Chapter 31
Alanna
Kade goes totally still, every muscle coiled, a predator that has just scented its prey. His gold-rimmed irises are instantly consumed by pools of black instinct, making my breath catch in my throat.
With an immense effort that makes a muscle in his jaw clench, he forces out a strained question. “You are?” He studies me intently as if looking for a tell. “You shouldn’t—say it to me—if you’re not.”
Everything I had planned to say is suddenly gone from my head at the look in his eyes. I try to muddle through anyway, falling back on the words I’d prepared for this conversation. “You don’t have to decide right now though. I thought, maybe next week, we could plan for it, or—”
“Now.”
I’m still caught up in my script before I even notice. “You know, whenever you’re ready—what?”
“Now, Alanna,” he growls, and it’s not a suggestion. I don’t even know when he got up from the chair, but all of a sudden he’s towering over me, backing me up, crowding me until my back hits the wall.
Pinned against the wall, I have no time to react before he buries his face in the crook of my neck.
He doesn’t kiss me. He inhales jaggedly, desperately, as if I were a drug.
His hands tangle in my hair, then pull my head back to expose my neck to him entirely.
Still smelling me with that insatiable need, his tongue darts out, licking up the column of my throat.
It’s not a human gesture; this is a wolf scenting his mate.
I’m not afraid. I am electrified. I’ve been wondering about this ever since our conversation about my submission kink.
Before that, even. Molten heat gathers in my belly, and my knees threaten to buckle.
It’s easy to forget that the mate bond affects me too, not only him.
But right now, I’m overwhelmed by it. Every rational thought I have evaporates, burned away by a need so potent it feels ancient.
My surrender is absolute. I close my eyes and submit to the rush of feeling, and the primal drive that Kade’s touch arouses in me. My fingers, which had been braced against his chest, slide upward, running through the hair at the nape of his neck, encouraging him. I need more of this, of him.
My touch only spurs him on.
“Finally,” he rumbles, his lips moving against my pulse point.
“Mine. Going to fill you so full of my scent . . . everyone will know.” He pauses to drag his tongue up my neck.
“All the things I’ve imagined doing to you.
Since I first saw you. Going to fuck all those brilliant thoughts out of your head until you can’t think about anything except being mine.
Going to mark you—bite you—keep you forever. ”
My body responds instantly, a heavy throb pulsing between my legs. Inside, the bond surges like a tidal wave, a deafening chorus chanting yes, yes, yes.
“Yes,” I gasp. “Fuck me. Bite me. Keep me.”
A powerful tremor rips through his massive frame, vibrating straight into my own bones.
Then he crushes his lips to mine, invading my mouth with his tongue.
I’m so lost in the wildness of the kiss I hardly notice his hands working feverishly to shove my clothes off me, until the rough heat of his palms sears my bare skin.
He hauls himself off me for a moment, exposing me to his hungry eyes, and I realize I am standing completely naked before him while he hasn’t undone a single button.
The disparity sends a spike of heat through me—I am entirely vulnerable, and he is the one in total control.
His gaze roves over my bruised lips and my curves, lingering like a touch on where my nipples harden, on the apex of my thighs.
Suddenly his mouth returns to my neck, making me moan while his huge hands grasp my breasts like he owns them.
I reach for the waistband of his pants, pulling at the fabric. There’s a low warning growl, and then he clamps his hands around my wrists, pinning them easily at the small of my back. He holds them there with one hand like it’s nothing. Fuck, he’s strong.
I’m so turned on that my vision blurs. His iron grip is a stark reminder that I am his to do with as he pleases.
He doesn’t wait to prove it. He spins me until my front is crushed against the wall, my cheek flat against the cool surface. One of his hands stays firm on my wrists, keeping me trapped, while the other wraps around my front and slides down my stomach.
He reaches between my legs, his long fingers dipping into my slickness without hesitation.
“Fuck. You’re fucking soaked for me.” Kade runs his thumb over my clit, and my whole body jolts as my core clenches on empty air.
“Kade,” I gasp. “I need you.”
His hand leaves my clit, eliciting a whine from me, but my heart soon races with excitement when I hear the metallic clink of his belt unbuckling behind me, then the rasp of his zipper.
Then he’s there, a solid wall of muscle molding to my spine.
The evidence of his need presses against my lower back—a hot, steel-hard length that leaves no question about exactly what he plans to do with me.
His mouth goes to my neck, and I think, this is it, when his teeth gently scrape the skin.
But he only nips me, sending a quiver of anticipation straight to my core.
“This is where you belong.” He uses his knee to force my legs wider. “Pinned against my wall. Open for me. I’m going to fuck you exactly the way I want.” His voice is so low, lower than I’ve ever heard it.
The blunt head of his cock suddenly nudges between my legs, dragging through my slick heat as he coats himself in my desire.
My eyes roll back at the sensation. Then he does it again, gliding right along my entrance, teasing the swollen nerves, staying just out of reach of where I need him to be. I moan, half arousal, half frustration.
He chuckles darkly. “Such a needy thing, aren’t you?”
“Please.”
