Chapter 25 Beckett
Beckett
She’s kissing me.
Nova is kissing me. Her fist is in my shirt and her mouth is on mine and my brain has stopped working because thirty seconds ago we were arguing about wallpaper and now her body is pressed against me and I can taste the bread she stole from Vaelor and I—
I’m not moving. Why am I not moving.
My hands find her waist. Finally. Like they’ve been waiting for permission my whole life and just got it. She makes a sound against my mouth — small, relieved — and pulls me closer.
I’ve thought about this. Every night for months. Lying in bed listening to her breathe on the other side of the wall, or worse, listening to her breathe in my bed while Rane’s arm was around her and I kept my hands to myself because that’s what she needed. And all that matters is what she needs.
She tastes like bread and lemonade and something warm underneath both.
I’m done waiting.
Her back hits the wall. The wall I was just testing to see if we could knock it down. My hand braces beside her head. She wraps her fingers in my hair and pulls and the sting goes straight through me.
“Beckett.” My name in her mouth. Not a question. Not a dare this time. Something softer. Something that sounds like she’s been holding it back.
“Yeah.”
“Don’t stop.”
I wasn’t planning on it.
I lift her. One arm under her thighs, one hand flat against the wall. She wraps her legs around my waist and the sound she makes when our hips press together rewires something in my brain.
I carry her toward the bedroom. The hallway is narrow and I bump the doorframe and she laughs against my mouth and it’s the best sound I’ve ever heard. She’s not being careful. It sounds a lot like joy, like she forgot she was allowed to laugh while someone’s holding her. While I’m holding her.
I kick the door shut. Set her on the bed. She pulls me down over her and we’re kissing again — messy, open, nothing like the version of me she’s known. The one who reads in corners. The one who asks permission.
She tugs at my shirt. I pull back long enough to get it over my head. Her palms flatten against my chest and she traces the tattoos down my stomach with her fingers and I feel every touch like a current.
“You’re covered in them,” she says. Her eyes are wide and her fingers keep following the ink down and my muscles jump under her hands.
“Yeah.”
Her mouth presses against my collarbone. Right over a line of ink. Her tongue drags along it and my hips jerk against her.
“Nova—”
“Don’t say we should slow down.”
“I was going to say you’re still wearing too many clothes.”
She grins. Sharp and real.
Her shirt comes off. I stop. Look at her. Silver hair against the pillow. Scars across her shoulders. Pale eyes looking up at me like I’m the only thing she wants.
“Tell me what you want,” I say against her skin.
“You. I already—”
“Specifically.” I lift my head. Look at her. “Tell me what you want me to do.”
Her face goes pink. “I don’t — I’m not good at—”
“You don’t have to be good at it.” I press my mouth to her jaw. “Just tell me.”
“Touch me,” she whispers. “Please.”
I slide my hand down her stomach. Over the waistband. She lifts her hips and I pull everything down and then she’s bare beneath me and my brain stops for a full three seconds.
My hand slides between her thighs. She’s soaked. The first brush of my fingers against her makes her whole body shudder and the sound she makes — quiet, desperate — almost ends me.
“Fuck, Nova.”
I stroke her slow. Learning what makes her hips roll, what makes her breath catch, what makes her grab my wrist.
I want to memorize her.
My thumb circles her clit while I press two fingers inside her. She’s tight and hot and she clenches around me immediately. Her hand grabs my forearm, holding me steady.
“There,” she gasps. “Right there, don’t—”
I curl my fingers. Find the spot. Press.
Her back arches off the bed and the moan that comes out of her is the best thing I’ve ever heard. I do it again. Again. Building a rhythm while my thumb works her clit and she’s writhing underneath me, legs shaking, one hand fisted in the sheets and the other digging into my arm.
“Beckett — I’m going to—”
“Yeah. You are.”
She comes around my fingers. Hard. Her whole body locks up and then releases in waves. I feel every pulse. I watch her face through it — mouth open, eyes squeezed shut, that crease between her brows I’ve seen a hundred times but never like this.
I keep my hand on her through the aftershocks. Gentle now because she’s trembling.
“Oh my god,” she breathes. “Oh my god.”
“Again?”
Her eyes open. “I can’t—”
“You can.” I press a kiss to her stomach. “But not yet.”
I pull my hand away. She watches me bring my fingers to my mouth. Her eyes go wide.
“Beckett.”
“Hmm.”
“That’s—”
“Yeah.” I hold her gaze. “It is.”
