Chapter 15 Tessa
TESSA
Wind rattles the windowpanes like icy claws, matching the wild rhythm of my own pulse.
Beside me, Darius sleeps fitfully, his brow furrowed even in repose.
The storm howls its fury against the house, a sound like the world tearing itself apart.
But inside, a different kind of storm builds—hot, insistent, coiled deep in my belly.
Weeks of stolen glances, the agonizing control in his touch, the raw vulnerability he shared last night… it all ignites now.
I don’t hesitate. I slide my hand across the cool sheet, finding the hard plane of his stomach, then lower. My fingers trace the ridge beneath the waistband of his soft sleep pants. He tenses immediately, a low noise catching in his throat.
"Tessa." His voice is rough with sleep and warning.
"Shhh." I press closer, nuzzling the tense line of his jaw.
"Let me." My hand slips inside, finds his hard heat. He’s already achingly aroused.
My fingers wrap around him, a tight, possessive slide.
He groans, a raw, helpless sound that makes my own breath hitch.
His hand closes over mine—not to stop me, but to guide the pressure.
"Please, Darius." My whisper is lost in the wind’s shriek against the glass. "No more walls tonight."
His restraint shatters. In one fluid, predatory motion, he rolls me onto my back. The quilt ripples to the floor. His mouth crashes onto mine, demanding, possessive. It’s not gentle. It’s claiming.
His hands tear at my clothes – the worn sleep shirt, the cotton shorts – leaving bare skin exposed to the chilly air and the heat of his body.
I help him, wrenching at his clothes, desperate, nails scraping his flank.
He pushes my thighs apart, a growl vibrating against my neck.
I’m soaked, aching, breathing his name like a mantra.
The head of his cock presses against my entrance, slick and urgent. There’s no slow slide. He drives deep in one relentless, powerful thrust.
"Fuck." The word rips from both of us, tangled in the maelstrom.
He fills me completely, that first fierce plunge stealing thought, leaving only sensation.
He doesn’t pause. He moves. Deep, punishing strokes that have me arching off the mattress.
He grips my hips, fingers digging in, anchoring us both as he pistons into me.
It’s desperate, untamed, a mirror of the storm tearing at the world outside.
His rhythm is pure possession. Deep. Hard.
Unrelenting. Each retreat makes me whine, each thrust punches a sob of pure, shattering pleasure from my core.
I wrap my legs around his waist, locking us together, meeting him thrust for thrust. My blunt nails claw furrows down his back as the pressure builds coil-tight inside me. He shifts angles, grinding impossibly deep on every downward stroke, hitting a place that explodes light behind my eyelids.
"More," I gasp, barely audible over our ragged breathing and the wind. "Deeper." I buck against him, frantic.
He obliges. Hooks his elbows under my knees and pushes them wide, folding me nearly double, opening me impossibly further. The angle is brutal, exquisite. His cock drives into that flooding heat without mercy.
The sounds are primal – skin slapping slick skin, broken moans, the choked curses torn from his throat.
I feel his restraint fraying, his movements becoming wilder, spurred by my gasps, my pleas.
His focus is absolute, animal, locked onto our connection, the ferocious joining.
I’m trembling on the edge, every nerve screaming, pleasure coiling so tight it burns.
He shifts again. Leans down, teeth scraping my collarbone, his thrusts ramming harder, impossibly deep. The pressure snaps.
My climax detonates – a brutal, blinding surge that locks my body rigid against him, a scream tearing loose, silent against his shoulder.
The punishing rhythm slows for a breath—just long enough for his hands to tighten on my thighs.
"On your knees." The command rings husky against my neck, a sweet friction that stokes the fire inside me. He pulls out, a retreat leaving me gasping, empty and aching. The mattress dips as I scramble to obey, pressed onto all fours, the cold silk cool beneath my knees.
Darius’s heat crowds my back instantly, a heavy curtain of muscle and scent. One arm wraps tight around my waist, pulling my ass flush against him. The thick head of his cock nudges my slick entrance, demanding.
I push back without thought, an instinct deeper than words. "Now." My voice comes out raw, thick with need.
He drives into me in one long, burning stroke.
Full. Deeper than before. A sharp cry tears from my throat, swallowed by his groan vibrating against my spine.
His grip locks on my hips, fingers biting into my flesh as he takes his first slick plunge.
Then he moves—no refinement, pure possession.
Deep, bruising thrusts that hammer into my core with possessive force.
"Fuck," his grunt scrapes against my shoulder blade, teeth grazing the skin. "Tight." Each word drilled out with the pulse of his cock deep inside.
He growls, low and approving, the vibration mingling with the slick smack of skin on skin. His free hand snakes beneath me, rough fingers finding my clit. A direct arc of pleasure bolts to my already shattered senses. I buck against him, impaling myself further.
"Harder," I gasp, arching back, giving him everything.
He snarls, bending over me, covering me.
His thrusts turn brutal. Every drive hits that glorious place, stealing breath, clarity.
