“Do it,” I say. “Please.”
He groans.
“Please.”
“God fucking damn.”
Koen rips himself away. He pulls out and turns me around, landing me on my back. His hand hooks under my knee, spreads me open, and he knots me like that. I come again. So hard, I think I see the edge of the universe.
“Don’t let me do that again,” he orders, catching his breath.
I peer up at him, trying to gauge his tone. I’ve never seen him so serious. “What?”
“You don’t want me anywhere near the back of your neck right now.”
“Why?”
“You smell beyond belief. And . . .” He covers his eyes with his palm. “I don’t know my limits. I might not be able to stop myself and might just bite you.”
It’s exactly what I want him to do.
I don’t say it, but he hears it anyway.
“No.” He gathers me closer. “It’ll just make things worse when you leave.”
Any response that comes to mind involves me shouting at him that I know what I need. I know what he needs, too, and it involves his wolf teeth as deep inside me as physics will allow. But I just came, and I’m too clearheaded to push his boundaries so shamelessly.
So I let him kiss me. I let him tell me how much he loves every single part of me, even as he doesn’t mention the whole. I let him touch the place where we’re joined together, where his come and my slick overflow and dribble out, like we’re the only thing that matters in the history of the universe. I let him make me come again, and I massage his knot till he’s coming, too.
I let him do everything he wants, and pretend that we have more than a short time left together.
I WAKE UP IN THE EARLY AFTERNOON AND WATCH HIM SLEEP. MY heart flutters and my stomach bubbles at how beautiful he has grown to be to me, specifically. Everything that his face means. The sides of him no else can see. Cheekbones that dust with dark olive when I loop my arms around his neck. The long, straight nose he scrunches as he calls me a nuisance. The scars that split his face when he cannot help a smile, and the shallow dimples hidden under the stubble he can’t be bothered to shave.
I could spend the next hundred years cataloging new things about him, and never be done. He could be the project of my lifetime.
Just like I’m his.
The Heat mounts, but I let Koen get some rest and I go to the kitchen to grab a new bottle of water, trying not to dwell on how wrong it feels, being out of my nest.
That’s where he finds me two minutes later, and he immediately crowds me against the fridge. The stainless-steel presses against the backs of my thighs, and I shiver.
“Are you wearing fucking clothes?”
“It’s just your sweater. I can— ”
“You’re not supposed to leave.”
He’s not joking. He’s genuinely upset that I . . . walked twenty feet and put on a hoodie? Hormones, man.
“I’m sorry,” I say, appeasing. He can’t help this any more than I can. “I didn’t mean to worry you. Let’s go back to bed.”
But we don’t. He silently flips me around and bends me over the table, uncaring of the papers scattered all over or the bottle rolling into the living room. He maneuvers me until one of my knees is on the edge, and once I’m spread open, he pushes inside me so roughly, I come halfway through the first thrust. He knots me quickly, in a few unceremonious, glorious strokes. For him it seems to be more about locking me closer than about coming, but my thighs shake with my orgasm and the effort to stay upright.
“Poor killer.” He hugs me and kisses my cheek. “She didn’t do as she was told, and now look.”
It doesn’t feel like punishment, not when his knot grinds inside me. That little bit of friction, coupled with his hand strumming my clit, makes me come so many times, I don’t even remember making it back to the bed.
ON THE MORNING OF THE THIRD DAY, THE URGENCY SUBSIDES. Somewhat.
“Is it over?” I ask Koen.
He scoffs. Twenty minutes later, when I climb on top of him, desperate for relief, I understand why.
But it is getting better. Less intense. With longer spells of normalcy. The fuck or die is waning in favor of . . . “Fuck or cry, maybe?” I tell him, and he laughs.
The end of this is in sight, and I do not want to look at it.
I feel good enough to take a shower, but Koen tries to talk me out of it, protesting that I won’t smell like him anymore.
“We are in your house. You are right here. There’s no way I’ll smell like anyone else.”
He grumbles for a while, even as he joins me and helps me clean up, looking morose the entire time.
Cute. He’s so cute.
For the first time in weeks, the water doesn’t sucker punch my skin into submission.
“What came before Neanderthals?” I ask him afterward.
He shrugs. Pouts.
“Whatever they were, you’re the one before them.”
He tosses me an apple, and his shut up and eat look is wry enough, I think I’m forgiven. But I’m deluding myself, because afterward, once the fever rises again, he makes me pay for it with his mouth on my cunt.
“I didn’t mean to— ”
“You didn’t mean to wash away my come like it’s a bad thing?” He sucks on my clit so hard, I almost pass out.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Koen, please, you said— ” I sob. It’s too much. Too good. Is this what happens when people slowly descend into madness and despair? Is this the feeling? “You said that I can’t come from this.”
“You can’t.” He leaves a bite on the tender strip where my thigh and my abdomen meet. I yelp, even though the pain is better than the constant, unbreakable tension.
“Then why are you doing it?”
“Because unlike you, I can.”
He can. And he does. A minute later I watch him, wide-eyed, as he comes just from eating me out. He growls his orgasm into my flesh, twitching with pleasure, kissing me throughout, and even though I’m left trembling and unsatisfied, even though I’m still in my twenties, I know that it’s the most erotic thing I’ll ever experience.
When he moves up, he’s still hard, tacky once again, and I cannot look away. My hands shake. I’m rapidly approaching the point where I’ll beg him, but this is my first chance to truly look at his knot. Since it’s usually inside me.
“Can I— ”
He sits back in the nest. Pulls me into him, wedging me under his chin. “What?”
“Can I touch it?”
“My cock?”
“No, your . . .”
He laughs. “Out of all the things to ask permission for, touching my knot is not one you need to worry about.”
“Is it sensitive?”
“I’m not sure. The knot and I are still making each other’s acquaintance.”
I peek up at him. “Does celibacy include . . .”
He snorts. “No. Though the Assembly would love to monitor the frequency of me jerking off.”
“Then . . . why?”
“It only happens when we’re with our mates.” His pecs rise, then fall as he catches his breath. “Or after we find them, anyway.”
“Oh.” My chest tightens.
“It’ll go down soon. Never lasts as long when I’m not inside you. Or maybe it won’t. It gets really happy when you’re around.”
I sit up on my knees. Observe him, fascinated by how free he is with his body. Even after three days naked, I still feel a little bit shy when I catch him staring.