Chapter 27
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
Upstairs in their suite, they set a fire burning in the hearth.
The balcony door stood open and cool air blew in off the lake.
Nell had kicked off her shoes and curled up on the couch with her legs tucked beneath her.
Ryder worked the cork out of the champagne with his thumbs and poured.
He handed her a flute and took the other one.
The champagne was cold and dry when she sipped it. Nell took a strawberry off the plate on the coffee table and took a bite. The chocolate cracked under her teeth and the fruit underneath was cold and very sweet. She ate the rest and licked her thumb.
Ryder put his arm along the back of the couch, and she leaned into his chest. The fire popped.
He set his glass on the table beside hers, and then he kissed her.
The first time they’d made love, they’d stopped before claiming each other.
After, they’d agreed they wanted to wait.
But they’d waited long enough, and they’d decided tonight was the night.
Nell started unbuttoning his shirt. Ryder kissed along her jaw and under her ear while she worked the buttons open.
When she finished, she pushed the shirt off his shoulders, and he pulled his arms free.
Ryder unzipped the back of her dress and pulled it down from her shoulders. The dress settled at her waist.
“Bedroom,” she said.
They went into the bedroom together, leaving the champagne on the table. The bedroom was cooler and darker, with one lamp beside the bed. Nell stepped out of her dress and underwear while Ryder took off his belt.
Ryder backed her toward the bed until her knees hit the mattress.
She fell back onto it, and he followed her down.
He kissed her collarbone and breasts and then kissed down her stomach.
Ryder slid his hands under Nell’s thighs and spread her legs wider.
He looked at her for a moment, then lowered his mouth to her.
He ran his tongue slowly over her pussy, then did it again.
Nell was already wet. He kept going until she lifted her hips toward his mouth.
“Higher,” she said. Ryder moved to her clit and closed his lips around it.
“There. Stay there.” Nell put one hand in his hair as he kept the same pressure and rhythm. The pleasure tightened low in her stomach, and she hooked one heel over his back to pull him closer.
She lifted her head and found him watching her. He kept his mouth on her while she looked at him, and the sight of him between her legs made the pleasure sharper. Nell dropped her head back onto the pillow and tightened her hand in his hair.
Ryder slid two fingers into her while he kept working her clit with his mouth. Nell gasped and grabbed his hair with both hands.
“Ryder.” She held him where she wanted him.
He curled his fingers, and Nell came hard enough to lift her back from the mattress. Ryder kept his mouth and fingers on her until the contractions eased, and she pushed gently at his forehead.
Nell pulled him up over her. Ryder came willingly, bracing himself above her while she kissed him and tasted herself on his mouth.
There was something almost unbearably intimate about it, about having him this close and knowing he wanted her just as badly.
She reached between them and wrapped her hand around his cock.
He was hard and wet at the tip, and she stroked him from base to head while she kissed him.
Ryder groaned into her mouth. Nell stroked him again, slower this time, and his hips moved with her hand.
Nell opened her legs wider as Ryder settled between them.
She guided his cock to her opening. Then she lifted her hips, and Ryder pushed into her slowly.
Nell breathed and let herself adjust to the fullness of him, holding his gaze for a second before she closed her eyes.
She could feel her pulse around his cock and the small movement when he twitched inside her.
Ryder drew back before pushing into her slowly, and the familiarity of him already felt different now that they’d decided to claim each other.
She wrapped her legs around him and pulled him closer until his chest pressed against hers.
She wanted all of him against her, as close as she could get him.
Ryder drew his hips back and thrust into her again, slow and deep.
Nell lifted her hips to meet him, moving with each thrust. When she tipped her pelvis upward, his cock dragged against her G-spot.
Nell pressed her heel against the back of his thigh, holding him there for another second before he moved again.
“Right there.”
He slid one hand under her lower back to hold her there, and when he pushed into her again, the sensation made her dig her fingers into his shoulders.
“Harder.”
Nell pulled him closer and met him with her hips, wanting him nearer even when there was almost no space left between them.
The bed shifted beneath them as they found a faster pace.
She could hear his breathing beside her ear and the wet sound of his cock moving in and out of her.
The intimacy of it made something tighten low in her chest. Each stroke pushed him fully inside her, and Nell held on to him as pleasure crowded everything else out of her mind.
“Fuck me,” she said. “Harder.”
Ryder changed position, getting his knees farther under him so he could give her what she was asking for.
Nell braced one hand against the headboard while he let loose.
His mouth was against her shoulder, and he was making low sounds every time she pushed back against him.
Nell liked hearing him. She liked knowing she could make him sound like that, that she could feel him losing control with her.