My arms wobble. He senses it, wraps his solid arm tighter around my waist, holding me up as he pounds into my pussy.
Sensations fracture—the slick fullness, the rough sweetness of his fingers circling my clit, the hot cage of his body.
"Don't stop," I pant, voice wild. "Not now... oh god..." Pleasure coils fire-tight, unbearable.
He slams in, hips grinding against my ass, buried to the root. "Come with me." A plea growled against my spine, rough and ragged.
My climax detonates. It rips through me, my pussy convulsing around his cock in relentless spasms. I clench, crying out into the roar of the storm against the glass.
He shouts my name. Surrenders with a final, shattering thrust buried deep.
I feel the hot pulse deep inside as he empties himself, his hold the only anchor as my vision swam.
His rhythm slows, becomes deep, shuddering pushes, prolonging the waves crashing inside us both.
His forehead presses hard between my shoulder blades, breath coming in harsh, open-mouthed pants against my skin.
I collapse on the mattress, completely spent, and feel a sense of complete calm as he lays down by my side.
The frantic drumming against my ribs is the only sound now that the rain has softened to a murmur. Chest pressed to mine, our sweat cooling like melted wax. Darius strokes my spine with trembling fingers, breath ragged against my hair.
"Tessa." My name sounds broken in his mouth, a cracked whisper. He pulls back, wincing as my arms tighten around his neck instinctively. His pupils, dark and dilated with the shadow of the wolf, contract slightly under the dim light filtering through the rain-washed pane.
He doesn't just push me off; he flees. He scrambles backwards off the bed like the mattress is made of coals, grace abandoned. The cold air rushes in where his heat was.
His back hits the ornate wooden wardrobe across the bedroom. "You have to leave." He shoves the words out, a harsh rasp that scrapes my skin. "Now. Tonight."
I twist onto my side, propping up on an elbow. The quilt bunches around my waist. The scent of us – sex, sweat, rain, him – is thick in the sudden distance. "Leave?"
"Go! Before…" He gestures sharply toward the window, the furious storm outside barely a whisper now. Towards the unseen moon. Towards the beast he fights. "Before I... Tessa, you cannot be here!"
The panic radiating off him is a physical thing, sharp and sour under the expensive wool of his discarded sweater littering the floor. It isn't manufactured anxiety; it’s terror. Bone-deep. For me.
My brow furrows. "I’m your nurse. I signed a contract.
This room, that monstrosity of a kitchen downstairs with the copper pans, hell, the entire paranoid castle-isolation routine you built?
This is currently my job site, Crane." I keep my voice low, level, but it firms over granite.
"And you just invited me into your bed."
He flinches like I’d thrown a punch. "That was… a grotesque error. A lapse. A dangerous stupidity on my part. It proves exactly why you have to go." He runs a hand through the sweat-damp dark strands at his temple, fingers unsteady. "You don't understand the degree of risk."
"Oh, I understand." I push myself fully upright, letting the quilt pool around my hips.
Skin prickles in the room's chill, but I don’t grab for a sheet.
I meet his wild gaze straight on. "Dangerous? You? You’ve been banging that drum since the day I walked in carrying my pathetic suitcase.
" A flicker of grim amusement lights in me.
"Turns out the only thing likely to kill me tonight was suffocating between your thighs or snapping my spine.
Survived that. Feeling strangely underachieved. "
He stares at me, frustration warring with raw fear.
"This isn't a joke. The Blood Moon… the closer it gets, the less control…
Tessa." His voice cracks again. "I could tear you apart.
Without thought. Without wanting to. And wake up…
wake up covered in…" He can’t finish. The colour bleaches from his face.
The image he paints isn't new; the reality in his eyes is terrifyingly vivid.
His knuckles whiten on the wardrobe door handle.
A cold knot forms in my stomach. This isn't post-coital regret.
This is elemental dread. He believes it.
He truly believes the monster under his skin will feast on mine.
But the foster system taught me about real monsters disguised as protectors.
The look in his eyes? It's torment, not menace.
And I have nothing left to run to but Gavin's threats.
I made my choice on the storm-lashed bed when I slid my hand under his waistband.
I stand up. Slowly. Naked, every inch feeling strangely strong. He tenses like a live wire, muscles bunching, ready to bolt… or pounce? I step towards him, one careful foot in front of the other on the cool rug. Don’t crowd. Don’t threaten. Just stand my ground. Inches away.
"So, that's your grand finale?" I tilt my chin up. "Chase the help away after one good lay?"
His eyes flare, a low growl rumbling in his chest, vibrating the wood paneling behind him. "Tessa," he warns again, deadly low.
A bitter, almost lazy smile touches my lips.
I shrug a bare shoulder, the motion detached, final.
My eyes don't leave his. "Then I’m staying until your monster eats me.
Save you the trouble of tracking my scent through the woods.
Sounds efficient." My voice doesn't waver.
It holds a brittle calm, an ultimatum wrapped in defiance.
And Darius finally seems to understand I'm not going anywhere.