Chapter 22 #4
Nash doesn’t stop until I tug at him weakly and curse at him in two languages.
Then he crawls back up my body, looking entirely too pleased with himself.
I shove at his shoulder. “Pants. Off. Now.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He stands beside the bed and strips with none of the patience he used on me. Belt. Button. Zipper. Gone.
I watch every second because I’m injured, not dead.
When he comes back to me, naked and hard and beautiful in a way that makes my mouth go dry, my wolf goes silent with pure focus.
Nash notices.
His smile turns dangerous.
“See something you like?” he asks.
I lift my left hand, the diamond flashing on my finger. “I said yes, didn’t I?”
His expression changes.
Heat, love, hunger, devotion. All of it moving through the bond so clearly I nearly lose my breath.
Then he’s over me again.
He kisses me deep, letting me taste myself on his mouth, and I wrap my good arm around his neck. My injured shoulder twinges, and he feels the tiny flinch instantly.
He pulls back. “Switch me places.”
“You are not allowed to make that sound like a tactical command right now.”
“It is a tactical command.” His mouth brushes mine. “I want you comfortable.”
“I don’t want comfortable.”
“No?”
“I want you.”
The bond snaps taut.
His restraint cracks.
He shifts us carefully, rolling onto his back and pulling me over him so I’m straddling his hips. The movement keeps my shoulder from taking weight, and it puts me above him, in control.
Of course it does.
Of course, Nash Cross, alpha, mercenary king, impossible bastard, would hand me control at the exact moment every instinct in him must be screaming to claim.
He looks up at me, chest rising hard, hands settling on my hips.
“We go at your pace,” he says.
My throat tightens.
The bond hums between us, warm and open and alive.
This is not a cage.
This is him beneath me, giving me everything. His body. His trust. His hunger. His restraint.
His choice.
And mine.
I reach between us, wrap my hand around him, and guide him to me. He makes a rough sound that nearly undoes me.
I sink down slowly.
Inch by inch.
He fills me so completely I have to stop halfway, both of us breathing hard, both of us staring like this is the first time and the last time and every time we should have had in the two years between.
“Mia,” he says, my name wrecked in his mouth.
“I know.”
I do.
I know because I feel it. Everything he isn’t saying. Everything I’m not ready to say. The vow underneath the touch. The promise underneath the hunger.
I lower myself the rest of the way.
We both go still.
For one long moment, there is no movement. No teasing. No banter. Just the two of us joined, the bond open, and the terrifying, impossible truth of being known.
Then Nash’s hands flex on my hips.
Not pushing.
Asking.
I move.
Slow at first because he is large and I am sore and my shoulder is throbbing, and none of that matters because the way he looks at me is doing far more damage than the injury ever could. I ride him with one hand braced on his chest, the diamond on my finger catching the low light every time I move.
His gaze keeps dropping to it.
To the ring.
To my body taking his.
To my face.
“Mine,” he says, voice barely more than a growl.
The word hits the bond like a match to dry grass. Every old fear in me should rise. Every warning bell should go off.
But they don’t.
Because I can feel him through the bond. He isn’t taking. Isn’t trapping. Isn’t closing a fist around me.
He’s offering the word like a vow. A savage wolf vow. Spoken in vicious devotion.
So, I lean down as much as my shoulder allows, brush my mouth over his, and answer him.
“Mine.”
His control shatters.
He surges up enough to kiss me, one hand sliding into my hair while the other anchors my hip. I move faster. He meets me, thrust for thrust, careful even when he’s losing his mind, and that somehow makes it hotter.
The room fills with the sound of us. Breath. Skin. His low groans. My broken curses. The bed creaking under us. The city beyond the window still alive and oblivious below.
The bond opens wider.
I feel his pleasure alongside mine, feel the fierce joy in him, the absolute reverence, the way he’s holding back from the edge because he wants me there first.
“Nash.”
“I know, darling.”
His hand slips between us.
I almost collapse.
“There,” he says, voice rough and wrecked. “Come for me.”
His fingers move, and the rhythm of him inside me turns merciless. The pleasure builds fast this time, too much, too bright, the bond dragging every sensation deeper until I don’t know where my body ends and his begins.
For once, that doesn’t scare me.
For once, I let it happen.
I let myself want him.
I let myself need him.
I let the bond carry what I’m too tired to hold alone.
