48. Daire
Daire
I was emptied out and made anew. It was like the tether we’d had after the ritual, but better. Viktor’s satisfaction radiated down our bond, and I’d never felt anything better.
For the rest of my life, I wanted to make sure he knew he was exactly what I wanted. Whatever I’d imagined before I met him, some charmer who was flawlessly romantic, that wasn’t . . .
Mate, the wolf supplied.
He was right. My mate was honest and steady, and if he wasn’t flawlessly charming, that only meant that when he took time to show he cared, it was because he wanted to. He was thinking about what I wanted, not just playing games with my heart.
I didn’t just want the show of love. I wanted the real thing—a person who’d carry me when I struggled, who’d stand by me when I was scared, who’d let me do the same when I could.
I was never going to be as badass as he was, and without his wolf, the chances of me hefting a giant log over my shoulder were basically zero, but there was a lot we could do together.
Viktor nuzzled into my neck, the bridge of his nose pressing beneath my jaw.
The sound he made was a soft, contented rumble, not totally unlike a cat’s purr.
I laughed, combing my fingers through his hair and pulling him down on me.
His weight wasn’t going to crush me or anything, and I wanted to feel him there.
I wrapped around him like a spider monkey, arms around his back and legs looped over his hips. We kissed, and my smile made it more awkward, but I couldn’t help it.
“I wouldn’t change anything,” I panted. “Nothing about you, nothing we’ve been through, definitely not this.” My fingers traced the mark on my neck. The wolf had healed it already, but the skin was raised.
He wanted me enough to make me his. I loved him enough that it stayed.
And yeah, Daire Novikov was a heck of a lot better than Daire Schwarz.
My father’s surname was Kelly, but he was out of the picture from the start.
Stuck to the road. It was one of the reasons Mother had picked him—he had no presence in the coven, so his preferences had no bearing on how I was raised.
I’d met him a few times, and I’d never thought he’d particularly liked any of us.
He liked a story and a drink and a good time, but if I wanted to take someone else’s name, I wanted it to mean something.
Viktor meant everything.
He stared down at me with a furrowed brow. “But if there’s something you want or need, you’ll tell me?”
I nodded. “If you’ll do the same. It’s not all about me.”
But sometimes, it was. And not in the “you’ll be the chosen witchwolf master magician” sort of way. In the . . . the way where I mattered as a person, to him and to the pack. I had a place I belonged, and I wanted to make it better.
Viktor nodded. “I’m . . . happy, though. I have what I need.”
The way he traced his fingers against my neck, slipping beneath the nape of it, made it rather clear that I was what he needed.
I couldn’t stop grinning. “Good. Then next, we’ll work on what you want.”
It took a press of magic to flip him onto his back again, a twist of wind. His cock slipped out of me and I hissed, but—maybe it was the wolf riding between us, but I liked the mingling of our scents, warm and sweet.
I crawled down, set on kissing every inch of him I could reach. His firm chest hardly gave beneath my kisses, but his breath caught when I teased his nipple with my teeth. We were spent and everything rode the edge of too much, but we’d recover, and when we did, I wanted him to only feel good.
I skimmed my hands down his arms, appreciating the muscle beneath my touch. Every bit of him was more beautiful than I ever could’ve imagined, even all that time I’d spent daydreaming alone in my turret bedroom.
I kissed down his stomach, beneath his belly button, across the muscles that led downward, but I ignored his cock, half hard against his stomach, flushed and slick.
Instead, I dragged kisses beneath it, nipping at the crease of his thigh with soft lips. “Can I kiss you anywhere?”
I looked up, and Viktor was staring, his eyes dark with lust, his lips parted. “Anywhere you want.”
With my hands spread over his ass cheeks, I used my thumbs to pull him open. The first kiss was soft. The feel of his puckered skin was smooth against my lips, and at first, all I wanted to do was feel him. Please him.
His breath caught, and he reached down between his shaky thighs to grip my hair, neither forcing me in nor pulling me back, just desperate for something to ground him.
I hummed, pressing in, letting my nose nudge against his sac. I teased him with my lips, but when I slid my tongue inside, Viktor gasped. He came off the bed, and I smiled against his skin, pressing another sweet kiss against his hole before I leaned up.
“I want to fuck you again,” I said plaintively, nibbling the inside of his thigh. “I want you mindless when I bite you, lost on my dick, safe in my arms. Is that . . . something you want too?”
Viktor’s lips were pressed tight together, but I had a sneaking suspicion that was holding back a whimper. He nodded fast, and that was all the permission I needed.
I dove back in, gripping his thighs and pulling them close as I opened him up with my tongue. His dick curved up, laying on his belly, a perfect vein standing out more and more the harder he got.
When I pulled back, I swept an appreciative hand up from the base to his slick red tip. “You have the most perfect cock, you know? Like . . . it’s just so pretty.”
He snorted. “Pretty?”
“Yeah. This curve here—” I bent to kiss the side, where it joined his perfect body. “And the head is just so soft and tempting.” I swirled my tongue across that too, tasting his come from before. “I could spend hours worshipping it.”
He bit his lip, and I guessed the prospect of accepting attention for hours was a little much for him right then. But one day? Oh, I was going to get him there. I was going to make this stoic soldier of a man melt under me, let me do whatever I liked.
“But not tonight,” I said. “Right now, I want to get my teeth in you even more than my cock. This wolf thing is wild. I mean, can you imagine? This perfect ass right here,” I poured oil on my fingers and slipped two inside him.
A lot, right off, but my wolf took it so well.
“—and I still can’t stop thinking about biting you. ”
I worked him on my fingers while he squirmed. Each roll of his hips made his pretty cock bob for me.
After a particularly loud moan, Viktor all but growled, “Fuck me.”
How was a man to turn that down?
I slicked my cock for good measure and lined up with him.
As I rocked into him, I let my magic slip beneath him like the incoming tide, and I pulled it up to curve his body toward me.
I wasn’t tall enough to reach his lips when I was buried in his ass like this, but magic made it easier, brought me to him, bent him just where I needed.
I kissed him like he belonged to me already, and he did. He’s put his mark on me, but I belonged to him too. This, always.
Daire Novikov.
That was the thought that consumed me as I fucked his tight ass, squeezing me just right. As I dragged kisses along his jaw and to his neck.
“This?” I wanted to ask if it was really okay, if he was sure, but I was so gone that only the one syllable escaped me.
Viktor dropped his head back, stretching his neck out for me. Beautiful tendons stretched gracefully. His Adam’s apple bobbed.
And I bit him.
The metallic tang of blood hit my tongue, and the tether that’d held us together slammed into me. Or I slammed into him.
Or—fuck, I buried deep in his ass as it flexed around me, riding waves of pleasure as Viktor came and dragged my orgasm out too.
I wrapped my arms around him, slipping beneath his warm body and the magic, and nuzzled his collarbone in a particularly wolfish way.
And that was right too.
I was a wolf and a witch and most of all, I was Viktor’s mate, and no one could ever keep us apart.