16. Lynn
— ? —
Lynn
His bedroom.
Milo’s actual bedroom, hidden behind his office like a secret only I’m allowed to know.
I step through the doorway and take it in, the dark sheets on the bed, the worn leather journal on the nightstand, the small window overlooking campus. It’s sparse but personal. It smells like him.
“You live here?”
“The department offered faculty housing across town, but I needed to be close to campus.” He’s watching me explore his space with an expression I can’t quite read. “Close to you, as it turned out.”
I trail my fingers along his dresser, noting the few personal effects. A photograph of two women, one older and elegant, one younger with his same dark hair. His mother and sister, I assume.
“This is nice,” I say. “Cozy.”
“It’s small.”
“I said cozy.”
“You’re being generous.”
I turn to face him, and something on the bed catches my eye.
Something… familiar.
I move closer, squinting at the dark sheets, and then I see them.
A pair of underwear.
My underwear.
The pink cotton ones with the little bow on the front that I couldn’t find this morning when I was getting dressed.
“ARE THOSE MY PANTIES?”
Milo’s expression shifts from vulnerable to guilty to unrepentantly smug in the space of a blink.
“Guilty.”
“You - when did you - how-”
“This morning. While you were looking for your jeans.” He crosses his arms, looking entirely too pleased with himself. “I wanted to bring you with me. This was the second best option.”
“You stole my underwear.”
“Borrowed.”
He says it without a shred of remorse, holding my gaze, entirely unashamed that theft is apparently now one of his love languages.
“While I was in the room?”
“You were very distracted. I’m very fast.”
“This is - this is unhinged-”
“I prefer ‘devoted.’”
“You’ve been-” I gesture at the bed, at my stolen panties arranged on his pillow like a trophy. “What have you been doing with them?”
“Do you really want me to answer that?”
I open my mouth. Close it. Feel my face catch fire.
“You’re a menace,” I finally manage.
“I’m a man who missed you the moment I left your window this morning.” He moves toward me, all predatory grace. “A man who’s been counting the minutes until I could see you again. Until I could touch you again.”
“So you stole my underwear.”
“So I kept something that smelled like you.” He’s close now, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off him. “Something I could hold while I thought about you. While I waited.”
“That’s…” I try to hold onto my indignation, but it’s slipping away. “That’s actually kind of sweet?”
“I’m a sweet man.”
“You’re an underwear thief.”
“I can be both.”
He kisses me, and I forget to be outraged.
His hands find my waist, lifting me slightly, walking me backward until my knees hit the edge of his bed. I sit down hard, looking up at him, and his eyes have gone that golden color that makes my stomach flip.
“I’ve imagined this,” he says softly. “You, in this room. In my bed. More times than I can count.”
“Yeah?”
“Every night since I met you.” He kneels in front of me, his hands on my thighs. “I’d lie here and think about what it would be like to have you. To touch you. To be inside you.”
“And now?”
“Now I don’t have to imagine anymore.”
He reaches for the hem of my shirt, and I lift my arms to help him. It comes off slowly, reverently, like he’s unwrapping something precious.
“Beautiful,” he murmurs, and his voice is rough. “So beautiful.”
My bra goes next, unclasped with careful fingers. He leans forward and presses a kiss to the space between my breasts, right over my heart.
“Lie back,” he says.
I do.
The sheets smell like him, that wild, forest scent that makes me dizzy. I sink into them, watching him through half-lidded eyes as he stands and starts removing his own clothes.
The sweater goes first, my sweater, the one he borrowed this morning. Then the shirt underneath. His chest is just as good as it was last night, all coiled muscle and golden skin.
His hands go to his belt.
I sit up slightly to watch.
“Enjoying the show?” he asks.
“Very much.”
He grins and makes a production of it, unbuckling slowly, sliding the leather free, letting it drop to the floor. Then the button of his pants. The zipper. The fabric sliding down his legs.
He’s not wearing anything underneath.
“No underwear?”
“Someone stole mine.” He climbs onto the bed, moving over me, and I can feel him, hard and hot, against my thigh. “Seemed only fair.”
“I didn’t steal your-”
He kisses me, and I lose my train of thought.
His hands work at my remaining clothes, skirt unzipped, underwear (replacement underwear, since he stole my first pair) dragged down my legs. And then we’re both naked, skin against skin, and he’s looking at me like I’m everything he’s ever wanted.
