16. Dom
16
DOM
I sit naked on the edge of the bed, and I can’t stop staring at the mark on Kira’s throat.
I didn’t tell her what I was, and I bit her.
The bite was hard enough to break skin, but it won’t leave a big scar.
My wolf is relaxed, pleased to have his mark on her. It’s something he’s wanted to do since I met Kira. And, truth be told, so have I.
I covered her with the comforter after holding her for far longer than I had a right to, but I can’t make myself get up and walk away from her.
Everyone will know it. They won’t even need to see the bite if she’s covering it up. One sniff and they will know exactly what I did. Kira still smells like wild peonies, sweet, lush and perfect. But there’s a new addition to her scent.
She smells like mine.
I don’t know how long I perch on the edge of the bed, watching my mate sleep, fighting to keep my hands to myself, and hating myself for what I did.
But I don’t regret making her mine.
The first hint of dawn is peeking through the edge of the curtains and Kira is stirring when I push myself to my feet.
I want to stay but I don’t deserve to.
I’m reaching for the door handle when Kira’s soft voice halts me. “Dom?”
A rustle of sheets warns she’s sitting up. “Go back to sleep, Kira. It’s still early.”
“You’re leaving?” Hurt creeps into her voice.
Shit. She thinks I don’t want her when the opposite couldn’t be more true.
“It wasn’t anything you did, I just…” I fumble for an explanation.
Is now the right time to tell her I’m a shifter, that I bit her, bonding us together and now that I have, if she walks away from me, my wolf will die?
After she gave me more pleasure than I’ve ever had?
No. This isn’t the time. But I have to tell her.
Not all shifters die when their mate does. Galen didn’t when Melody died. But my wolf hasn’t just wanted Kira for years. He’s ached for her for so long, he can’t go back to living without her. Especially not now I’ve bitten her.
When a shifter meets their mate, they bond. The urge isn’t something that can be set aside for years without that urge growing.
It’s no excuse for what I did, but there is no way my wolf—or me—can handle her loss.
Not again.
“Dom?” Kira prompts me. “If it was something I did, then?—”
I forget about going anywhere. I don’t deserve her smiles, her kindness, or her touch, but I can’t walk away knowing she thinks I’m rejecting her. That isn’t what this is.
I remember what she said in the kitchen. How easily she called herself a fuck up, how smoothly the words slid off her tongue as something that was true when it wasn’t. Bryce must have spent years telling her for those words to flow so easily. Another crime to add to an already far too long list he needs to die for.
I turn around. “You did nothing, Kira.”
She’s sitting with her back to the headboard, the sheet covering her bare breasts, her hair disheveled from my fingers when she was on her knees and her mouth…
No .
I wrench my mind back on track.
My eyes dart to the faint mark on her throat. “I bit you, and I shouldn’t have.”
Slowly, her hand rises to her throat, tracing the grooves my teeth made in her skin. “Oh, is that why you were leaving? You thought you’d hurt me?”
Freckles cover every inch of her pale skin, and I feel myself responding to her, wanting to drag the sheet from her body and do what I said I would in the forest: kiss every single one.
I would have last night, but the sight of her on her knees and the sweet suction of her mouth on me killed every thought in my brain except the need to be inside her.
“I hurt you.” By not telling you what I am. By tying us together.
She looks away, her cheeks turning adorably pink as she lowers her hand from her neck. Her voice is soft, hesitant, and sweet when she says, “You didn’t hurt me.” She darts a rapid glance at me, too brief for me to glimpse much more than her pink cheeks. “I liked it.”
I feel the impact of those three words on every part of my body. They roar, repeating like an echo in my head.
She liked me biting her.
Those words make me not want to leave her at all. They make my wolf growl at me to climb back onto that bed and give our mate more bites she will like.
“You did?” I want to bite her again, to cover her skin with my marks so everyone knows she’s mine.
She nods, clearing her throat, still not looking at me. “I’ve never…”
I get so hard waiting for her admission that it’s painful. “You’ve never…” I prompt.
“I’ve never climaxed that fast before,” she says in a rush.
I’m across the room with no memory of having moved, needing to hear more of this. My wolf needs to touch her, to inhale her scent, lap the bite that marks her as ours.
I just need.
I slide back under the covers, easing the sheet from Kira as I slowly urge her down on the bed.
She peers up at me, and I get lost in the blue of her gaze. “You’re so beautiful,” I breathe, running a hand through her hair.
Her fingers brush my jaw. “You touch me and nothing else matters anymore. I just want you, and I think I always will.”
I stare down at her.
Is this woman mine? Truly mine?
“You do?”
She nods.
“You’re so gentle with me, like you think you will hurt me, but you won’t,” she says quietly. “I don’t know how I can be so sure of it, but I am.”
I kiss her. There’s no way I can’t after that. She softens against me, her eyelashes brushing my cheeks as her eyes flutter closed.
I stroke a hand over her hip and waist, my fingers seeking between her thighs, needing to know she’s as ready for me as I am for her. She arches under me, her thighs parting as my fingers slip into her wet heat.
Groaning at the soft sound she breathes into my mouth, I ease my hand away and move over her. Just like before, being inside her is like nothing else. Nothing could be better than this. She opens around me, inviting me deeper.
I break the kiss, rest my head on hers as I fight to stop myself from setting the hard, fast rhythm I’m suddenly desperate for.
I slow the pace, swiveling my hips as I treasure each soft gasp and moan I wring from my mate.
“Dom?” Her voice is breathy as her fingers dig into my ass. “Harder. Please.”
My mouth slants over hers in a drugging kiss.
I give my mate what she wants. What we both want. I drive into her, going as far as I can, ease back with only my tip lodged in her and stroke inward again. She pants, moans, and cries out my name as we come together.
Her head tilts back, and my tongue laps at her bite. Her pussy clenches around me and my brain short circuits as she drags me into my climax.
Her breathing is still unsteady, as is mine, when I gather her in my arms, pulling the sheets up and around us both. I flick off the lamp, plunging the room into darkness.
“Kira?”
“Hmm?” She yawns, burrowing closer into me as if she’s not close enough.
“I’m not the man you think I am,” I say, holding her tight, my mouth against the top of her head.
“You are,” she whispers.
I peer into the black room, knowing I need to say this, but wanting desperately not to say the one thing that will cost me my mate, the woman I’ve wanted all my life.
“I’m not human, Kira. I change into a wolf.”
And I wait for her to tear herself out of my arms and walk away.
“Kira?”
A soft snore almost makes me smile. I kiss the top of her head, relieved she was asleep, but conscious this is something she needs to know, and I have to tell her.
Soon.
Even if it means I lose her.