He pushes the head inside—just an inch, just a taste—and I grind back against him, trying to steal the rest, but he holds me firmly in place.
“So good for me,” he rasps, sounding as delirious with want as I am. “So ready. All mine.”
Then, tightening his grip on my wrists, he pulls me backward and drives into me with one powerful, conquering thrust, burying himself to the hilt.
I scream with pleasure, the sound lost against the wall as he stretches me to my absolute limit.
It borders on pain, a delicious, overwhelming fullness, while the bond purrs in violent delight.
He holds himself there, sheathed inside me like he never intends to let me go. I feel entirely filled, impaled, claimed—and it is the most incredible sensation of my life. My hips tilt automatically, my inner muscles contracting around him, needing more, needing friction.
That small movement shatters his stillness. He pulls back, almost completely, and I cry out at the loss before he drives back into me with a force that makes my vision go white.
“Fuck, Alanna. You feel so good. Made for me. I’m going to do this every fucking day.”
He finds a rhythm then, an uneven, pounding tempo that is all instinct and no finesse.
He fucks me against the wall with brutal, satisfying intensity.
I can do nothing but surrender to the sharp pleasure, my body a willing instrument for his primal need.
Our primal needs. He’s well beyond thought, spilling a torrent of husky praise and garbled promises against my skin.
But soon the wall isn’t enough. With a maddened growl, he rips himself free.
I nearly fall from the sudden loss of support, but he sweeps me into his arms first. A few purposeful strides and we’re across the den.
I’m tossed onto the nest of furs on the bed, landing with a soft thud on my stomach, the air knocked from my lungs.
He savagely kicks his clothes off while I try to catch my breath, but before I do, he’s yanking my hips up, forcing me onto my hands and knees.
I twist my head around to look at him, and see him poised over me, ready to strike.
Sweat glistens on the hard, corded muscles of his shoulders and back, his skin flushed with exertion.
His hair, having come loose, is a wild mane framing a face that is all sharp angles and raw appetite.
He looks magnificent. Untamed. And utterly mine.
This is his den. These are his furs. And I am his mate.
We lock eyes, and a silent current passes between us.
Even deep in the thrall of the wolf, he checks to make sure I’m still with him, that I want this as much as he does.
Whatever he finds in my eyes satisfies him, because he’s inside me again in the next heartbeat.
His hands are everywhere at once, shaping my back, gripping my hips, sliding around to cup my breasts, rolling my hardened nipples between his fingers until I gasp raggedly.
He surrounds me completely, a storm of sensation that makes me forget where I end and he begins.
“Bite me,” I goad him, panting. “Please bite me. I want it. I want you to claim me.”
“I’m never letting you out of this bed,” he vows.
“I’ll keep you here, under me, for weeks, Librarian.
Maybe months. I’m going to fuck you over and over and over.
For the rest of your life, I’ll be the one fucking you, it’ll be my cock filling you up, you’ll be just for me and I’ll take such good care of you.
” His tempo increases, driving even deeper in this new position.
“Good girl . . . so good for me . . . always . . .”
With each deep stroke, he hits the exact spot I need, building a relentless pressure inside me. My world narrows to the slick slide of him, the bruising grip of his hands on my hips, and my own broken cries echoing in the den.
The tension spirals into a tight, agonizing peak. I am on the verge of splintering apart, my hips bucking to meet his. He feels the shift instantly. Abandoning all rhythm, he hammers into me with a ruthless speed that drives me to the very edge.
I feel the graze of his canines against my neck—and his frame turns to steel, locking up so hard he begins to shake against me. He jerks his face back an inch with a strangled noise. He is warring with his own nature, fighting the instinctive need to bite. For me.
“You’re sure, aine?” The question is a torment, a gift. He’s giving me one last chance to say no, even as my body screams yes.
“Yes,” I sob, arching my neck for him. “Kade, please. You’re my mate. Mine. I choose you.”
Bite me, bite me, bite me, the bond chants in my blood.
That’s the final trigger. My words, my choice, unravel the last thread of his restraint. A savage, guttural roar rips from his throat, a sound that is not entirely human, and he slams into me again with a deep thrust that bottoms out.
Again. Again. Again.
The pleasure is so intense it’s nearly unbearable. It’s too much. I’m—I’m shattering, and then he’s shuddering violently, shattering with me.
At that absolute peak, he drives his teeth into the juncture of my neck and shoulder. He bites down hard, easily tearing through my skin.
Pain, white-hot. I cry out.
But my cry turns into a moan when a rush of golden euphoria overtakes me, swirling together with the pain until I can’t tell them apart.
It’s no longer just physical; it’s a spiritual rewriting.
It’s the feeling of his soul pouring into mine, of my own magic rising to meet his in a cataclysmic, joyful explosion. I love him so much.
I lose track of my existence on this plane. I am a constellation breaking into a million glittering pieces of starlight, held together only by the anchor of his teeth in my skin and his cock inside me. Tethered to reality through the bond.
That thread between us. I can feel it solidifying, with unyielding power. And at the same time, my power flares in an uncontrolled burst, a whirl of iridescent colors churning in a windless hurricane around us.
Together, we tumble into the storm’s eye.