And when the orgasm hits, it tears through me hard enough that I cry out, head dropping forward, my good hand clenching against his chest. Nash catches me with one arm around my waist, holding me steady as my body shakes through it.
He says my name like prayer and profanity combined.
Then he follows.
His hips drive up once, twice, and he comes with a deep, broken groan, his grip tightening, his face pressed to my throat. Heat spills inside me, and the bond flares so bright I see white behind my eyes.
For a second, I swear I feel his wolf brush against mine.
Not taking.
Not claiming without permission.
Just standing beside her.
Waiting.
My wolf steps closer.
And for the first time in my life, I don’t call her back.
Nash’s mouth finds the spot where my neck meets my shoulder. Not the injured side. The other one. His teeth scrape lightly over my skin.
A shiver runs through me.
He stills. “Mia?”
I know what he’s asking.
The claim.
The final step.
The thing I spent years fearing.
The thing that should feel like the end of freedom.
Instead, with him still inside me and his breath rough against my skin and the ring warm on my finger, it feels like the most honest choice I’ve ever made.
I turn my head, baring my throat.
“Yes.”
The word is barely out before his control snaps in a different way. His wolf canines sink into me. Pain flashes hot and bright. Pleasure follows so fast it steals the breath from my lungs.
The bond detonates.
Not a thread now. Not a hum. A wildfire.
Nash. Me. Wolf. Woman. Alpha. Strategist. The city below us. The fight behind us. The future waiting with all its sharp teeth and impossible promises.
I feel him.
All of him.
And somehow, impossibly, I am still myself.
More myself.
I cry out, his name breaking in my throat as the claim locks into place.
He holds me through it, shaking, his mouth still pressed to the mark he made. Then he pulls back and looks at me with blood on his lips and absolute wonder in his eyes.
My wolf answers by pushing forward, fierce and satisfied.
I cup his face.
Then I bare my teeth.
His eyes flare.
“My turn,” I whisper.
He goes utterly still.
Then he tilts his head.
Offering.
Trusting.
Mine, the bond says.
Ours, I correct.
And bite.
He groans my name, a sound so raw it breaks something open inside me all over again. The taste of him hits my tongue, salt and skin and wolf and Nash, and the bond surges once more, sealing from both sides.
When I pull back, we’re both breathing hard. He’s still inside me. Still holding me. Still looking at me like I am the only thing in the world that has ever made sense.
I rest my forehead against his.
“I’m still going to argue with you constantly,” I whisper.
His laugh is rough and beautiful. “I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.”
The bond warms.
I close my eyes and let myself feel it. The weight of him beneath me. The ring on my finger. The ache in my shoulder. The thrum of the city outside. Echo probably committing petty theft in my guest room. The future, terrifying and bright and mine because I am choosing it.
Choosing him.
Choosing us.
Nash kisses my marked shoulder with impossible gentleness.
“Still with me?” he asks.
I open my eyes and look at my impossible, infuriating, patient, arrogant, beautiful mate.
“Actually, I was thinking.”
“And here I told myself I’d managed to get you to stop doing that for a little while.”
“Marcus told me about Harrow quitting,” I say.
Nash groans. “Not now.”
“Yes, now. Because if I’m marrying you, I reserve the right to solve your problems in the middle of emotional moments.”
His mouth twitches. “Of course you do.”
“He taught Advanced Urban Strategy and Intelligence, right?”
“Mia—”
“I’ll teach it.”
He goes still.
“A guest block,” I clarify. “Maybe more if your students aren’t idiots.”
He looks like he’s trying to hold back a grin—and failing. “They won’t know what hit them.”
“That’s usually the point of good strategy.”
“You’re going to be an amazing teacher,” he says.
“I have no doubt.”
His laugh is lighter than I’ve ever heard. Full of real joy. “You’d really come live at Crossvale with me?”
“I just claimed an alpha as my mate. What did you think I’d do?”
“Whatever the hell you want,” he admits.
“You’re not wrong. But it turns out, what I want to do, Prepotente, is you.”
His smile is slow and devastating. “Mia Feroce.” His thumb brushes over my hip. “My fierce one.”
I laugh. “Nicely done.”
“It’s better than domineering jerk.”
“I think they kind of mean the same thing, don’t you?”
He rolls us carefully, keeping my shoulder protected, and kisses me like we have all night and every night after that.