39. Zeir #2
He rose over her. She kissed him—deep, tasting herself on his tongue and not caring, which cracked his composure at the foundation. Her hands found his belt. Worked it open. The zipper. She pushed his remaining clothes down and wrapped her hand around him and his vision went white at the edges.
“Lumi—”
“I’ve got you.” Her grip was firm and certain and she stroked him—long, slow, her thumb dragging over the sensitive head in a way that made his arms buckle. She watched his face while she did it. The same analytical focus she brought to every page she’d ever drawn, now applied to taking him apart.
He caught her wrist. “I need to be inside you.”
“That’s the most direct thing you’ve ever said.”
“I’m done being indirect.”
She guided him. The first press of him against her entrance—slick, hot—made them both stop breathing.
He pushed forward. Slow. Watching her face for every flicker.
Her lips parted. Her eyes widened. She exhaled a long, shuddering breath as he filled her, and the sound she made was so intimate and unguarded that it carved itself into his permanent memory.
He held still. Buried inside her. Their foreheads touching. Her breath came fast and shallow.
“Hi.” Barely a breath.
“Hi.”
“This is the part where you stop being careful.”
He pulled back. Thrust forward. Her gasp filled the room.
The rhythm built slow and then it wasn’t slow anymore.
Her hips rose to meet every stroke. Her legs wrapped around him, ankles crossed behind him, pulling him deeper.
The angle changed and she cried out—sharp, surprised, the kind of sound that rewired his nervous system.
He drove into that angle again. Again. She bit his shoulder to muffle the noise and the sting of her teeth pushed him closer to an edge he was fighting to hold.
She was vocal. Honest. Directing him with her body—her hips tilting, her hands gripping his ass, pulling him harder into her. When he slowed to regain control, she raked her nails down his spine and whispered “Don’t you dare” into his ear in a voice that left no room for restraint.
He gave her everything. The controlled precision that defined him came apart and what replaced it was raw and rhythmic and focused entirely on the sounds she made and the way her body tightened around him every time he hit the place that made her forget English.
“Zeir—I’m—” Her voice cracked.
He could feel it—her body coiling, her breathing fracturing, the way she gripped him from the inside. He braced himself over her. Rolled his hips—deep, deliberate, grinding into the spot that made her arch. “Let go.”
She shattered. The orgasm ripped through her in waves—her body clenching rhythmically around him, her nails scoring his shoulders, her cry buried in the curve of his neck.
He watched her face through it. The abandon.
The vulnerability. The naked, unguarded pleasure of a woman who trusted him with the most undefended version of herself.
The wolf surged. Not the shift—he held that. But the heightened senses that amplified every sensation until her body felt like the only reality. Her scent flooded him: arousal and salt and the sweetness beneath. And beneath it all, the deep biological certainty that this woman was his.
His lips found the curve of her shoulder. The muscle between neck and joint. The place where every wolf in every generation had known to mark.
“Lumi.” Her name on her skin. A question and a warning.
“Yes.” No hesitation. Her hand cradled the back of his head. Held him to her shoulder. “Yes.”
He bit down.
His teeth broke skin. She gasped—sharp, involuntary—and her inner muscles clenched around him so hard his vision whited.
The taste of her blood hit his tongue—copper and salt and the signature his wolf would carry from this moment forward.
The bond awareness bloomed behind his ribs like a compass finding true north: her heartbeat, her location, the coordinates of the woman who’d chosen him.
He came inside her. The release ripped through him—total, obliterating—and she held him through it. Her arms around his shoulders. Her legs around his waist. Her mouth pressing small, fierce kisses along his temple while he shook apart.
After.
Quiet. The kind of quiet that only existed when everything that needed saying had been said with skin instead of words.
His bed. The sheets destroyed—pulled loose from two corners, twisted, damp. City light painted silver bands across the ceiling. Their breathing slowed by degrees. His body still covered hers. He was too heavy for this but she hadn’t let him move. Her arms stayed locked around his back.
“You’re crushing me.” The words pressed warm against his throat.
“I’ll move.”
“I didn’t say stop.”
He buried his face in her neck. Breathed her in. Sweat and vanilla and the copper tang of the mark. Her fingers traced lazy patterns on his shoulder blade.
Eventually he rolled to his side. Pulled her with him.
She tucked against him—her spine fitted to his chest, his arm around her waist, her fingers lacing through his against her stomach.
The bite mark on her shoulder was vivid—a crescent of broken skin, already bruising at the edges, the indentation of his teeth distinct and permanent. He kissed it. Gentle.
She shivered. “That’s going to scar.”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
The word landed in his chest and stayed there.
She turned in his arms. Faced him. Her hair was wrecked. Mascara smudged beneath one eye. Her lips were swollen and her skin was flushed and the mark on her shoulder was angry and red and she looked—
Complete.