CHAPTER 6 #3
His eyes darkened, and he slammed back into me.
I cried out and dug my claws into his shoulders.
He let out an approving growl and thrust into me again, harder this time.
My legs were still wrapped around his waist, and I used my grip on him to shift our angle so that the next time he drove home, he hit me just where I needed him to.
That was all it took for him to start a steady rhythm, because he felt what I felt, and he knew how much I liked this angle, which meant that he liked it.
His mouth landed on my shoulder, teeth grazing my skin as his lips parted over me.
“Do it,” I ground out, knowing what he wanted and wanting it too because I suddenly realized what it meant to him.
He bit me hard, laying claim to his mate. I dropped my mouth to his neck and claimed him in return, biting high enough that the brief scar my teeth left behind would be visible even when he wore a button-up. Let everyone who saw it know he was mine.
With our teeth latched on to each other and Michael buried deep inside me, something between us…
changed. The bond, already overwhelming, seemed to swell, solidifying in place, locking us together.
Now I really didn’t know where I ended and Michael began, but for the life of me, I couldn’t bring myself to care.
All I felt was a deep, shuddering sense of release, almost like I’d already come.
The tension in my shoulders eased. The stress I’d been carrying around with me for days on end melted away. I felt like I could finally breathe.
Michael thrust into me again and paused, shuddering.
He pulled his lips from my skin and licked at the wound, soothing the sting.
I released his neck and lapped at him in return, savoring the taste of his blood.
Funny, how only a moment ago hurting him had been anathema, but biting him seemed right in a way that felt ingrained into my DNA.
Maybe it was and no one had bothered to tell me about it.
Michael lifted his head from my shoulder and brushed his nose over mine.
A moment ago I would have been squirming on him with impatience, desperate to get him moving again, but something tectonic had shifted between us.
My need for him hadn’t lessened in the slightest. In fact, the opposite was true.
But now that he was inside me, now that our bond was half consummated, the desire to rush forward had lessened.
Michael pulled back enough to look me in the eyes. That unsettling, magically induced darkness had receded from his, and now they were a deep, human brown again. I sheathed my claws and smoothed my fingers up his back, reveling in this feeling, this rightness.
Still meeting my eyes, Michael shifted his hips, sliding half out of me, holding me in place against the wall as he slammed home again. “I’m yours, Layla,” he said.
Oh, Goddess.
There was no need for me to lay claim to him, not when he willingly offered himself up like this.
He slammed into me again, growling. “Yours.”
I gripped his shoulders, lifting my hips, dropping down onto him the next time he thrust in.
“Mine,” I said, voice so low it felt like it grated up out of me.
We separated again only to surge back together, harder than before.
“Mine,” I repeated. This dick was mine; this man was mine; this wolf was mine.
And I was his.
He shifted his grip on my ass, claws still digging in, and picked up speed.
I arched my back to meet him, baring my throat. “Yours.”
Michael moaned, almost sounding like he was in pain at first, but the sound turned into something sinful as he bit me again, on the neck this time.
He held me in place with his teeth as he fucked me up against the wall, driving hard and fast until my inner muscles clenched around him.
We came together, me screaming his name and clawing at his back while he growled like the wolf he was and pounded into me.
We stayed there afterward for several heartbeats, breathing hard. I kissed his temple, his cheek, his forehead as I stroked my fingers over his back to soothe away the sting of my claws.
“I’m sorry I hurt you,” I whispered, my voice echoing in the closed space of the shower stall.
Michael shook his head, stubble scraping over my neck. “Don’t be. I liked it.”
“I meant before.” I couldn’t say any more than that.
He turned his head and nuzzled his mouth over where he’d first bitten me. “I asked you to do that to me.” His lips parted, and he lapped at my shoulder, cleaning the still-healing wound. “But I forgive you, if that’s what you need to hear.”
I nearly collapsed against him in relief.
For some reason, I had needed to hear that, and the fact that he’d realized it before me only made me appreciate him more.
Less than a week ago, I’d railed against our bond, but now I felt like the luckiest wolf in the world.
I’d been foolish to question the wisdom of the Goddess, and I wouldn’t do so again, not when mere days after being mated, I was already falling for the wolf She had chosen for me.