Chapter 28
Kade
The world narrows to the woman beneath my mouth. I thought I’d never get her like this again, thought I’d have to live forever with the agonizing memory of what I could never have.
Now she’s here, and—somehow—she forgives me. She forgives me, and she loves me, and she’s letting me touch her again, letting me taste her.
My mate’s cry as she comes apart is so fucking beautiful.
Mine.
I’m transfixed as she shakes and shudders through her orgasm, her eyes wide and unfocused, her lips parted on a gasp. The flush on her skin, the scent of her arousal, her sensuous body laid out for me—it’s driving me into a frenzy.
I have done this. I am the one who has brought her this pleasure.
Watching her makes my cock even harder, moisture leaking from the tip in anticipation. The need to be inside her now, to fill her, is no longer a desire—it’s a primal command that drowns out everything else.
But I didn’t expect this to happen. And . . . goddamn it.
“I don’t have—fuck, I don’t have a condom.” I force the words out, fighting my nature with every damning syllable.
“That’s fine,” she says, and the act of speaking seems difficult for her too. “I have an IUD. And I’ve been tested. Please. I want to feel you.”
Thank fuck.
“I haven’t been with anyone since . . .” Shit, it’s really been that long. “Since 1917.”
Her mouth falls open as the weight of that lands.
I stroke my fingers along her hips. “For me, there’s only you.”
She makes a soft, wounded sound, tugging me closer.
I move up her body, kissing her perfect curves, until I’m hovering over her, dwarfing her with my size.
She loops her arms over my neck as she looks up at me, gaze still hazy, her lips swollen from my kisses.
She is so precious. After a lifetime of believing I deserved nothing, I can’t believe I’m allowed to have this. To have her.
I murmur against her mouth, like I’ve held the words in for too long and now I can’t stop saying them. “I’m so fucking in love with you, aine.”
She moans in a low register that makes my cock twitch. “Kade, please.”
Her plea, so full of her own need, has me growling and kissing her, covering her small body with my large one. Then she’s moving her body under me, shifting until my cock slides through her wetness and oh fuck.
She’s fucking soaked. Even wetter than before. My cock pulses vehemently, straining to push into her even as she slides herself up and down it again, coating me in her slick. A guttural sound is pulled from my throat and I have to tighten all my muscles to keep from plunging recklessly into her.
“Alanna.” A warning.
“I’m ready,” she says, reaching her hand down to encircle my cock. Her hand on me nearly makes my eyes roll back, and I have to stop my hips from jerking forward into her hand as she guides my thick tip to her entrance.
Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment, but I wait there for a moment, holding both of us on the precipice of bliss.
I relish the sensation of my thick head pressing against her wet, welcoming heat, my mate eager for me to drive it home.
This is the best I have felt in . . . fuck it, I’ve never felt this good.
Before she can protest, I capture her mouth, kissing her with all the possessive love I’ve been holding back.
Then I push into her, slowly, forcing her body to open for me, and a low moan is torn from both of us at once.
The heat of her surrounds me, absolute perfection.
A wrecked “oh my god” escapes her lips, making me twitch forward, losing my leash on my control for a split-second and pushing a little deeper.
Her fingers dig into my biceps as she struggles to accommodate me, and I force myself to slow down. She deserves to be savored.
Christ, she’s tight, so fucking tight, and it feels unreal. But I’m huge and she is so small. What if I hurt her? I watch her face for any hint of pain, ready to stop in an instant, but all I see is pure pleasure written in the lines of her mouth and the exposed arch of her throat.
I inch in further, earning myself another moan that I seize from her mouth with a kiss. The sensation of her body stretching to take me makes me feel feral, and I don’t want to lose it, not now, not when I just convinced her to accept me.
I’m about to press in a little more, when her eyes snap open.
Fuck, I know that look. She’s got her mind set on something.
A jolt of excitement runs through me. Then she grips my hips and with a sharp cry of my name, she thrusts upward, impaling herself on me, taking every last thick inch of me in one swift, glorious motion.
I don’t even know what noise I must be making, as her body swallows me to the hilt. She took me. She took all of me. My mate claimed me just as much as I’m claiming her. We are each other’s—now, and if I have my way, forever. I fall against her, burying my face in her neck.
