"Fuck, Tess… how you take all of me."
He pistons in hard strokes, his hips battering me back against the mattress. Sweat slicks our skin when he wraps my legs around his waist, shifting angles until my shout breaks openwild in the air. He grins, breath fanning my temple, kissing it when I gasp. "Laughing or screaming? Can’t tell."
"Screaming," I choke out against his shoulder, scraping my nails down his spine. "Keep it there. Just—Darius—" His rhythm splinters, devastating, making my pussy clamp in helpless spasms around him.
His hips still pulse deep inside me when his large palms frame my waist—a silent command. "Your turn." Before I can protest, with effortless strength, he rolls us, pinning me between the mattress and that sculpted body one dizzying second, then flips me onto him the next.
Gravity settles me heavy and slick onto his lap, his cock buried deeper than ever. Air punches from my lungs at the shift, at the unyielding heat stretching me wide. I cry out, equal parts shock and sensation, bracing my hands flat on the solid wall of his chest.
One hand slides possessively up my spine to cup my neck, the other settles low on my hipbone, a furnace brand. "Move, Tess." Darius’s voice is gravel, thick with arousal but edged with surrender. "Take everything you want. Command me."
His grip on my hip shifts, becomes guidance instead of anchor, encouraging the first tentative lift. Friction sparks along every nerve as I rise a scant few inches, the drag of his cock against my inner walls exquisite torment.
I push past the ache, the sheer fullness. Then I drop—hard and deliberate. My back bows, a guttural moan escaping his lips that kicks a matching sound from my throat. Riding the hard ridge of his pelvis.
"Fuck yes, just like that," Darius grits out, his eyes blazing, locked onto mine not with demand, but fierce adoration. His fingers flex on my hip. "You feel… ruinous."
Finding a rhythm, faster, lifting higher, sinking harder. His hands roam now, from kneading my ass, urging me down eachtime I slam back onto him, to skimming my ribs and sliding up to cup my breasts.
Thumbs rake over stiff nipples, sending jolts to my core where we’re joined. Sweat slicks the space between us, the scent of sex thick and primal in the air. My pussy clenches around him instinctively, pulling another rough gasp from deep in his chest.
"So close," I pant, muscles trembling with the effort, with the pleasure coiling unbearably tight inside. Each downward thrust grinds my clit against him, building the pressure until it’s a blazing star.
"Don't hold back." His command vibrates against my hand splayed over his pounding heart. "Come on my cock, Tessa. Let go." His own rhythm devolves into desperate upward lunges to meet me, battering himself deeper. "Come for me now."
That raw plea shatters the last restraint. Bliss detonates, tearing through me with brutal intensity. My cry is ragged, drowning his fierce groan as my pussy spasms around him, milking his cock in frantic waves. He arches beneath me, hammering up once, twice more as his own climax hits. A profound shudder wracks his entire body, and hot pulses flood me, the scalding surge mirroring my own contractions as we shudder and lock together, fused, trembling, utterly spent.
He wraps his arms around me, pulling me down to his chest as our frantic breathing mingles on the thick air, the frantic drum of his heart against my cheek the only sound in the world besides our panting. His voice emerges, roughened silk. "Perfect. Mine."
His heartbeat drums a steady rhythm against my cheek. I trace idle circles over his chest, the damp heat of our skin clinging like promises.
"So…" My voice comes out raspy, raw from screaming his name. "Darius Crane. Ever think about having pups of your own?"
His entire body stiffens beneath me. The arm draped over my back turns rigid as steel girders.
"Tessa." A warning growl vibrates his chest. He doesn’t look at me, just stares at the ceiling like it holds architectural secrets. "That’s not… conceivable."
"Oh?" I prop myself up on one elbow, letting the sheet pool around my hips. My fingertip trails down the tense line of his jaw. "You invent inconceivable tech daily. Yet little furry clones of you running around? Utterly unimaginable?"
Leaning down, I brush my lips against the shell of his ear, whispering. "Hypothetically, of course. Would they have your grim little scowl straight out of the den? Your knack for dismantling appliances just by glaring at them?"
He turns his head slowly, finally meeting my gaze. Those glacier-blue eyes are fathomless, haunted. "It’s not aboutcould. It’s aboutshould. My bloodline… my nature… it’s not a legacy I can pass on." His thumb grazes my lower lip, surprisingly gentle against the harshness in his voice. "My kind of heritage isn’t bedtime stories and scraped knees. It’s nightmares you carry for centuries."
I capture his thumb between my teeth for a brief, playful nip. "Maybe it’s because you haven't had the right co-parent. Someone to teach your imaginary pups how tonotbrood before breakfast." My smile turns softer, challenging the shadows I see swirling in him. "Someone temperamental enough to keep the discipline… fair."
A reluctant, almost imperceptible smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. "Temperamental? Is that what they’re calling revolutionary intensity these days?"
"Call it survival instincts sharpened by too many foster homes pretending to be families." I shrug, the old ache pushing through, tempered now by the warmth beside me.
A flicker outside the vaulted window catches my eye. I shift, sliding to the edge of the vast bed, cool silk sheets whispering against my bare skin as I pull my knees up.
The rest of the world falls away. Beyond the thick glass, the Alaskan wilderness breathes under a vault of black velvet. Snow blankets everything, pristine and silent. And above it all, the moon hangs low; a colossal, shimmering sickle of ice-white light. It casts the snowscape in an unearthly glow, turning the drifts into frozen oceans and the spruce trees into sentinels dipped in silver. Shining, stark, demanding reverence the way storms or ancient gods demand it.
Quiet settles, profound and complete, broken only by his steady breathing behind me. The lunar light spills across the floorboards like spilled mercury.
His bare footsteps sound behind me, almost silent. Strong arms envelop my waist, pulling me back against the furnace heat of him. His chin rests on my shoulder as we both watch the glittering, distant orb.
"So bright," I murmur, leaning into his solidity. His huff of breath warms my temple.