“Are you sure?” he asks. “We don’t have to-”
“Milo.”
“I need you to be sure. I need you to want this as much as I-”
“JUST FUCK ME ALREADY.”
His expression shifts. Darkens. His eyes go full gold.
“No, darling.” His voice is a growl that vibrates through my entire body. “I’ll make love to you first. Slowly. Tenderly. Until you know exactly how much you’re cherished.” He lowers his mouth to my ear. “And then I’ll fuck you until you can’t say anything but my name.”
Oh.
He starts slow.
Achingly, unbearably slow.
He positions himself at my entrance and pushes in, just the tip, just enough to stretch me, and holds there, watching my face with rapt attention.
“Okay?”
“More,” I gasp.
He gives me more. Inch by inch, letting me adjust, murmuring praise against my lips. His muscles are trembling with the effort of restraint, and I can feel the strain in the way he holds himself over me.
“Fuck.” His voice is wrecked, jaw tight with the effort of going slow. “You were built for this. Built for me.”
“Move-”
“Not yet.” He’s fully seated now, and I feel impossibly full. “Let me feel you. Let me memorize this.”
He stays still for a long moment, and I realize he’s shaking. Actually shaking, his whole body trembling with the effort of holding back.
“Milo-”
“I’m okay.” He presses his forehead to mine. “I just - I need a minute. You feel too good. If I move right now, it’ll be over too fast.”
“I’m on birth control,” I blurt out. “Pills. I’ve been on them for years. In case you - in case that matters.”
He exhales slowly, nodding. “Thank you for telling me.”
“I just wanted you to know that you don’t have to - that we don’t need to-”
“I know.” He kisses me softly. “I know.”
And then he starts to move.
Long, slow strokes that drag against every nerve ending. He rolls his hips with a precision that borders on cruel, hitting a spot inside me that makes the room tilt.
“Oh-”
“There?” He does it again, and I cry out. “Right there, darling?”
“Yes - yes-”
He works me with patient focus, building the pleasure steadily. His mouth finds my breast, tongue swirling around my nipple, teeth grazing lightly. His hand slides between us to find my clit, and the combined sensation makes me arch off the bed.
“Look at you.” His eyes are fixed on my face like he’s never going to see anything better. “Falling apart on my cock and we’ve barely started.”
“Milo - I’m going to-”
“Let go. I’ve got you.” He pinches my clit, and I break apart around him.
The orgasm crashes through me, and I feel him follow, his whole body tensing, his cock pulsing inside me.
And then I feel it.
The knot.
It locks us together, and the pressure is intense, a stretched, brimming fullness that stops just short of too much.
“Oh my god-”
“I’ve got you.” His voice is strained. “Just breathe. Are you okay? Is it too much?”
“It’s-” I shift experimentally, and the movement sends sparks through my entire body. “It’s a lot.”
“Too much?”
“No.” I’m surprised to find I mean it. “It’s good. Just - different.”
He’s still hard inside me, I can feel him pulsing with his heartbeat, and every tiny movement makes us both gasp.
“Five minutes,” he says. “Maybe less. Then it’ll release.”
“And then?”
His eyes gleam. “And then round two.”
We stay locked together, and he talks to me through it, murmuring endearments, asking if I’m okay, pressing kisses to my forehead. It’s intimate in a way that makes my chest ache.
“Are you sore, Lynn?”
The question is so gentle, and hearing it in his voice sends a slow warmth blooming through my stomach.
“A little.”
“Good little or bad little?”
“Good little. Definitely good.”
He grins, and I feel the knot start to deflate. The release is gradual, a slow easing that leaves me feeling empty and wanting more.
“Great.” He pulls back, and before I can process what’s happening, he’s flipping me over onto my stomach. “Round two.”
“Wait-”
His hands grip my hips, lifting me onto my knees. I feel him position himself behind me, and then he’s pushing back in, one long, hard stroke that makes me scream into the pillow.
“Now,” he growls, “I fuck you.”
And he does.
This is raw and primal, hard thrusts that shake the entire bed.
“Milo - oh god-”
“Say my name.” He pounds into me, relentless. “Only my name.”
“Milo-”
“That’s my girl. Take it. Take all of me.”
I’m biting the blankets to muffle my sounds, but it’s not working. The noises escaping me are obscene, moans and whimpers and his name, over and over, just like he wanted.
