Chapter Nine #2
Riley’s hands tightened on them. “You’re my home,” she whispered. “You’re both ... everything to me.”
The moment she opened herself to the bond, Rafe felt it like a tide breaking.
Not a rush of possession—never that—but a living alignment, a flood of connection that braided her heartbeat with his and Dorian’s until there was no edge where one ended and another began.
It was warmth and clarity and the fierce, humbling knowledge that they were no longer choosing each other alone—they were held together by something truer than instinct.
Rafe went still, breath catching hard in his chest. “Riley...” The word left him like a vow.
Dorian’s hand tightened in his. “Fuck, I can feel you through the bond, my love. Can you feel us?” His voice was rough, undone in a way Rafe had never heard from him before.
Riley nodded, giving them both the sweetest smile. “I can,” she whispered. “I feel it with both of you. I’m not afraid anymore.”
Rafe was floored by her trust. By her. By the way the bond didn’t cage but expanded, making space for all of them to be more than they had ever been.
“Baby, I need to taste you,” Rafe said low as he positioned her in the middle of their bed, kneeling between her bent knees.
“I’m going to make you come hard on my tongue, and I’m going to take every drop of love you have to give me.
Then I’m going to make love to you. While I’m busy, I want you to make Dorian feel good with your mouth. ”
“Thank God!” Dorian growled as he scrambled onto his knees and into a better position. “I am loving this plan.”
Riley giggled as the mattress jostled her. “I can tell. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you move so fast.”
Rafe loved the sound of her laughter, but he was not going to be distracted. He had a plan and an image in his head, and damn it, he was going to make it come true.
“Now, you will make him feel good, but you are not allowed to make him come until we are all ready to go together.” Rafe watched as the cutest little frown formed on his mate’s face, and his brother cursed.
“Goddamn it, Rafe,” Dorian groaned.
Riley’s expression cleared. “Oh! I get it. Yeah, I am so down for that.”
Rafe grinned as he got into position himself, watching as his beautiful mate took his brother’s cock into her mouth, then looked down at the beautiful sight before him—his mate perfectly bare.
Not able to stand it a minute more, he put his mouth on her, using his tongue to flick against the rapidly firming nub of her clit and sliding a finger into her tight heat to feel the ripples of pleasure that rolled through her.
It pleased him—and his wolf—no end to know that it was him giving her this pleasure.
He began to slide his finger in and out of her and loved the way she groaned, rolling her hips to ride his mouth. He added a deeper suction, twisting his finger within her.
“Christ, Rafe,” Dorian growled. “She loves it when you do that. I can tell.”
Then this was going to blow her mind, Rafe thought, as he shifted his wrist and found the sensitive place inside her.
“Fuck! Rafe!” Riley cried as she pulled off Dorian and arched her back. “What was that?”
“That, my love,” Dorian answered, laughter in his tone, “is your sweet spot. And if Rafe’s found it, you are going to go off so fucking hard.
Shit! Sweetness!” Rafe glanced up to see that she had practically swallowed him whole, and Dorian had to reach down and grip the base of his cock, close to their mate’s lips, to hold off coming himself.
Rafe needed to be inside his mate, so he sped up the movement of his finger to match the flickering of his tongue against her clit. Within seconds she came, arching off the bed and crying out her pleasure.
Without letting her come down completely from her orgasmic flight, Rafe crawled up her shaking, writhing body and plunged deep into her. Both of them cried out at the sensation.
“God, you feel so fucking good inside me,” Riley said, her voice shaking.
Rafe had no air for words, so he showed her with his body how much he loved being inside her. He began to drive his hips, thrusting into her as she resumed pleasuring his brother.
This much heat, this much desire, was never going to last long.
Soon his thrusts lost their steady rhythm as his body tightened and he knew he was on the cusp of coming.
From the way she fluttered around him, he knew Riley was close, too.
Dorian was cursing and groaning and praising their mate in a steady stream of sounds that told Rafe he was just as close.
“Now, Riley—come for us,” Rafe growled as he drove into her and let go, coming so hard he saw stars.
From the roar Dorian let out, it was clear he had been carried with them, and the muffled cry from their mate and the frantic clench around him told Rafe she had been thrown into the same blinding release.
Rafe swore and slumped against her as Dorian fell to the side.
All three of them lay there for long moments, catching their breath.
Later, when the world had settled enough for Dorian to bring a warm cloth and their breathing had found a shared rhythm again, Rafe lay with her back to his chest, one hand over her heart, listening to the quiet between them like it was something sacred.
“I will spend the rest of my life earning this,” Dorian said softly from where he lay in front of her, her face pressed into his chest.
Rafe brushed his thumb over Riley’s skin, emotion thick in his throat. “Every day.”
A hunt lay ahead. Danger, too. But for the first time, the future did not feel like something to survive.
It felt like something they were about to build—with the woman they loved, with the bond that had finally, unmistakably, come into its own.
****
C hristian waited in the dark beyond the spill of security lights, the building’s hard edges rising in front of him like a challenge that had already lost.
This was where they were holding her.
He stood with one hand on the hood of the vehicle, coat collar turned up against the cold, eyes never leaving the structure. The plan was complete in his head—clean, inevitable. She would be his. And when she was, they would rule the world that had tried to cage them both.
Footsteps approached. One of the eight stopped at his side, breathing too fast. The man’s muscles jumped beneath his skin as if they couldn’t decide where to settle, sweat slicked his temples despite the chill. A flawed design. Not all of them could be gods.
Christian studied him for a moment, then smiled.
“You’re my best fighter,” he said lightly.
The hybrid straightened, chest swelling at the praise. The spasms eased, replaced by a feral focus. He nodded once, eager.
“Good,” Christian murmured. “Tomorrow when we strike, you’ll go first.”
The man moved off at a run, hunger for impact written in every step.
Christian watched him go, a thrill cutting through the cold. This was going to be fun—pitting his creations against the E.S.E., the entity he had once feared.
But fear was a luxury of the past.
By tomorrow night, his mate would be in his arms.