Desire. Lust. And a look in his dark eyes that eclipsed both. Eden wet her lips and tilted her head back, leaving her throat as exposed as the rest of her body. “Show me what comes next.”
Jay held her gaze as he leaned down and licked the spot between her br**sts. Good, but not enough. She whimpered and twisted, keeping her hands tucked at the small of her back but urging him toward her nipple. “Please?”
He hummed and touched just the tip of his tongue to her nipple, a warm caress that vanished as quickly as it had come.
Patience cracked around the edges, and her next plea came out riding a growl. “Jay.”
His mouth closed around the tight peak, hot and wet, and he sucked hard for only a moment before dropping to his knees in front of the dresser and pushing her thighs even wider.
Staring down at him, Eden stopped moving. She stopped breathing. Everything inside her coiled tight, tensed against his first touch. She had just enough air in her lungs to whisper his name.
He murmured hers back at her, then rubbed his fingers through her folds. Pleasure jolted all the way down to her toes, and she thumped her head against the wall with a moan. “Don’t tease. I want you too much.”
“I know.” His thumb slicked over her clit, followed a mere moment later by the wet rasp of his tongue.
Heaven.
She fell into it, closing her eyes as the world narrowed to his mouth and how very, very clever he was with it. Languid pleasure tightened with urgency, and she didn’t remember moving her hands, just sliding them into his hair with a greedy noise she couldn’t help. “More, God, just like that.”
“Mmm.” A hard thrust, his fingers sliding inside her, and she clung to him as her body jerked, a response beyond her control when he went straight for the spot that pulsed through her like lightning. Instinct had her wiggling back, clinging to the scraps of her control.
He licked her again, slowly, and curled his fingers inside her in a gentle rocking motion.
No mercy. No respite, just the slow unraveling of anything human until she was a creature of hunger and impulse, writhing as he brought her up and up and up, so high, so good—
“Let me come,” she begged, tugging at his hair. “Make me come.”
And then he did, but not in a relieving rush. He thrust her over the edge and let her fall, let her crash into shaking spasms that had barely subsided before his fingers crooked. She opened her mouth to protest, to beg for a moment to collect herself, but his tongue found her cl*t again, rasping, demanding, and the growl that vibrated against her rocketed her back to the sharp, oh-so-sweet edge.
He held her there. He held her there until she was twisting and begging, and this time when he pushed her over, he didn’t let her fall. He caught her halfway down, as her voice broke on a helpless cry, and dragged her back to her peak. Release crashed into wanting melted into coming twisted into needing, and somewhere in the foggy distance, the remains of her ecstasy-splintered mind recognized that this must be what it was like to f**k a determined man who could feel everything he did to your body. Who could track every reaction, time every touch…
And then even those scraps of thought shattered into nothingness as he drove her up one last time only to sweep her over the edge into limb-melting release.
Jay tangled his fingers in her hair and whispered against her cheek as she floated down, her ears ringing. And when she finally opened her eyes, he nipped her lower lip. “That’s how you ravish your mate.”
“Wow.” Eden tilted her head enough to rub her cheek against his. “And you’re still wearing pants. Damn.”
“Mm-hmm. Still wearing pants.”
With her own release fading, she could feel Jay across their bond. He was aroused, still, but a smug satisfaction overwhelmed everything else, blunting the feral edge of dominance that had been riding him.
Jay was a man damn well pleased with himself, and she couldn’t blame him. Her legs felt rubbery as she wrapped them around his h*ps and drew closer. “We should get you out of them. And get you into me.”
“Dirty.” He picked her up, stepped back and dropped to the bed with her in his lap. “Maybe just get them open?”
She wiggled back and fumbled with his fly, her fingers still clumsy. “You broke me. God damn it, Jay, you freaking broke me. I can’t—” The button popped off and she yanked at his zipper. “Quit being pleased with yourself and help.”
“Can’t,” he rasped. Helping involved waiting until she’d released his cock, then lifting her high and positioning her over him. “Quit being pleased with myself, I mean.”
“So smug.” Eden sank her fingers into his hair and jerked his head back. He might have satisfied the demands of possessiveness, but she’d barely gotten started. She licked the strong column of his throat with a growl. “I hope you won’t be disappointed if I don’t stay tamed for very long.”
He trembled under her, every muscle tense and taut. “You never could be, honey.”
