Chapter 17 #3
“Tuck—” The word was a rasp, her voice still wrecked from the crash, but the sound of my name in that ruined, honeyed contralto undid something behind my sternum I hadn’t known was tied shut.
Her hands slid down my chest, her fingers trembling not from hesitation but from wanting, from the same overwhelming need that had my muscles locking, my breath coming in sharp, uneven pulls.
I caught her wrist, pressed her palm flat against the headboard. “Look at me.”
She did. Immediately. No hesitation. Her gaze locked onto mine, her chest rising and falling in quick, shallow breaths, her scent flaring warm, not with obedience but with trust. The realization sat heavy behind my ribs.
This woman, who had spent eleven years hiding, who had built her entire career on never letting anyone see the real her, was giving me this. Giving me herself.
The first thrust was slow. Deliberate. I watched her face as I pushed inside, watched her lips part, her eyes flutter shut, her throat work on a sound that didn’t come.
The tight, wet heat of her wrecked every plan I had for staying in control, better than any fantasy, better than any stolen moment I’d ever let myself imagine.
Her body stretched around me, her nails scoring down my back as I bottomed out, her whine vibrating against my chest where we pressed together.
“Fuck, Iz—” My voice broke. The cedar in my scent charred black at the edges, the bourbon note rich and dark and claiming.
I pulled back just to feel her chase the loss, just to hear the broken sound she made when I thrust back in, deeper this time, harder.
Her legs wrapped tighter around me, her heels digging into my ass, urging me on, demanding more.
I gave it to her.
The bed frame hit the wall. The sound of skin slapping skin filled the room, mixed with the wet, obscene noises her body made every time I buried myself inside her, the breathless little sounds she couldn’t quite form into words.
Her scent was everywhere, thick and sweet and mine, coating my skin, filling my lungs, drowning out everything but the feel of her, the taste of her, the way her body clenched around me like she never wanted to let go.
Her wrist came free. Her hands found my face, her fingers pressing into my cheeks, forcing me to look at her.
Her eyes hadn’t left mine, dark and wide in the low light, her lips swollen from my kisses, her skin flushed pink.
She was beautiful. Not the polished, professional Isobel Gretan her coworkers knew, but the real her, messy and desperate and alive in a way I’d never seen before.
“Mine,” I growled against her mouth, the word torn out of me before I’d decided to say it, past logic, past consequences or the fact that the world was probably burning downstairs. “You don’t have to say it. Show me.”
She couldn’t. Her voice was gone, stolen by the crash and the suppressants and the sheer force of what was happening between us. But her hands slid to my shoulders, her nails digging in, and the whine that vibrated in her chest was answer enough. Yours. Yours. Yours.
I claimed her.
With everything from a man who’d lied to himself for years, who’d sat in meetings and sealed booths and that stupid axe-throwing place telling himself the pull was professional, the attraction was creative, the kick in his blood every time she laughed was respect. Done lying now. For good.
She claimed me back.
Her teeth found my shoulder. The whine that came up out of her wasn’t the fragile thing from the living room, it was full and fierce and it sounded like winning, going through both of us into every bone I had.
An Omega who’d picked her Alpha and was broadcasting it with the same uncompromising power that had made her the most wanted voice in the world.
We moved together with no technique in it, just instinct, two bodies finally let do the thing they were built for. Her gasps set the time. My growl held under it. Skin on skin, breath and motion, the whole graceless real music of it.
The orgasm hit her like a wave. Her back arched off the bed, her body locking around me, her scent exploding into something so sweet it was almost painful.
The pulse of her around me sent me over the edge, my release tearing through me with a force that left me blind for a second, my hips stuttering as I spilled inside her, my mouth crashing to hers to swallow her broken, voiceless cries.
We collapsed together. My weight braced on my forearms, my breath ragged, my skin slick with sweat.
Her fingers traced idle patterns on my back, her scent wrapping around me like a second skin.
The cedar and bourbon in my scent had softened, warming into something deeper, something that smelled like home.
Her lips brushed my shoulder. A press of warmth, a silent promise. Still no sound, but I felt the shape of it.
Mine.
“Yours,” I said. “Just too stupid to say it.”
A whine got out of her, bright and warm and edged with something that, somehow, sounded like a laugh.
I pulled her in closer and she let me. Whatever the world out there was about to do to us, it could wait at the bottom of the stairs.