18. Chapter 18 #2
His throat was tight. “Doesn’t feel like much of a choice when I’m barely holding back.”
“And yet you are.” She pressed closer, her scent wrapping around him. “You’re feeling everything a mated wolf feels, and you’re still letting me breathe. That matters.”
Around them, the training yard had cleared. Wolves giving them privacy even in the open space.
“I want to take you back to my quarters.” Rhys’s tone dropped. “Want to prove you’re mine in ways that don’t involve sparring matches.”
Heat flared in Nadia’s eyes. “Then do it.”
He kissed her there in the middle of the training yard. Let every wolf in Blackridge see exactly who she belonged to.
When they broke apart, Nadia’s pupils were blown wide and her breathing unsteady. “Your leg, ”
“Will hold?” He caught her hand, threading their fingers together. “Come on.”
They crossed the compound together, Rhys’s limp pronounced but his grip on Nadia steady. His quarters were blessedly close.
Inside, Nadia pushed him against the closed door. Her hands framed his face, her eyes searching his. “Tell me the truth. How much pain are you in?”
“Some.” He wouldn’t lie to her. “But it’s worth it.”
“Is it?” Her thumb traced his scarred cheekbone. “Because I’m not asking you to be more than you are. I’m not asking you to fight harder. I’m just asking you to stay.”
Air stalled behind his teeth. “You have me.”
“Then show me.” She kissed him softly. “Not the warrior you think you need to be. Just you.”
Rhys pulled her closer, letting the jealous energy transform into something tender. His hands found her waist, her hips, the curve of her spine.
“Mine.” The word came out rough.
“Yours.” She pressed against him. “And you’re mine. Every scarred, stubborn, self-sacrificing piece of you.”
He kissed her again, deeper this time. Letting her taste the possessive fury he’d channeled into proving himself.
Nadia’s hands slid beneath his shirt, tracing the muscles that ached from exertion. “You’re shaking.”
“Because I want you.” He caught her wrists gently. “Want to make this real the way it deserves to be. But my body, ”
“Is recovering?” She leaned back in his arms and held his gaze. “So we’ll take it slow. Let me take care of you for once.”
The offer made his wolf settle. Not with frustration, but with trust.
“Okay.” He exhaled hard. “Show me.”
Nadia kissed him slow. Not the desperate crash of their first time, something deliberate. She tasted the salt on his skin and felt the restraint still coiled in his muscles, the wolf that wanted to surge and claim and take.
She pulled back. “On the bed. Shirt off.”
Something dark flickered in his eyes. He obeyed.
Rhys settled on the bed carefully, taking his weight on the side that still held. The bruises from the sparring match were already blooming across his ribs, purple and yellow under the lamplight.
Nadia pulled her own shirt over her head. Watched his gaze drop. Watched his hands fist in the blanket.
“No touching.” She climbed over him, her knees bracketing his hips. “Not yet.”
His face hardened. “You’re trying to kill me.”
“I’m trying to take care of you.” She lowered herself until her weight settled against him, the hard length of him pressing between her thighs through their remaining clothes. His hips jerked up involuntarily, and the sound he made was guttural..
“Nadia, ”
“I’ve got you.” She rolled her hips once. Slow. Deliberate. Felt him pulse against her and watched his head drop back, tendons standing out in his neck. “You spent the whole day proving you could protect me. Now let me prove something back.”
She kissed the scar that bisected his chest where the ambush almost killed him, and held the kiss there until she felt his pulse steady under her mouth.
His hands lifted toward her. Stopped. Fisted in the sheets instead.
“Good.” She rewarded him with a harder roll of her hips that made them both gasp. “You can touch me when I say.”
She’d never had this before. The power to give pleasure instead of having it taken. The freedom to set a pace that belonged to her. Rhys beneath her, shaking with the effort of holding still, his wolf blazing behind his eyes but his hands obeying her command.
This was what trust looked like when it wore skin.
She stripped him a button at a time. Then herself. Took her time settling onto him, inch by inch, watching his face crack open with pleasure he couldn’t hide.
“Nadia.” Her name came out wrecked. “Please.”
“Please what?”
“Let me touch you.” His words came out a rasp. “Need my hands on you. Need to feel, ”
“Yes.”
His hands came up like a drowning man breaking surface, the heels of his palms pressing hard against her ribs as if he needed proof she was solid. One hand cupped her breast, his thumb circling her nipple until she arched into the touch.
She moved. Slow at first, finding the angle that made them both groan. His hips rose to meet her, carefully, his weight braced against the headboard to spare what wouldn’t hold him otherwise.
“Harder.” His hands tightened on her hips. Not commanding. Asking.
She gave him harder. Faster. Let everything between them amplify every point of contact until she couldn’t tell whose pleasure was whose. His hands guided her rhythm, her body set it, and the push and pull between control and surrender blurred into something that felt like flying.
The orgasm built in her spine first. Rhys felt it. She knew because his breath went ragged and his fingers dug into her hips hard enough to bruise.
“Come for me.” His voice shook. “Want to feel it. Want to watch you, ”
She shattered. Pleasure tore through her in waves, her body clenching around him. He followed two strokes later, his back arching off the bed, her name breaking apart in his throat.
Neither of them moved.
“Your leg,” she murmured finally.
“Worth it.” His lips pressed against her temple. “Every single second.”
Her mouth curved into his skin and it carried them both down into warmth.