“No.” She relaxed her body enough to sink down. Not all the way, not even most of the way, just until the head of his c*ck pushed into her, then locked her knees. “How badly do you want to be inside me?”
“I can wait,” he ground out between clenched teeth. “Are you going to make me?”
“Yes.” So many ways to tease him. She rubbed her br**sts against his chest. Scraped her teeth along his jaw in teasing bites only to follow with her tongue. “Wait. You have to wait.”
But he didn’t wait. He moved, and suddenly she found herself bent over the edge of the bed with Jay behind her, over her, his chest pressed to her back. “Wait?”
He wanted her. Needed her. Loved her. Passion and hunger throbbed between them, and she didn’t need a magical bond to feel it. Restraint tensed his muscles, need set his heart to hammering against her back. She rocked back against him and gasped when his c*ck slicked through her folds and rubbed over her clit.
“Wait,” she whispered, curling her fingers in the blankets. Her arms shook. “Wait until you can’t stand it. Wait until you’ll die if you don’t take me.”
His hands tightened on her hips, stilling her even as he took up her rocking motion. “You don’t even know when that happened, do you?”
She’d needed him from the first shivering terror of being infected, but she’d wanted him for longer. “When I became a wolf?”
“Not even close.” He licked a path up her spine. “I watched you before. I needed you.”
A thousand casual interactions came back to her. Years of small talk and polite greetings, of passing each other in the street or crossing paths at the diner, but the wolf saw something else in her human memories. Self-denial in his eyes and protectiveness in his stance, an alpha alone and lonely and wanting what he couldn’t have.
Maybe some part of her had always known. Maybe it had been fate all along. She was meant to be here, under him, alive because they fit together, body and soul.
“I didn’t see,” she whispered, twisting her head to meet his glazed, drowning dark eyes. “I wasn’t ready.”
He slid inside her with a sharp, indrawn breath. “And now?”
As if he had to ask. They fit together, all right, in the rawest, basest way imaginable. He pressed deep and she moaned at the perfect stretch, just enough to bring every nerve singing to life without pushing over the line into too much. She was meant to be like this, joined, one being shuddering together.
She dropped her head forward, baring the back of her neck as her hair swung around her face. “Show me what you’ve always wanted.”
His mouth traveled higher, between her shoulder blades and finally to the nape of her neck. “It’ll take years, Eden.” He angled his h*ps back as he spoke, then drove deep with a groan.
Her body forgot that it had already been sated. Her knees buckled, spilling her onto the mattress, and then he was doing it again, gripping her h*ps and pulling her into the perfect position to shatter her sanity, and she didn’t have the experience or the self-control to turn the tables on him. She couldn’t reach him to stroke him to insanity or uncover the secrets of what touches made him wild.
But she could do something far more devastating. Pressing her cheek to the mattress, she melted for him, gave him one precious moment of submission along with the human equivalent. “I love you. You’re mine.”
Jay took both, closing his teeth on the vulnerable curve of her neck before whispering, “Love you too.” The words rode a wave of emotion, love crashing over her tangled with lust and a dark, hungry satisfaction at her willing submission.
So much power in such tiny gestures. She wiggled, working her hands behind her until they nestled at the small of her back, trapped between their bodies, and the thrill it gave him turned helplessness into power. “Love me harder.”
He hissed in a breath and reached between them to lock one hand around her wrists. “Yes, ma’am.” Then he straightened, pulling her arms back to hold her suspended over the bed.
He’d used the Guide bond to master her body. She used it to claim his soul, following instinct to the deepest part of his heart, the not-so-human parts of him that craved the partnership of a strong mate and the submission of a strong lover.
She trusted him, and loved him, and she owned him when his control snapped and he took her.
Strong thrusts brought him into her again and again, each advance stripping another layer of humanity away. She groaned every time he slammed home, rasping encouragement in short, choppy pleas, crude words she couldn’t remember knowing and couldn’t believe she was saying.
“Eden.” He ground out her name, the tension along their bond stretched taut like a bowstring. His free hand tangled in her hair, and he pulled her head back. “Now.”
He wanted her to come. He needed it, the need so vast it swallowed her whole. All of his concentration was focused on her pleasure, on driving it to ridiculous heights with hard, carefully placed strokes, and knowing he’d do anything to earn her release tripped her over the edge.