“I’ll probably dig in my heels,” I said, lowering onto my knees, burning alive. “I’ll probably freak out and push back.”
“That’s okay,” he whispered, watching my progress. “I’ll wait as long as you need. Forever.”
When he couldn’t keep his hands on my shoulders anymore, he roughly grabbed my hair. The middle dropped out of me in excitement, and right then I knew I was in good hands. He could do anything—I knew he’d never hurt me. I trusted him with everything that I was, a trust we’d been building since we’d first met. A trust I knew we each held sacred.
“Sometimes I might tease you.” My voice belonged to a stranger, husky and wanton. Desperate. I licked the end of his shaft. “I might ignore you to try to get a handle on my feelings.”
His breathing hitched as I sucked in his length.
My lips moved against the tip. “I might not give in…”
I held his eyes as I took him in again, his hand tangled in my hair.
In a rush of strength and power, he reached down under my arms and ripped me up to standing.
“You’ll give in to me eventually.” He ripped my dress away in one harsh movement. My body both tightened up and loosened, and I hooked my hands around his neck. Wanting him hard. Wanting him now. “You’re mine,” he growled. “You will come to me eventually.”
The alpha had taken over.
He ripped away my panties and sank down in front of me, stopping to suck in a budded nipple on his way down. I hooked a knee over his shoulder and feathered my eyes shut. He licked up my middle before feasting on the collection of nerves at the top. His fingers entered me, one at a time, before working a fast rhythm.
An orgasm shattered me as I moved against his mouth, shuddering. I moaned, rolling my hips in little circles as the waves of pleasure washed through my body.
He stood, his touch against my fevered skin, cupping a breast as he kissed me on the lips. He backed me over the bed and lay with me, spreading my legs around him, my thighs over his hips.
He bent to flick a nipple with his tongue. I moaned, rubbing my hand over his back. He moved to the other nipple, his fingers working me again, knowing exactly where to touch and how hard—or softly in this case, because he was deliciously teasing me.
I’d meant to say I’d definitely—probably?—need time, and would definitely—maybe?—push back against any permanent kind of commitment, but words escaped me. He kissed up the center of my chest and lightly dragged his teeth over my throat. I shivered.
His kiss increased in urgency, his tongue plunging in and retreating, his body hard against me. Breathing faster, he reached down between us and massaged me while his tip kissed my opening.
He nipped my neck with his teeth. His thrust stole my breath.
I arched and squeezed his body with my legs, filled to bursting, my heart still throbbing in time with his, my body rising and falling, banging against him with each thrust, retreating in delicious sensation.
“Take as long as you need,” he growled. “But when you come to me, I will claim you, body and soul.”
His final thrust sent me over the edge. I cried out, clutching him, squeezing my eyes shut against the tidal wave of pleasure. He shuddered over me, groaning, holding me tight.
As an aftershock rolled through me, he kissed me languidly, not taking himself out. In a moment, I realized why. He was starting again.
I slid my knees up his sides with an appreciative mew when reality struck.
I froze, pushing at his shoulders.
“Oh God, Austin, we didn’t use protection. I have it in my clutch—I don’t know if I can still get pregnant, but I might be able to, and—”
“Shh, it’s okay,” he said, no longer moving but still inside me. “I took care of that shortly after the fight with my brother. After my niece stopped me from killing him. I got a vasectomy so I wouldn’t pass on what I was to anyone else. The madness ends with me.”
My heart broke into a million pieces for the self-loathing he must’ve felt to do that as a young man. For the crushing judgment he’d levied on himself.
Austin was truly the best man I’d ever known, something I’d seen evidence of from the day we met. He’d never let me down. He’d always built me up. He had always been there for me, and given himself for me, even when he didn’t want anything in return. Especially when he didn’t want anything in return. All the men in the world, and I had lucked out by finding him. What kind of an idiot would push that away?
I placed my palm against his cheek and kissed him again, circling my hips and delighting in his growl of pleasure. “I will come around eventually,” I murmured, getting lost in his body. In the feel of him. “After you work for it.”