16. Calder
Calder
She arched off the blankets like something inside her was trying to claw its way out.
I’d seen people in pain. I’d seen people dying.
I had even held men who were trying not to scream while their bodies failed them in the worst possible ways.
None of it had prepared me for this. The sound that came out of her throat wasn't quite human, wasn't quite anything I had words for, and the worst part was that I could feel it in my own chest like a hook.
Her scent had been building for hours. Cardamom and something underneath, warm and bright, something that made my hindbrain go quiet in a way nothing ever had.
Now it bloomed full force into the cabin, sweetening as her body tipped from need into want, and every alpha instinct I had snapped to attention at once.
Shepherd's breath caught. I heard it. I knew exactly what it meant.
Bo had gone very, very still.
I made myself focus on Noa's face. On the way her lashes were wet, her mouth open on a small desperate sound. On the way her hand was still gripping Bo's like a lifeline.
“Noa.” My voice came out lower than I meant it to. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Look at me.”
Her eyes opened. They were blown dark, almost no green left, just pupil. But they found mine and held.
“There you are,” I said. “Stay with me.”
She nodded. Just barely.
“The wave is going to crest in a minute. You're going to need...” I stopped. After everything we had said, everything we had promised, I still couldn't quite make myself name it.
“I know what I need,” she said. Her voice was rough, but it was hers. Still hers. “Calder.”
“Tell me.”
“I need you.”
The breath went out of me like I had been hit.
“I need you first,” she said, and the way she said it, the steadiness underneath the desperation, told me she was choosing this. Not the heat. Her. She was choosing, even now, even with her body screaming for something to fill the empty places it had decided were empty.
I looked at Shepherd. He was already moving back, giving us space without a word, that careful attention of his trained on us both.
I looked at Bo. His jaw was tight enough to crack, but he loosened his grip on Noa's hand and brought her knuckles to his mouth instead, pressed a kiss there, then let go.
“We'll be in the next room,” Shepherd said quietly. “Holler if you need us.”
“Don't go far,” Noa said.
“Wasn't planning to,” Bo answered.
Then they were gone, and it was just us. Just me and the woman who had walked out of a snowstorm three weeks ago and somehow made herself a home inside my chest.
I leaned over her and pressed my forehead against hers. My pulse was hammering. I wasn't sure if it was hers or mine I could feel between us.
“Tell me what you want,” I said. “Use words. While you can.”
She let out something that was almost a laugh. “Bossy.”
“I have been told.”
“Calder.” Her hands came up to my jaw, both of them, holding me there. “I want you to fuck me. I want you to claim me. I want you to make this stop being something I'm scared of and start being something we do together.”
The words landed in me like stones dropped in still water. Ripples I would feel for the rest of my life.
“Yes ma'am.”
I kissed her.
I had kissed her once already, days ago, in the kitchen with the snow piling against the window.
That kiss had been careful. Asking. This was not.
I had to make myself slow down even now, when every instinct was telling me to take, to cover, to claim.
Her mouth opened under mine and her scent surged and I had to brace myself with both hands on either side of her head to keep from coming apart on top of her like a green kid.
She made a sound into my mouth, a soft urgent thing, and her hands fisted in the front of my shirt.
“Off,” she said. “Off, please.”
I sat up enough to pull my shirt over my head.
She was already pulling at the buttons of the loose flannel of mine she had been sleeping in, the one she had taken off the back of a chair the second day and never given back.
Her hands were clumsy. I helped her, gentle, working the buttons until the fabric fell open and I could see her properly.
She was flushed everywhere. Pink at the throat and chest, a deeper rose lower down.
Her nipples were drawn tight and she shivered when the cabin air hit them.
The sight of her did something dangerous to my self-control.
I had to close my eyes for a second, breathe, count down from ten the way I used to before going into a burn line.
“Eyes open, Calder.” Her voice cracked through me. “I want you to look at me.”
I opened my eyes.
“I want all of you,” she said. “Even the parts you think are scary.”
I lowered myself back down over her, slowly, deliberately, letting her feel my weight by inches. She sighed when I settled against her, the way someone sighs coming home. I felt it everywhere.
“Calder.” Her hand smoothed down my back, found the waistband of my pants, tugged. “Please.”
