Chapter 7 #3
"Maisie." He says my name like it means something, low and a little wrecked.
His hands come up to my waist, my ribs, sliding upward, and I feel his palms against my skin and have to remind myself how breathing works.
"You're so soft." His thumbs trace just below my bralette.
"I've been thinking about getting my hands on you since week two. "
"Week two," I repeat. "You have been absolutely failing to function normally around me."
"I've been functioning heroically under extremely difficult circumstances.
" He unclips the bralette and lets it fall, then just looks at me—not rushed, not grabby, just taking his time like he's been patient long enough to have earned it.
The expression on his face makes me feel more attractive than I have in my entire life.
"Christ," he says softly. "You're gorgeous. "
"You're staring."
"I'm appreciating." His hands cup me, warm and sure, and I arch into him before I can think about it. The sound that escapes me is completely involuntary—and his whole body responds. That low growl rumbles through his chest, his grip tightening, his eyes going fully gold.
"There," he says, rough and satisfied. "I've been wanting to hear that for weeks."
"Boone—"
"Tell me what you want." Not a request. His thumbs move slow and deliberate, and I have to grab his shoulders just to stay upright. "Tell me."
"I want—" My voice comes out unsteady. "I want your mouth on me."
He makes a sound against my collarbone that isn't human at all, and then his mouth is moving—down my throat, across my collarbone, lower—and I grab the back of his head and let my eyes fall shut.
His hands steady my hips as he shifts us, and I end up on my back against the couch cushions with Boone above me. The sheer size of him like this makes my breath catch.
"Hi," I say again.
"Hi." He kisses me, deep and slow, one hand sliding up my side, taking his time.
His mouth traces down my jaw, my throat, and I feel him actually breathe me in—face pressed to the curve of my neck, slow and deliberate—and I've read enough now to know what that means for a werewolf.
Knowing it and feeling it are two very different things.
"You smell incredible," he says against my skin. "Do you know what it's like, being around you every day and—" He stops. Exhales. His hands find the waistband of my leggings, fingers tracing just below the elastic, asking without asking. "You have no idea how much I've been holding back."
"Then stop holding back."
He lifts his head. His eyes are fully gold now, no brown left, burning steady in the low light. "I don't want to rush this."
"You're not rushing anything." I reach up and touch his jaw, feel the tension in him even where he's braced above me. "I want this. All of it."
Something in his face changes. That last careful restraint releases all at once.
He hooks his fingers into the waistband of my leggings and drags them down slowly, watching my face the whole time, and I lift my hips to help him because I'm done with patience as a concept.
He drops them somewhere off the couch and looks at me again—that slow, thorough, entirely unfair inventory—and I resist pulling him back down by his shirt only because watching him look at me like this is its own kind of unbearable.
"Your turn," I say, and grab the hem of his shirt.
He helps me pull it off.
There's a significant amount of him that I was theoretically aware of but am now confronting in a very literal sense, and oh, I think, and then I stop thinking in complete sentences because his mouth is back on my throat and his hands are moving and I'm very busy.
His lips trace down my neck, my collarbone, the swell of my chest, and every place he touches goes warm and hypersensitive.
He murmurs things against my skin—low, rough, half to me and half just out, like he can't hold them in—so soft, been thinking about this, god, you have no idea—and I feel each word more than hear it.
My hands are in his hair. His hands are everywhere, and he's not in any hurry, which is the most respectful and most maddening thing about him. I shift under him, impatient, and he makes a low sound against my skin.
"What do you want?" Rough and direct, his mouth at my ribs.
"I think you know what I want."
"Tell me anyway." His hand moves to the inside of my thigh, slow and deliberate. "I want to hear you say it."
My face is warm. I say it anyway. "I want your hands on me. There."
He obliges, and I stop being able to construct full thoughts for a while after that.
His hands know what they're doing. His mouth is at my throat, my jaw, my ear, and he's murmuring things—low and direct and unbearably certain—you're so good, look at you, I've got you, you feel incredible—and the combination is systematically removing my ability to think about anything except this.
"Boone." His name comes out breathless.
"Yeah." He lifts his head and looks at me, gold eyes dark and intent. "Yeah, I hear you."
He kisses me again and his mouth begins moving back down my throat, unhurried, like he has all the time in the world.
His lips drag warm and certain along the curve of my neck and I feel him breathe in deep, that deliberate scenting again, and everything in me pulls loose and wanting. I tip my head back against the cushion
"You can—" I breathe, baring my throat further, the words coming up before I've fully thought them through. "You can bite me, if you want—"
He stops. Not gently. Like someone flipped a switch—every movement ceasing at once, his mouth going still against my throat, his hands freezing where they are, his whole body locking into a held breath that is the most unnatural stillness I've encountered in weeks of being around him.
I open my eyes.
This isn't the careful, controlled restraint I've learned to recognize. This is different. This is someone stopping themselves at the very edge of something enormous and irreversible.
He exhales once, controlled. His forehead drops to my shoulder. His hands, still warm against my skin, go carefully still.
"Maisie." His voice has changed. Not cold, not distant. Stripped of something—the easy warmth, the confidence—down to something rawer and more serious underneath. "I need a minute."
I remember the article.
The mating mark represents the physiological completion of the fated bond and is irreversible. It cannot be undone and should not be initiated without full mutual informed understanding from both parties.
I sit up.
Not the way I left his apartment the other night—that careful, brisk retreat. Just enough to create some space between us. Enough to see his face.
He's looking at me the way I imagine a person looks when they've been incredibly careful for a very long time and just came within a breath of undoing all of it. Something huge and certain in his expression underneath the deliberate stillness.
I have read decades of scholarship.
I have a notebook with a careful list.
I have watched him give me his sweatshirt in under two seconds and order my food before I finished asking and go very quiet every single time another guy talks to me.
I know what I'm looking at.
I look at him and breathe out, slow, and say, in a voice that comes out remarkably steady for someone whose hands are shaking. "Boone."
He meets my eyes.
"Am I your mate?"
The silence is only a few seconds, but I don't need the words, because his face gives me the answer first—all of it, plain and certain and unguarded, the amber in his eyes going gold and quiet and yes, without a single word spoken yet.