“Say it again.”
“What, that I love you?” She grinned. “I love you. Love you, love you, love you. Want me to write it in code? I could probably work it into a loop that runs until the heat death of the universe?—”
He kissed her again, effectively cutting off her rambling.
When he finally let her breathe, her head was spinning and her glasses were askew—she’d apparently put them back on at some point without noticing, a habit she couldn’t seem to break.
“I love you too,” he said, the words raw and honest. “More than I knew I was capable of. More than I thought I’d ever allow myself to feel.”
“Because of Vivienne? I won’t betray you,” she said quietly. “I won’t manipulate you. I won’t do any of the things you’re afraid a woman might do.”
“I know.” His voice was thick. “My wolf knew it the moment he caught your scent. But the rest of me…” He shook his head. “Old wounds heal slowly.”
“Good thing I’m patient.”
He actually laughed at that—a real laugh, surprised out of him. “You are many things, little mate. Patient is not one of them.”
“Okay, fine. But I’m excellent at multitasking. I can be impatient about seventeen other things while being extremely patient about you.”
“That might be the strangest declaration of devotion I’ve ever received.”
“Get used to it.” She looped her arms around his neck. “I plan to make many more.”
They stayed like that for a long moment, wrapped up in each other in the golden afternoon light. She could hear the muffled sounds of the city through the windows—traffic, sirens, the distant drone of a helicopter—but it all felt very far away.
This was real. This was home. Not the building or the city or any particular place on a map.
Him.
“Mark me,” she whispered.
Chapter Twenty-One
Mark me.
The words left Harper’s mouth before she’d fully decided to say them.
Adrian froze. “What?”
“The mating bite.” She tilted her head, exposing the curve of her neck. “I want you to give it to me. Now. Here.”
“Kitten…” His voice had gone hoarse, his eyes flaring pure gold. “You don’t have to?—”
“I know I don’t have to. I want to.” She met his blazing gaze without flinching. “Unless you’d rather wait? Do some kind of ceremony? I can research pack traditions if there’s protocol I should know about?—”
“Fuck protocol.”
His mouth crashed into hers with sudden, desperate hunger. She gasped as his weight bore her back into the pillows, his body covering hers completely. The kiss was fierce, demanding, nothing like his earlier carefulness.
This was the Adrian she wanted. The wolf barely leashed beneath the surface. The possessive, primal creature who looked at her like she was the answer to every question he’d never dared ask.
“Are you sure?” he growled against her throat, lips tracing a burning path towards the junction of her neck and shoulder. “Once it’s done, it can’t be undone. You’ll be mine—completely, irrevocably, until one of us stops breathing.”
“That’s the idea.”
“Kitten…”
“I’m sure.” She tangled her fingers in his dark hair, holding him in place. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. Give me something that can’t be compiled or debugged or optimized. Give me something real.”