“Christ, the way you grip me.” His voice drops to a growl. “So wet. You take me so well-”
I’m climbing again, pleasure building impossibly fast-
My phone lights up on the nightstand.
I barely register it, too lost in sensation, but then I see the screen-
TIMEFACE: MOM, DAD, AUNT MARGE
“SHIT-”
My family is video calling me. Right now. While I’m face-down, ass-up, being railed by a lycan king.
I scramble for the phone, trying to decline, but Milo is faster.
He reaches over me and answers it.
“MILO, NO-”
Three faces appear on screen, my mother’s curious smile, my father’s glasses, Aunt Marge’s signature lime green sweater, and I shriek, grabbing the phone and angling it so only my face is visible.
Milo, apparently unperturbed, puts my legs over his shoulders and keeps going.
“Hi, sweetie!” Mom beams. “We haven’t talked in ages!”
“Mom - hi - now’s not-” I bite my lip to stifle a moan. “-not a great time-”
“You look flushed. Are you okay?”
“Fine! Great! Just-” Milo hits a spot that makes my eyes roll back. “-came back from a run!”
“A run?” Dad peers at the screen. “You hate running.”
“New hobby! Very into fitness now!”
“Is that a headboard behind you?” Aunt Marge squints. “Whose room is that?”
“Library! It’s the library!”
“That doesn’t look like a library-”
“It’s a new section! They have beds now! For studying! Very modern!”
Milo, the absolute menace, is barely suppressing his laughter while still maintaining a rhythm that’s making it very hard to form coherent sentences.
“I have to go!” I gasp. “Group project! Very important!”
“But we wanted to catch up-”
“BYE LOVE YOU!”
I hang up and hurl the phone across the room.
“YOU ANSWERED MY FAMILY’S CALL.”
Milo has the audacity to look confused. “They were calling. It seemed disrespectful to decline.”
“WHILE YOU WERE INSIDE ME.”
“I assumed you’d want to talk to your family.”
“NOT DURING SEX.”
“Is that not normal?”
“NO! THAT’S NOT NORMAL!”
My phone is buzzing. I can see it lighting up across the room.
Milo rolls his hips, and I gasp despite my fury.
“You’re banned,” I manage. “From all technology. Forever.”
“That seems extreme.”
“You answered a video call from my MOTHER while your DICK was inside me.”
“In my defense, I didn’t know that was a universal taboo.”
“IT’S A PRETTY OBVIOUS TABOO.”
My phone keeps buzzing. I don’t even want to know what my mom is texting.
“Should I apologize?”
“To WHO? To my MOTHER?”
“To you.” He shifts, hitting that spot again, and I whimper. “Let me make it up to you.”
“How could you possibly-”
He moves.
Oh god, he moves.
Whatever anger I was holding onto dissolves into pleasure as he shows me exactly how sorry he is. He works me through one orgasm, then another, murmuring apologies against my skin that sound more smug than contrite.
By the time he comes, the knot locking us together again, I’ve forgotten what I was mad about.
Almost.
“I’m still mad at you,” I mumble into the pillow.
“I know.” He presses a kiss to my shoulder blade. “I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”
We lie together in the aftermath, sticky and satisfied and thoroughly debauched.
“Lynn?”
“Mm?”
“Should I have introduced myself?”
I turn my head to stare at him. He looks genuinely curious.
“Introduced yourself.”
“To your family. When I answered the phone. Should I have said hello? Told them who I was?”
“Milo.” I flop back against the pillow.
“Yes?”
“Let me explain something.” I push myself up onto my elbows, looking at him seriously. “When a man answers a woman’s video call, during sex, while she’s clearly in a compromised position - he does NOT introduce himself to her parents.”
“But wouldn’t that be polite?”
“NO.”
“In lycan culture-”
“I don’t care about lycan culture right now. In human culture, you don’t introduce yourself to someone’s parents while actively fucking their daughter.”
He considers this. “That does seem logical when you put it that way.”
“You’re impossible.”
“I’m learning.” He pulls me closer, nuzzling into my hair. “Teach me more about human customs. I want to know everything.”
My phone buzzes again from across the room. Seventeen texts from my mother, probably all asking WHO WAS THAT.
“First lesson,” I say. “Never touch my phone during sex again.”
“Understood.”
“Second lesson-”
But I don’t get to finish the second lesson, because he’s kissing me, and I’m lost all over again.
We don’t emerge from his bedroom until well past midnight.
And my mother’s texts remain unanswered.