CHAPTER 25 #3
I pushed into her slowly, deeper, feeling her body open around me.
She kept her eyes fixed on mine, refusing to look away.
She was tighter than the first time, but I could feel her stretching little by little to accommodate me.
I thrust in and out of her slick heat, lowering my mouth to kiss her, then dipping to bite and suck her nipples.
All the while, my gaze never left hers. I wanted to watch every reaction I drew from her—every flicker of pleasure, every tremble in her breath.
Seeing what I was doing to her fed something dark and electric inside me.
Her pleasure ignited mine, a perfect loop of heat I never wanted to break.
But she didn’t break. Didn’t shy. Didn’t flinch.
Her strength might not’ve been physical. It was quieter, something that steadied the beast even as it prowled just beneath my skin.
Why shouldn’t I indulge? My heart raced, wanting to sync to hers—match breath with breath, pace with pace. That was where I’d find her.
Eyes closed showed the ember behind the dark. Eyes open sent sparks igniting across our skin.
She whispered my name. Soft. Steady. Like she knew exactly which part of me she was calling for.
My chest tightened. The storm outside quieted. The fire dimmed to an amber hum.
The wolf pressed closer—its instincts threaded through mine, holding us in the same breath, the same rhythm, the same rising fire.
Her fingers found mine and laced together, and the connection sharpened.
I felt myself slipping into that inner space again.
The space where I imagined her, standing like a small flame in the dark.
Unbreakable. Luminous. Her presence alone pushed the shadows back.
I wanted her.
All of her.
And every version of the future that dared to include her.
This wasn’t lust or instinct alone. I began to recognize that this was something that felt like a beginning.
I moved deeper, letting my rhythm find her body, guided by the rise of her breath. She tightened around me, and the wolf hummed low inside my chest. Our hearts thundered against one another, a ferocious drum, and we moved like that—steady, consuming.
She arched back and let a trembling breath spill out. “Jonathan…” she whispered, lost, dazed. “Don’t stop!”
My vision sharpened, firelight turning her cheeks to molten gold.
Her gaze clung to mine even when pleasure tugged her under, even when her eyes fluttered and rolled for a fleeting second. She fought to hold the connection.
“Stay with me,” I growled, firm and low.
Her breath hitched, her eyes locking onto mine, trembling with the strain and want. Unblinking. Pulled to me like a magnet. She wanted to see everything I did to her—and I wanted her to watch.
My shifts had always carved out a lonely place inside me. Invisible but real. Now that space wasn’t empty. She was there, taming the beast. Soothing it. Soothing my soul.
I’d spent years trying to rebuild Juniper Hollow—fix what was broken, force it into becoming home. But here, with her…
There was nothing to fix. Nothing to repair. Here I was already home.
With our eyes still locked, she gasped, then cried out, “Come inside me. That’s what I want.”
The words hit like a spark to dry tinder. It threw me for a moment—because she meant it, every syllable. Her stare was a magnetic pull anchored to her plea, a small nod in her expression signaling to me she was protected, reassuring me even through this pleasure.
Oh gods…I was risking everything.
Before I could think, I pressed my forehead to hers, holding her close as her breath broke against my mouth, her heartbeat climbing toward its crest.
The answer ripped out of me instinctively: “Come with me. Come on my cock.”
As if the command were a key turned in a lock, her thighs trembled. I felt her body seize, tighten, and then break open like a waterfall. I felt her begin to come all over my cock, flooding between us.
And at that exact moment, I erupted.
My mind split open, galaxies blooming behind my eyes. Constellations kissed the edges of my vision. The moon felt close enough to cradle against the blanket of the night sky.
Then everything dissolved.
A supernova.
Only light and shadow. There was no sound. My eyes fluttered, vision broken into flashes of white like a strobe. Every burst lit her differently—her face, her mouth, her eyes—hitting me in rapid-fire frames until I couldn’t breathe.
Afterward, when the world finally came to a soundless still, I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her gently against my chest, both of us settling into each other.
Her breathing slowed. Mine mirrored it. The wolf hunkered down.
Quiet.
Content.
Home.
And for the first time in a long time…I wasn’t fighting anything. I felt free.
For a long while, neither of us moved.
The storm outside quieted to a distant hush.
Thunder rolled farther into the hills, the rain eased from a violent roar to a gentle patter.
The fire dimmed, its last embers shifting like slow-moving constellations.
And for a long, suspended moment, nothing existed except her breath on my skin and the faint pulse of the wolf settling—yes, settling—beneath my ribs.
And there we were.
Two people who were supposed to be strangers. Two people who had no business fitting together—and yet somehow did.
I felt…still. Not the brittle stillness I’d lived in for years. This was different. Warmer. Looser. Like something inside me unclenched without permission.
She rested her head on my shoulder, fingers tracing idle patterns across my stomach. Simple. Intimate.
What was this becoming?
In one quiet sweep of her hand, she softened everything that kept me up at night. The weight, the anger, the strain…they all melted away like sharp shards of ice under a rising sun.
I’d spent so long telling myself I didn’t want this. But now, with her curled into me, I wasn’t sure that had ever been true.
Maybe I’d been wrong about her. About myself. Maybe this was something neither of us had been meaning to find but had found anyway. Her presence filled the space inside me that had always been cold, a space I’d convinced myself was meant to stay empty.
The storm softened to a whisper. The world felt small and safe for once, wrapped in heat and dim firelight. I wanted to stay in this suspended moment, where her heartbeat lined up with mine and everything else—Graymore, my past, the pain I’d buried—felt distant and irrelevant.
Before I could speak, the lights blinked back on with a low electrical hum.
Blanche exhaled, half a laugh in her voice. “Now it comes on, when we don’t care.”
This felt like the beginning of something.
Something I wasn’t ready for.
Something I didn’t want to run from anymore.