As Ridge laps up the sticky arousal between my legs, growling softly against my skin, I suck in deep breaths. A strange sense of pride rises up in me as my thundering heartbeat slows just a little.
Just like I told him to, Ridge isn’t holding anything back.
He’s always been the most careful with me, the most protective of all of my mates. It’s probably because he was the one who found me at the bottom of Devil’s Ditch, scratched and bruised and unconscious. He saw the terror in my eyes when I woke up the next morning and helped me through my panic attack when Lawson stormed into his house. He’s seen me at my absolute most vulnerable and fragile, and sometimes I wonder if he still sees that scared girl in me.
But the way he’s touching me right now, the way he’s letting me be here for him—letting me help him carry the weight of his pain?
It means he trusts me not to break. He knows I’m strong enough to handle it.
And what’s more, he’s right.
I am strong enough.
I’m strong enough to meet Ridge right where he is, even if that place is full of chaos and pain, and not be lost to the pain myself. I’m strong enough to help him through this.
That realization fills me with an emotion I can’t even name, and a new sort of certainty fills me as Ridge finally lifts his head from between my legs. He doesn’t even wipe his lips before he crawls up my body to kiss me again, so I lick them clean for him, tasting myself in his mouth as our tongues slide against each other.
His broad cock nudges my entrance, but before he can slide inside, I press on his shoulder and shift his weight, rolling him over onto his back. He brings me with him to straddle him, and I reach between us to grab his cock, wrapping my fist around it as I rise up on my knees.
Ridge’s body is tense beneath mine, the war of his emotions still raging inside him. But he stays still underneath me as I slowly, inch by inch, sink down onto his hard length.
Once he’s fully rooted inside me, he drops his gaze for a moment to the place where our bodies are joined. His jaw clenches, his honey eyes darkening to a deep amber. With the hand that I used to guide him inside me, I massage my swollen clit, running my fingers over myself before spreading my folds to let him see even more of me. To let him see the way he splits me open, the way my body stretches around his thick shaft, the two of us fitting together perfectly.
His hands land on my hips, the rough pads of his fingers pressing hard against my skin. “Ride me,” he grits out, his voice like sandpaper.
My pulse, barely slowed from my first orgasm, picks up again at the sound of his voice. Using my leg muscles to balance myself, I slide up and then slam back down, making both of us grunt as our bodies reconnect.
Ridge’s teeth are bared in something almost like a snarl, and as I move up and down on his cock, he finally releases his hold on my hips, moving his hands up to my breasts instead. He tortures my nipples with delicious pressure, pulling and tweaking and rolling his thumbs over them. My back arches, my head falling back a little as I find a rhythm. My leg muscles burn, and I can feel a bead of sweat dripping down my back, but I don’t stop.
Nothing in the entire fucking world could make me stop.
“Fuck, little wolf.”
Ridge bites out the words, and almost before he finishes speaking, he sits up suddenly, wrapping his arms around me and burying his face against my chest. He presses his lips against my skin, sucking hard enough to make my nipples pucker even more as my nerve endings fire wildly.
His hot breath gusts against my skin when he finally releases the pressure, and before I know what’s happening, he’s flipped me onto my back again. He presses my knees up to my chest, spreading them wide and giving him even more access as he drives into me in short, fast strokes.
The lines of his face are taut and strong, his eyes burning as he stares down at me. When he stops to grind his hips against mine, the pressure on my clit makes an unexpected orgasm tear through me, and my mouth drops open on a breathy scream.
His nostrils flare wide, and he draws out of me, flipping me onto my stomach and plunging in again. I don’t even have time to get my hands and knees under me, but it probably doesn’t matter anyway. My limbs are shaky, and Ridge’s thrusts are so powerful that I’m not sure I’d be able to stay upright on my hands and knees even if I tried.
So instead, I turn my head to one side and grip the blanket in tight fists, arching my back and thrusting my ass back toward Ridge to give him a better angle.
He drops his head to press hot, messy kisses to my shoulder, shifting my sweat-dampened hair to one side.
“Touch yourself,” he murmurs in my ear, the words somewhere between a command and a plea. “I want to feel you come again.”
I don’t hesitate even a second. I unclench the fingers of one hand from around the blanket and wriggle my hand between the mattress and my body. The first touch to my clit makes me whimper. It’s almost too much, my body too sensitive from the onslaught of sensations.
But I want to come again, just as much as Ridge wants me to.
I want him to feel me clench around him.
I want him to lose himself in me.
Starting with small circles around my swollen bud, I slowly work my way inward, letting the pressure build inside me until I’m writhing beneath Ridge, alternately grinding against my hand and pressing back against him.
When I come, I turn my head and bury my face in the blanket, muffling my scream of pleasure.