“I need to taste you,” he rasps. “The scent of your arousal drives me insane.”
He grasps my jaw and angles my head to lick a stripe up my throat that draws a shudder from me. My nails scrape his back, his shoulders, anywhere within reach to urge him on.
“Caden,” I beg.
“I know. Your scent’s telling me everything you need.”
He kisses a path down my fluttering pulse point to my collar bone and takes the shift in both hands, tearing it down the middle. My desire heightens so fast, I’m lightheaded with it. Cool air kisses my flushed body and my clit throbs.
“Damn it.” A husky laugh puffs out of me. “I like this.”
“I’ll get you a new one. You won’t need them in our bed, though. I want you bare for me like this, always. Fuck, you’re dripping.”
He grazes a knuckle down my slit, smearing my slick wetness. I bite my lip when he brings it to my clit, giving me just enough pressure to tease me. I squirm, trying to grind on his hand. The corner of his mouth kicks up and he steadies my hip, playing with me until I’m panting.
“Is this pretty mess for me? I’ve barely touched you yet.” His sensual hooded gaze snares mine as he licks his finger clean with a groan. “Do you know how incredible you taste? I’ll be addicted to you. More than I already am.”
He kisses me again, stealing my breath. Fingers finding my clit, matching the slow pace of his mouth on mine. I cling to him as he takes my pleasure higher. Then his hand is gone, spreading my thighs wider as he kisses his way to a nipple, taking it in his mouth.
“Please,” I whimper. “So close.”
“Not yet. When you come for the first time for me, it’ll be on my face. I’m going to drown in your scent and wear its mark for days.”
He pays attention to my other nipple, biting it lightly, chuckling at my gasp. My nails rake his shoulders, unsure if I want to drag him back up or need to shove him down to use his mouth where I need him most. I drop a hand to touch myself and he catches my wrist, flashing me a grin.
The bond comes to life with his phantom hands. I cry out as he lowers to his knees, the invisible caresses teasing my breasts, tracing the curve of them, swirling patterns around my nipples. His eyes darken with arousal, illuminated with burnished gold as he admires me.
“Look at me, Avery.”
Keeping my eyes open is a struggle when my body sings with pleasure. My lips part at the sight of him, powerful and commanding Alpha staring at me with so much longing, ready to worship me. He looks mine.
He gets all rumbly and I’m responding in kind without realizing it, my chest vibrating. Drawing one of my legs over his shoulder, he swipes his tongue over my pussy, a ragged groan tearing from him. My hands search for something to hold on to, sinking into his hair.
“Fuck yes,” he praises.
His mouth descends on me, face pressed against me, tongue and lips relentless. Within moments, I’m brought to the edge, faster than when I touch myself, faster than when he teased me across the bond. The sensual coil of heat tightens in my core, hot and cold tingles racing across my skin.
When I’m close, he pauses, hushing my whimper of protest.
“This is where I belong every day. The reason the moon goddess pulled me from the stars to exist at the same time as you,” he rasps against my body. “To kneel before you, the only one the alpha bends his neck for to show you I belong to you. And you to me.”
I shudder with a strangled gasp, hanging on for dear life. It’s too much and not enough at once. I want to grip his hair to hold him in place and grind on his tongue, seeking the edge of the cliff he’s keeping me teetering on. My trembling thighs clamp around his head and he rumbles in pleasure, burying his face in my pussy to the point I’m sure he’s suffocating, but I don’t want him to stop.
I fall apart in an eruption of endless ecstasy, the deep pulses echoing within my core for ages while I cry his name mixed with a litany of pleas.
“That’s it,” he croons raggedly. “Fuck, you’re incredible when you come for me. Your sounds, your taste.”
I moan when his fingers shift, nails lengthening into claws. He drags them across my thigh, leaving his mark on me. My heart stutters to a stop.
It’s not any mark.
He’s writing something on my skin. The slight stinging scrape of his claws heightens my pleasure, keeping the delicious aftershocks going.
We’re both panting as he draws the word mine into my thigh.
He takes me in, admiring every way he’s undone me. When he captures my gaze, he traces the word with his thumb, then lays a kiss over his handiwork as my skin heals.
“What did I say earlier? You’re mine, mate. I will chase every last doubt away that you don’t belong with me with every breath I draw.”
Mate.
The bond thrums with renewed vitality, caressing me from within until I’m shuddering from the intensity. He hushes me, drawing me down to straddle his lap, cradling me in his arms. My eyes prick with tears of relief and elation.
Nothing’s ever felt so right as my heart beating in time with his. My mate.
29AVERY
Caden held me all night, never once letting me stray from his arms. He carried me to my room and took great care in helping me out of the tattered remains of the shift. I marveled at his rugged body when he stripped down to be skin against skin, chasing away the chilly mountain air with our body heat better than the crackling fire.
For once, I didn’t have to worry about anything. I could let go and he would catch me. It filled me with a profound sense of serenity.
My lids grew heavy, but I fought sleep in favor of tracing the planes of his chest, meeting his eyes as I brushed the scar mottling his shoulder. He drew me close and kissed me slow and deep for hours until we finally fell asleep.
I could stay like that forever, but for the alpha the world doesn’t remain at bay for long. As dawn broke over the meadow, he rumbled in my ear, complaining that Liam was waiting outside for him, and if his beta got any closer his wolf was going to have to fight him. I chuckled and nudged him out of my bed for the sake of their friendship.
He wouldn’t leave my side without another kiss that caressed the depths of my soul and the promise to see me later.
Last night fed the inferno he’s ignited in me. He wants our bond. He wants me. I’m not fighting it anymore.
Caden has my heart. It belonged to him for years, before the Fates awoke our mate bond. When he broke it the first time, I never thought I’d be able to forgive him for believing I could betray him. The second time when he rejected me, I thought I’d die of heartache.
Yet day by day, piece by shattered piece, he’s put my heart back together to reclaim it.
He’s fixed up my cottage and helped me realize this place is a part of me I could never let go. It forged the person I am today. He’s turned it into a space I’ll build into a workshop for my foraging and herbal remedies.
He’s restored my place amongst the pack and reversed the negative opinion of my family name. My sisters and I can walk through packlands without fear of being shunned. We’re welcomed with the sense of belonging I’ve felt like a missing piece all the years I spent living as an outcast at the edges of the pack.
There’s no one else for me. He is my mate and the only one who makes my heart race whenever he’s around.
Caden let me know when he left he has meetings in his office to hear the pack’s concerns, as much as he wants to spend every second of the day with me. I can’t keep a smile off my face as I go foraging, finding myself stroking ferns and picking elderberries with a bubbling light lifting me up.