“Say it.” His lips graze the shell of my ear. “Tell me who you belong to.”
“You,” I gasp, pushing back, trying to take him inside. “Only you, Ezra.”
With one smooth thrust, he enters me, stretching me wide, filling the emptiness that’s ached since my Heat began. I cry out, a sound caught between pain and pleasure, between fear and relief.
He stills with his hips flush to mine, giving my body time to adjust to his size. His forehead rests between my shoulder blades, breaths coming quicker. His restraint vibrates through him, tension in every line of his body.
“Move,” I beg, inner walls clenching around him, needing friction. “Please move.”
He withdraws slowly before driving back in, setting a pace that steals what little breath remains in my lungs. Each thrust pushes me further up the bed until his arm hooks around my waist, holding me in place for his claim.
“My Ren,” he chants with each snap of his hips. “My Omega. Mine.”
His rhythm builds, relentless as he claims what he’s hunted so long. My fingers clutch at the sheets, seeking purchase in a world reduced to the points where our bodies connect.
Ezra’s hand finds mine, prying it open to thread our fingers together, palms pressed tight, then does the same with my other hand, his larger hands engulfing mine, our fingers interlaced as he surrounds me.
The position forces my chest to the mattress, my ass high in the air, open for him to take. Tears streak down my face still, but they’re silent now, a release valve for emotions too big for my body to contain.
“Alpha,” I whimper into the sheets.
“Say my name.” His hips drive deeper, harder. “Not just Alpha. Me.”
“Ezra,” I sob, the name torn from my depths. “Ezra, please?—”
His pace increases, brutal now as he loses control. The head of his cock drags across my prostate with each thrust, sending sparks shooting along my spine. Pleasure builds, a dam ready to break, but I need something more to push me over the edge.
As if reading my thoughts, Ezra’s mouth finds my nape, teeth scraping the sensitive skin.
“Going to make you mine,” he growls, breath hot on my skin and words hotter. “No more running, Ren. No more hiding.”
“Yes.” I tilt my head to give him better access. “Mark me, Alpha. Make me yours.”
His hips stutter, rhythm faltering as he nears his peak. One of his hands releases mine to reach beneath me, wrapping around my neglected dick. Two strokes are all it takes for me to come with a hoarse shout, pumping cum into his fist, clenching around him as pleasure shatters me into a thousand pieces.
In the same moment, Ezra’s teeth sink into my nape, breaking skin, claiming me in the most primal way an Alpha can. Pain and pleasure blur together, indistinguishable as he grinds deep as he can go, and his release fills me in hot pulses.
The sensation of being claimed, of belonging, sends another orgasm crashing through me, weaker than the first but somehow more intense. Tears soak the sheets beneath my face as Ezra’s weight collapses onto me, his body trembling as much as mine.
His tongue laps at the wound he created, the sting soothed by gentle swipes that ensure his DNA saturates the Mark. Claiming me for the next thirty days, when he’ll Mark me again, then again, bonding me permanently.
Still buried deep within my body, Ezra shifts us onto our sides. His arms wrap around me, one hand splayed across my stomach, the other drawing my tear-stained face to rest on his arm. His heartbeat thunders against my back, proof that he’s as affected as I am by what we’ve done.
“My Ren,” he murmurs into my hair, lips brushing the crown of my head. “My beautiful Omega.”
I close my swollen eyes, my fingers finding his where they rest on my stomach, intertwining them once more.
For the first time since my grandfather was taken away, I don’t feel the urge to run, to hide, to become someone else. The Mark on my nape aches, new and raw and perfect in its inevitability.
This time, when I fell, there were no masks. I wasn’t whole. I didn’t have to be.
Ezra caught me anyway.
21
Morning light filters through the dusty windows of my loft, painting stripes across our tangled bodies. My muscles ache with a pleasant soreness, evidence of what transpired during the fevered days of my Heat. Ezra’s arm rests across my chest, his breath puffing gently against the back of my neck where his Mark burns dull and sweet on my nape.
I trace the line of his forearm with my fingertips, the skin smooth over hard muscle. His tattoos are a map I’ve yet to fully explore, each line and curve telling stories I now have time to learn.
