
“Restraint from touching you.” His grip loosens around my wrist. “Not restraint from taking a choice you have not given.”
The distinction settles inside me.
I believe him.
That may be the most dangerous thing I have done since entering Dock 17.
“I want you,” I say. “But no mark tonight.”
His eyes close, and a shudder moves through him as if the words struck bone. When he opens them again, they are gold and certain.
“No mark.”
“And if I tell you to stop?”
“I stop.”
“If the wolf disagrees?”
“It suffers.”
A startled laugh escapes me.
Ronan’s expression softens at the sound.
Then his control fractures.
His free hand slides around my waist and pulls me against him, not violently and not carefully—exactly hard enough to make the difference between us impossible to ignore.
Heat and muscle press beneath my palms. His mouth hovers over mine.
One final pause.
One final chance.
“Yes,” I whisper.
He kisses me.
Every controlled thing about him disappears. His mouth is hot and demanding, hunger held back too long. One hand spreads across my lower back while the other slides into my hair and angles my head to deepen the kiss.
I grip his shoulders. The sound he makes is low, rough, not entirely human.
His mouth moves over my jaw and down my throat. His teeth graze my skin without biting—a reminder of what he is, what he could do, and what he promised not to do.
“Mine,” he breathes against my neck.
Heat streaks through me. I pull back enough to meet his eyes.
“For tonight.”
His eyes blaze brighter. “For every moment you choose.”
That answer destroys the last of my caution.
I kiss him again.
Ronan lifts me, and my legs wrap around his waist as though my body has been waiting to make the decision without consulting my brain. He carries me to the bed and lowers me onto the dark sheets.
For one second he remains above me, large, powerful, gold-eyed—every dangerous thing I should fear.
He does not move until I reach for him.
“Come here.”
He lowers himself over me. His weight should feel like confinement.
It does not.
It feels like shelter. Something solid between me and the rest of the world.
His mouth finds mine again. I pull at his shirt, and he helps me drag it over his head.
The scar beneath his ear crosses his collarbone and descends over his chest. Smaller scars branch from it, history written across muscle and skin.
I trace one with my fingertips.
Ronan stills.
“Does it hurt?”
“Not anymore.”
“This one came from the night your father died?”
His gaze shifts toward the jacket. “Yes.”
I follow the scar with my fingers. He catches my hand and presses his mouth to the center of my palm.
The gentleness affects me more than the hunger.
I pull him down. His skin burns against mine as his hands move beneath my shirt, up my waist and across my ribs.
He pauses. “Tell me.”
“I want it off.”
He removes it slowly, watching my face and giving me time to change my mind.
I do not.
My bra follows. Ronan looks at me—not a glance, but a long, unguarded look filled with reverence and raw hunger.
“Beautiful.” The word is so rough it barely resembles speech. “You are so damn beautiful.”
Heat rises across my skin. I reach for him because being observed this intensely is unbearable.
He catches my wrists in one hand and presses them gently into the pillow above my head.
“Let me.”
The request makes my pulse jump.
“Yes.”
His mouth travels down my throat and collarbone to the curve of my breast. When he takes one nipple into his mouth and closes his hand around the other, pleasure shoots through me.
My back arches. His name leaves my mouth.
“Ronan.”
The wolf answers with a growl against my skin, the vibration sending another pulse of heat through me.
He releases my wrists. My hands slide into his hair as his mouth continues over my stomach. His fingers hook beneath the waistband of my pants.
He looks up.
“Off,” I say.
He removes them and my underwear, then kneels between my thighs and looks at me as though he has discovered something sacred.
I should feel exposed.
I do.
I also feel wanted in a way that strips embarrassment down to nothing.
He bends his head.
The first touch of his mouth steals the air from my lungs. My hands clutch the sheets as he holds my thighs apart and learns every sharp breath and movement of my hips.
His tongue circles, presses, and returns to the place that makes my body tighten.
“Ronan.”
He growls again.
Pleasure rises too quickly. I try to pull back, but his arm closes around my hips, holding me to the sensation.
“Look at me.”
I force my eyes open.
Gold stares back at me from between my thighs. The sight nearly finishes me.
“I want to see you choose this too,” he says.
“I choose it.”
His mouth returns to me.
The orgasm tears through my body, fast and bright, pulling a cry from my throat. Ronan holds me through every tremor and does not stop until I go loose beneath his hands.
Then he rises.
I watch him remove the rest of his clothes. The size of him should intimidate me.
It does.
A little.
He sees my reaction, and his face changes immediately.
“We stop.”
“No.”
“Genevieve.”
“I did not say no.”
“You are uncertain.”
“I am making a biological assessment.”
His eyebrows rise. “Of me.”
“Yes.”
“Your conclusion?”
I reach for him. “That I need time to adjust.”
A rough laugh leaves him—the first real laugh I have heard from him. It warms the room before hunger overtakes it again.
He comes over me and slides one hand between my thighs. Two fingers press inside slowly, preparing me while he watches every response.
“Tell me if anything hurts.”
“I will.”
His thumb circles above them, rebuilding pleasure before I have fully recovered from the first release. He works me open with a patience that does not match the strain in his face.
His control is costing him. I see it in the tremor of his arms, the pulse in his throat, and the claws that threaten briefly at his fingertips before he forces them back.
“Ronan.”
“Yes.”
“I’m ready.”
His eyes lock on mine. He positions himself at my entrance and pauses.
“Say it again.”
“I want you.”
He pushes forward slowly. The stretch is intense—pressure and fullness rather than pain. My nails dig into his shoulders.
He stops halfway. “Breathe.”
“I am breathing.”
“You are glaring.”
“I can do both.”
He smiles.
I move beneath him. The slight motion draws a growl from his chest.
“More.”
He pushes deeper, inch by careful inch, his jaw clenched and his entire body shaking with the effort not to rush.
When he is fully inside me, neither of us moves.
The sensation overwhelms me: his heat, his weight, the depth of him, the way his body curves over mine as if shielding me even now.
“You feel—” His voice breaks. He closes his eyes. “Genevieve.”
“What?”
“Like everything.”
The words reach more deeply than his body does.
I touch his face. His eyes open, gold meeting hazel.
“Move.”
He does.