“You’re mine,” I breathe against her skin, and for the first time it feels like it might be true. In answer, she gives me a wicked little grin, wrapping her legs tight around me, pulling me impossibly closer as her inner muscles clench around me.
For a moment, I simply stay there, unmoving, trying to brand this feeling into my soul. The scent of us, mingled together. The sight of her, beneath me, giving herself over to me. The overwhelming, soul-shattering sensation of finally being whole.
“And you’re mine. Now fuck me. Faster,” says my bossy Librarian.
Oh, hell yes. A wide smile splits my face, full of eagerness.
I thrust forward, and the world dissolves into a primal rhythm of skin against skin. The tenderness from before is still there, a deep undercurrent of love and worship, but now it’s joined by something wilder. Something hungry.
“You feel so fucking good.” I pull up slightly to adjust the angle, letting me sink even deeper, go even faster.
She meets me thrust for thrust, her legs wrapping high around my waist, taking all of me, demanding more.
Her breasts move every time I plunge into her, and I reach up to fill my hands with them, thumbing the sensitive peaks until she cries out.
She is the most exquisite, powerful thing I have ever seen.
A goddess of pleasure, and she is all mine.
Her moans are my undoing, each breathless cry of my name pushing me closer to the edge.
The intensity is agonizing, a razor’s edge between rapture and madness.
I’ve never felt anything like this. A hundred years of solitude, of discipline, of control—all of it is burning away in the crucible of her body, leaving only this. Only her.
Sweat glistens on her skin, catching the dim light and making me want to lick the delicious curves of her body. The beast takes over when the sight of a single drop tracing a path down her collarbone makes my instincts surge. My tongue darts out, catching the salty bead.
Fuck, she is divine. The wolf in me wants to lave every inch of her body, to douse her in my scent until every shifter in this city knows without a doubt who she belongs to. And I will . . . but later. Right now, it’s still not enough. My teeth graze the skin where I ache to leave my mark.
It makes her scream in pleasure, and I drive into her even harder, drawing out breathless cries with each snap of my hips. I want this to be for her, for both of us.
As our pace grows more frantic, I slide my hand between our slick bodies. Her breath hitches in a gasp when I find her swollen clit. I circle it, matching the rhythm of my thrusts.
She clenches around me, and I can feel her body coiling, building toward another release. Her head thrashes against the furs, her eyes wide and pleading.
“I can’t,” she gasps.
“Yes, you can. Come with me.”
I drive into her, faster, harder, my fingers unyielding, pushing her over the edge with me. The first tremors of her climax flutter, clamping down around my cock. Pleasure tightens in my stomach.
Words spill from my mouth unbidden as my release builds and builds. Promises to love her forever, that I’ll never leave her again, apologies tumbling from my very soul. The knowledge that I hurt her, for even one moment, tears me apart, now more than ever.
With one more slide of my cock, I bury myself deep, and we shatter in the same instant.
The mate bond ignites, magnifying it until I’m insensate to anything else.
I roar her name as the ecstasy crashes through me, and I empty myself into her, wave after wave, our bodies convulsing as one, bound together in oblivion.
I collapse against her, my body a dead weight, my forehead resting on her shoulder as the aftershocks of my release shudder through me. I’m still deep inside her, the fading pulse of her climax fluttering around me. Pulling out is unthinkable, so I decide to stay right where I am.
The storm in my blood, the one that has been raging for weeks, is finally quiet.
In its place is a stillness so complete, so peaceful, it feels alien.
I lie here, my face in the crook of her neck, breathing her in—sweat, sex, and that ridiculously irresistible scent that is purely Alanna.
Her heart beats a calming rhythm against my chest, and her arms are wrapped around me, clutching me close.
I never want to move again.
This is so much more than just sex. Whether it was the power of the mating bond, or just her, I feel like I’ve never truly known pleasure or intimacy before this moment.
My wildest imaginings of what the mating bond must be like didn’t even come close.
I think my soul may have transcended my fucking body when I came.
My weight must be crushing her, but the primal part of me—my shifter instinct—wants to stay buried inside her forever, to keep her right where she belongs.
But I’m on the verge of falling asleep.
Carefully, so carefully, I brace my arms and shift, rolling us onto our sides without sliding out of her. Her eyes flutter open, vague and content.