When he ordered, “Let go,” I uncurled my hands from the headboard and let him drag me down his body. When he pushed the hair from my face and growled, “Tip your head for me,” I did, raising my chin, offering my surrender. My loyalty to him as Alpha. As my mate.
Gently, he nipped the base of my throat, then tipped his chin, twisted his head for me. I arched up enough to brush my teeth against his skin.
“Now spread your legs.”
I obeyed, quivering at the exposure, the brush of cool air against my heated flesh. Twisted my hands into the sheet while he positioned himself.
His body sheltered me. The first penetration was agonizingly slow, inch by inch as my muscles quivered. As my scent rose to mix with his. I whimpered, shifting my hips, hearing his low, satisfied laugh—he understood how my body craved him. How I craved him.
There was no end to the way he pleasured me. I was an instrument in his hands and he pulled from me songs I’d never sung before. My head rocked back. White spangles danced in my eyes as I gasped. As my body quivered and my mind dissolved into eroticism.
I gripped the bunched muscles in his arms, and threatened, “If you don’t hurry...
“You’ll what?” he taunted. “Pin your knees together?”
“I… could.” The lie trembled on my lips as he plunged, slowly withdrew.
“Truly?” His body moved, quick, powerful.
My head dropped back on the pillow. My mouth opened as something inside me caved in, falling…
Breathe, Bedisa.
That laugh… I gasped. Did as he asked until it became impossible to focus on breathing. We joined as two souls. He was in me and I was holding him, and with each driving thrust, the flexing of his body, the sounds we made, the mess…
An overwhelming emotion burned the world away. Sent us spinning with the stars.
“However you want me,” I whispered. “I’ll meet you there.”
“However you need me,” he answered. “I’ll hold you there.”
PART THREE: THE DESCENT
CHAPTER 23
Grayson
“What are you doing?” I growled at Noa a week later. I wasn’t really mad, but she seemed too engrossed in her phone instead of listening to me, and I was alphahole enough to react.
We’d returned to Westvale days ago. She’d smuggled me past Anson’s so-called wards. Insisted I wear a ball cap pulled low, as if that would hide my face as we walked past the cameras monitoring Anson’s secure compound and into her apartment.
The Alpha of Carmag deserved credit. The apartment he provided was modern and bright, with more security surrounding it than I had hoped. Caerwen and Effa came and went. The two nymphs had an apartment of their own, next to Noa’s, and they’d spent more time there than here since I’d arrived.
It was nice, settling in with Noa, cooking with her in the well-stocked kitchen. Sitting on the couch in the evening watching the dating reality show she enjoyed. I would roll my eyes at some of it. She’d elbow me with some sassy retort, like I’d learn something if I paid attention. Which usually led to me paying attention to her in a way that earned praise and few complaints.
She had settled on the white couch and wrapped a jewel-toned blanket around her legs because she insisted on walking barefoot and then complained because her feet were cold. Her attention was on the cell in her hands, and the way she bit her lower lip told me she was laughing or totally engrossed in what she was doing.
“I’m filling out an online compatibility test,” she said after a moment. “To see if our relationship will last beyond the infatuation phase.”
I scowled, focused on pouring the cognac we were going to share, with the lights turned low enough to enjoy the darkened view outside her glass doors, illuminated by the moon. “Do I have to answer questions?”
“I’m answering them for you,” she said. “You’re a night owl, not an early bird worm guy because they don’t give an option for both.”
“If you’re answering all the questions, doesn’t that make the outcome predictable?”
“Yes,” she agreed impishly, “but then we can relax about the whole mate bond thing.”
I held out a balloon-shaped crystal glass, which she waved aside, so I placed it on the side table. “Does the mate bond still bother you?”