“I've got you,” I said. “I've got you. Just breathe.”
I kissed down her throat, learning her with my mouth.
Her pulse hammered under my lips at the spot where my teeth wanted to settle, that soft place between neck and shoulder that every alpha instinct in me said here, here, here.
I didn't bite. Not yet. We hadn't talked about that part, and even with her heat blazing through both of us, even with my own pulse roaring in my ears, I wasn't going to take something we hadn't named.
I kissed it instead. Pressed my mouth to that spot and felt her shudder under me, felt the slick scent of her surge in answer, sharp and sweet enough that I had to grip the blankets to ground myself.
“God,” she whispered. “Calder.”
Lower. Across her collarbone. Down to her chest. I took one tight nipple in my mouth and her back came off the blankets again, but this time there was no scream, just a low broken sound that vibrated through me like a wire pulled taut. Her fingers slid into my hair and tightened.
I worked her with my mouth. Slow and steady, no rush, even though every nerve in me was screaming. I’d watched her for three weeks. I had memorized every flinch and laugh and unguarded moment. I knew her face. I wanted to know her body the same way.
She was wet. I could smell the sweetness of it. When I slipped a hand between her thighs, careful even now, even slow, my fingers came away soaked. She was so ready it stopped my breath.
“Oh,” I said. Stupid. Reverent.
“I told you,” she gasped. “Heat.”
“I know.” I stroked her with the flat of two fingers, watching her face. “I just... god, you're...”
“Calder, please.”
I slid one finger inside her. She clenched around me so hard I almost lost it then and there.
“Easy,” I murmured, but I wasn't sure who I was telling. “Easy, sweetheart.”
I worked her open with my hand. One finger, then two, careful and patient even though her hips were rolling up to meet me, even though her hands were starting to claw at the blanket, even though her scent was driving me half out of my mind.
I wanted her ready. I wanted this to be good for her.
I wanted, more than anything, for her to come on my hand before I gave her anything else.
And she did.
She came apart with my name on her lips, a low broken cry, her thighs trembling around my wrist. I watched her face the whole time.
Watched the way her breath caught, the way her eyes went unfocused, the way her mouth opened on a soundless gasp before the sound finally tore out of her.
I would remember it for the rest of my life.
I knew that. I felt it lock into me like a memory I had been waiting to make.
I worked her through it. Slow strokes, easing her down, until her hand caught my wrist and stopped me.
“More,” she breathed. “Calder. More. The wave is coming again, I can feel it, I need...”
“I know.” I shucked out of the rest of my clothes faster than I had ever done anything in my life. “I know. Look at me. Eyes on me. I've got you.”
I settled between her thighs, one hand braced beside her head, the other guiding myself to her. The blunt head of my cock dragged through the slick mess I had made of her and we both made a sound at the contact, hers high and shocked, mine low and ragged.
“Calder.” She was trembling. “Now. Please. Now.”
I pushed inside her in one slow, even stroke.
The world stopped.
I had been with people before. Not many, not in a long time, but enough to know what sex was supposed to feel like.
This was not that. This was not anything I had words for.
The heat of her, the impossible slick give of her, the way she pulled me in deeper like her body recognized me.
The way her scent surged into something I would be smelling in my dreams for the rest of my life, sweet enough to drown in.
She was sobbing. Quiet little sounds against my shoulder.
“Did I hurt you?” I made myself ask. “Noa, look at me, did I...”
“No.” She shook her head against my throat. “No, god, no. It's just...”
“What.”
“It's just that you fit.” Her hands came up around my back, holding me there, holding me tight. “You fit like a missing piece of me. I knew you would.”
Something cracked in my chest. I pressed my mouth to her temple and held myself perfectly still inside her, and for one long suspended moment I just felt her. The pulse of her around me. The damp warmth of her breath at my collarbone. The way her body had taken me in and refused to let me go.
Then she rolled her hips up, and the suspended moment shattered.
I moved.
Slow at first. Long, even strokes. I had promised myself I would be careful.
I had promised myself this would be for her.
But she was clutching at my back, urging me deeper, and my own body was singing with a kind of need I had never let myself feel before, and slow stopped being an option somewhere along the way.