Something shifts in her face. The pink cheeks go darker. She’s looking at me like she’s meeting someone new.
Good.
I strip the rest of my clothes off. Her eyes track down my body and when they land, her lips part.
“Come here,” she says. Voice rough.
I settle over her. The first press of skin against skin — chest to chest, her legs opening around me — makes us both inhale.
“Nova.” I press my forehead to hers. “You have to tell me if—”
“If you ask me if I’m sure I will literally kill you.”
I almost laugh. But then she reaches between us and wraps her hand around me and guides me to where she wants me and the laugh dies.
I press in. Slow. She’s still sensitive from coming and the heat is unreal. Her nails dig into my back. Her mouth opens against my shoulder.
“You feel—” I can’t finish.
“Yeah,” she whispers. “Beckett.”
She says it almost pleading and I can’t stay still any longer.
The first thrust is slow and she whimpers.
The second goes deeper and her legs lock around me.
By the third I’ve lost whatever rhythm I was trying for because she feels too good and the sounds she’s making are wrecking me.
Her hips rise to meet mine. Her hands clutch at my back.
We find a pace together — it’s desperate and honest and us.
I press my face into her neck and breathe her in while I move inside her. Her fingers drag through my hair. My hand grips her thigh, pulls her closer. The angle changes just slightly. She cries out and I cover her mouth with mine because I have no idea if anyone else is home.
She bites my lip. Hard. And I thrust into her harder because of it and she moans into my mouth and everything is heat and skin and the sound of her saying my name between breaths.
Then I feel it.
Something shifts in my chest. Deep. Below the ribs. A pull, then a lock. Something clicking into place that has nothing to do with what my body is doing and everything to do with what’s happening between us.
The click.
It rolls through me like a wave. Warm. Certain. Permanent. My vision blurs. My hand finds hers and our fingers lace together against the sheets and the mark on my wrist burns hot for a single second.
Her eyes fly open. Her hand tightens on mine.
“Beckett—”
“I know.” My voice cracks. “I know.”
She pulls me down and kisses me and I can taste salt. I don’t know which of us is crying. I don’t care. I thrust into her again and again and the bond is humming in my chest like a frequency I’ve been tuned to my entire life and only now can hear.
I grip her hips and drive into her and she meets me stroke for stroke. Her nails rake down my back. Her teeth find my shoulder. The sounds between us are raw and artless and I have never felt anything like this before.
“Don’t stop,” she says against my ear. “Please don’t stop.”
I couldn’t if I wanted to.
My thumb finds her clit again. She’s close — I can feel it in the way she tightens around me, the way her breathing fragments.
I press and circle and thrust deep and she shatters.
She comes so hard she goes silent — her mouth is open but no sound comes out.
Her body clenched around mine with a force that pulls me over the edge right behind her.
I bury myself in her and let go with a groan. The orgasm wipes everything clean. My vision. My thoughts. My name. All I know is her hands on my back and her pulse against my throat and the bond settling in my chest like it’s always been there.
Like it was always supposed to be there.
We lie there. Breathing. Her fingers trail up and down my spine in a pattern she probably doesn’t realize she’s making.
I lift my head. Look at her.
“Hi,” she says.
“Hi.”
“So that happened.”
“Yeah.”
She laughs. Small and shaky but real. “I came home to yell at you about wallpaper.”
“And instead—”
“And instead.” She gestures between us. At the destroyed sheets. At our clothes on the floor mixed with drywall dust. “This.”
“This,” I agree.
She bites her lip. Looks at me through her lashes. “Your mark.”
I look down at my wrist.
Reverie is gone.
In its place — layered, shifting, warm against my skin — is her mark. Only mine looks like it’s made of black smoke.
I stare at it. I should be scared. My House mark just disappeared. Everything I was assigned at birth, erased in a second.
Instead, it feels like home.
“Beckett.” Her voice is soft. She’s touching my wrist. Tracing the new mark with her finger. “Are you okay?”
I look at her. Silver hair spread across the pillow. Pale eyes searching mine. The woman who grabbed my shirt in a hallway because she didn’t know what else to do with being loved.
“I’ve never been better,” I say.
She pulls me down. Kisses me slow. Her hand stays on my wrist, covering the mark.
“We still have to deal with the wallpaper situation,” she says.
“In a minute.”
“You sound like Locke.”
I go still. She grins at me. Sharp. Daring.
“Shut up,” I say.
“Make me.”
I do.