47. Calliope #2
“I want your permanent bite.” I hold his gaze while I answer, letting him see that nothing inside me is wavering. “I want the bond, Dash. I want you.”
He kisses me again, and this time there is nothing restrained in the way his mouth moves over mine. The care remains, but it no longer holds his desire at a distance.
Dash undresses me the way he has learned to over months of quiet nights in this room.
He draws my sweater up only after I lift my arms, then folds it and sets it on the chair.
My shirt follows button by button. He pauses when the fabric falls open, looking at my face before sliding it from my shoulders.
When his hands reach the waistband of my pants he waits again until I nod, then eases them down along with my underwear.
Every movement is unhurried. He knows the places that make me shiver and the places that make me still. He uses both.
I reach for him in return. My fingers find the hem of his sweater and lift.
He helps me, raising his arms so I can pull it free.
The undershirt goes next. When my palms settle on the warm skin of his chest he makes a low, quiet sound, almost a sigh, and the want in it steadies something in me.
I push his pants down. He steps out of them without looking away from my eyes.
We stand bare in the middle of the lockoff for a moment, simply breathing each other in.
Then Dash guides me onto the narrow bed.
He lays me on my back and follows, bracing his weight on his forearms so I never feel trapped.
He kisses my mouth, my jaw, the line of my throat.
His hands map my sides, my waist, the soft curve of my hips.
Every time my breath changes he notices.
Every time I make a sound he answers it with attention rather than speed.
“Still with me?” he asks against my collarbone.
“Yes. More.”
He moves lower. His mouth finds my breast, tongue circling the nipple before drawing it in with gentle suction.
I arch into him, fingers sliding into his hair.
He gives the other breast the same careful attention, then continues down, kissing the soft plane of my stomach, the inside of one thigh, then the other.
When he finally puts his mouth on me I already know the exact pressure and rhythm he will use.
He has learned me thoroughly during the months we lived in this house together.
The first long stroke of his tongue pulls a broken sound from my throat.
He stays right there, slow and focused, listening to every shift in my breathing.
I reach down and touch his face. “I want you inside me.”
Dash lifts his head. His mouth is wet, his eyes dark.
He moves up my body, settling between my thighs, and waits until I guide him.
The blunt heat of him presses against me.
He enters slowly, giving me every inch with deliberate care until he is fully seated.
The stretch is perfect. A soft moan leaves me as he fills me completely.
He begins to move in deep, measured rolls of his hips.
One hand stays braced beside my head; the other slides beneath my lower back, angling me so every thrust lands exactly where I need it.
He knows this too. The familiarity of it—the way he reads my body without needing constant instruction—makes the intimacy feel like coming home.
“Harder,” I tell him after a while. “I can take it.”
He gives me more, still controlled, still listening. The pleasure builds in steady waves. When it starts to crest I cup his face again and hold his eyes.
“Dash. I want your permanent bite. I want your mark because I want you. Not because of anyone else. You.”
He searches my face one last time. The restraint in him is visible, the care that has always defined him, but the hunger beneath it is equally clear.
“You are sure,” he says. It isn't quite a question.
“I am sure. Bite me.”
Dash lowers his mouth to the base of my neck, right beside Sloane’s. His hips keep moving, deep and steady, as his teeth break skin.
The bond takes hold with a deep pull beneath my ribs, steady instead of explosive. Dash settles into me exactly like he’s lived beside me all these months, steady and fiercely protective without crowding the space. Then the rest of the pack reaches him through me.
Dash’s body tightens above me. A low, stunned sound leaves his throat against my skin.
He holds himself still inside me, forehead pressed to my shoulder, while the first wave of the bond crashes through both of us.
I wrap my arms and legs around him and keep him close, breathing through the intensity until it begins to settle into something steady and warm.
He stays buried inside me while the sharpest edge eases.
His mouth remains near the fresh bite, pressing soft kisses to the skin around it.
When he finally begins to move again it is slower, almost reverent.
The pleasure builds once more, gentler this time, and when I come it is with his name on my lips and the new bond wide open between us.
Dash follows a few thrusts later, spilling deep inside me with a quiet, broken sound, his body shaking as the last of the restraint leaves him.
He does not pull away. He holds me against him until my breathing steadies and the trembling in my limbs fades. Only then does he ease out of me and reach for the small cloth and the clean water he must have brought in earlier without my noticing.
He cleans me with the same careful attention he once gave the bruises on my knuckles, then tends the fresh bite, wiping away the small amount of blood, pressing a soft cloth to it, checking that the mark is clean.
We are stretched across the narrow bed beneath the blanket that used to smell only like him. His chest is warm against my back, and one arm remains wrapped around my waist while his fingers move slowly over my stomach.
The fresh bite burns at the base of my neck. Beneath the ache, I can feel Dash through the new bond for the first time.
He draws in a breath near my shoulder. His body tightens around mine, and I feel the moment the rest of them reach him through me.
“Oh,” he whispers.
I turn carefully in his arms. His eyes are wet, and the expression on his face pulls something open inside me before I touch his cheek.
“You can feel them?”
Dash nods. “Through you.”
The bond carries his wonder, but also the first flicker of surprise as something bright and restless moves through the connections beyond us. His mouth curves, then his eyebrows rise when another stronger wave follows.
“They are very close to the door,” he says.
I laugh softly and kiss him. “They lasted longer than I expected.”
Dash pulls the blanket higher around me before sitting up. He helps me into my sweater, careful of the new mark, then dresses while keeping one hand against my knee.