She reached between their bodies and put two fingers on her clit. Ryder shifted enough to give her room while he kept fucking her. The easy way he adjusted for her made something warm move beneath the pleasure.
“Don’t stop.” Nell worked her clit in time with his strokes, and the two sensations began building together.
She turned her face against his shoulder and tasted sweat on his skin. Ryder kept the angle she wanted while Nell moved beneath him and touched herself. She held tighter to him as the pleasure climbed quickly, overwhelmed by how good it felt to be totally wild and free with her mate.
Then her wren surged inside her. Nell felt the claiming instinct focus on the place where Ryder’s neck met his shoulder, sudden and fierce enough to make her chest ache.
She turned her head and pressed her mouth to the left side of his neck, feeling the heat of his skin under her lips.
The need to make him hers was almost overwhelming now, tangled up with how badly she wanted to belong to him too.
She tipped her own head to the side, exposing the right side of her throat to him without hesitation.
“Ryder.” Nell held him against her as he kept moving inside her. “Claim me. Please.”
“Yes,” he said against her neck. His voice was rough.
Nell felt Ryder’s jaw begin to change beneath her hand.
His mouth lengthened into the wolf’s muzzle, and his fangs rested against her neck without breaking the skin.
The restraint in it made her heart kick harder.
He was right there, ready to claim her, and still waiting for the moment they did it together. Her own mouth began to shift.
Her lips pulled back as her jaw narrowed and hardened into the wren’s beak while the rest of her body remained human.
Ryder’s pulse beat against the tip of her beak.
His fangs rested over her pulse, and both of them were ready.
The certainty of it went through her as strongly as the claiming instinct. She needed to claim her mate. Now.
Ryder pumped into her again. Nell tightened her legs around him. The next stroke sent her over the edge. Her body tightened around his cock in hard contractions, and Ryder lost his rhythm as he thrust inside her and began to come. Hearing him break with her made the pleasure hit harder.
Ryder’s fangs broke the skin of her neck as Nell drove her beak into his shoulder.
Pain cut through the pleasure, sharp and immediate, while her orgasm squeezed his cock.
Ryder’s blood filled her mouth. The knowledge that they were claiming each other at the same instant made something fierce and emotional rise through her beneath the pleasure.
Nell felt something pass between them, from him into her and from her into him. It spread through her chest and arms until she could feel it everywhere. She felt Ryder in it, not just the physical presence of him but something deeper and unmistakably his. The realization nearly overwhelmed her.
Then the bedroom disappeared.
Nell was flying through darkness filled with stars.
She had no human body here. She was entirely her wren, wings beating as she crossed the open space.
Ryder’s wolf waited ahead of her. He was tawny gray with darker fur down his spine and the same blue-gray eyes Nell knew in his human face.
Seeing those eyes here filled her with a rush of recognition and relief.
“There you are,” he said. Nell flew toward him and landed on his shoulder, drawn to him with the same certainty she felt in her human body.
The moment she touched him, his memories came into her.
She knew the crowded house where he had grown up and the constant noise of people talking around each other.
Then she was with him on the floor of a hotel room with a box of crackers, talking for hours because the frightened girl sitting on the bed needed something ordinary to listen to.
The memory hit her differently now that she could feel what it had meant to him too.
The memories came quickly, one after another.
Then her own life opened to him. Nell could feel Ryder receiving it, and the intimacy of being known that completely made her ache.
Her wren settled closer against the wolf’s neck.
Ryder lowered his head over her, protective and tender, and the stars disappeared.
Nell came back to herself on the bed with Ryder’s arms around her and the taste of his blood still in her mouth. The lamp was on beside them, and the sheets were damp beneath her back. She felt raw and overwhelmed and closer to him than she had ever known it was possible to feel.
Ryder pulled his fangs from her neck. He licked over the punctures, and Nell felt the wounds begin to close.
Her mouth had already changed back. Nell put her lips over the wounds she had made in his shoulder and licked away the blood while his skin healed beneath her tongue, the tenderness of the gesture almost undoing her after what they had just shared.
When she finished, Ryder rolled onto his side and pulled her against him. His eyes were wet, and Nell could still feel the connection between them, warm and unmistakable.
“Professor Nell,” Ryder said. Nell looked up at him.
Nobody had called her that since her dad died when she was eleven. The words went straight through her. She laughed again and pressed her face against his chest.
“He’d have liked you,” she said. Ryder’s arm tightened around her.
“I’m using it,” he said. “Constantly.”
Nell rested her hand over the healed mark on his shoulder, amazed by the simple fact that it was there because they had chosen each other. They lay there together with the bond pulsing between them.