Ash arched, legs spread, offering, yielding.
Perfect. Treasure. Home.
His head dropped, jaws brushing skin, tasting salt and sweat and life.His.
The rhythm broke. Heat surged, pouring, marking. He howled, spilling everything, locking them tight once more. The world drowned in scent and pulse and the shuddering clutch around him.
Nothing else. Onlymate. Only Ash.
(9:43 a.m.)
Rick surfaced from a black, tattered dream. Not even a dream, just shards: heat, claws, teeth, Ash’s voice crying out, begging,damning. His head throbbed with the kind of hangover no liquor ever gave him, limbs heavy, muscles bruised from the inside out. His mouth was copper-dry. For a second, he didn’t know where he was.
The stink of his own sheets hit him—shed fur matted into cotton, sweat dried to salt, the musk of cum baked into the air like tar. A broken cuff still circled his wrist, the chain torn loose when the beast had ripped free.
Memory punched back jagged and merciless. Rick’s stomach dropped like a trapdoor opening, terror slamming him awake.
Oh God. No. Please, no.
He lurched upright, heart battering his ribs, afraid to look, afraid to see the blood that wasn’t supposed to be there, afraid he’d shredded something precious, destroyed the only thing he wanted. His vision swam until it landed—
Ash.
The kid was stretched out beside him, tangled in the wreck of sheets, hair mussed into ink-dark chaos, lips parted, breathing deep, oblivious. Not a corpse. Not a ruin. Just a body, warm and naked, smooth skin radiant in the pale wash of morning leaking through the blinds.
Rick let out a sound, half sigh, half growl. Relief staggered him, then surged into a fresh, violent need to touch. He grabbed Ash, almost too rough, pulling him against his chest, hands skimming ribs, stomach, thighs, hunting for damage, scars, proof of what he’d done. And even when he couldn’t find any, his pulse still wouldn’t slow.
Ash stirred, lashes fluttering, groaning in protest. “Mmmmhh.” His voice was husky, morning-rough. “Let go. Wanna sleep.”
Rick caught his jaw, thumb digging, forced his eyes open. “Are you all right?” The words rasped out gravel.
Ash frowned, blinking up at him. “What time is it?”
“Tell me how you feel, dammit!” His throat cracked on it, ragged.
Ash gave a lopsided smile. “Never felt better.”
The fight bled out of Rick’s chest in a slow exhale. Ash was supple in his arms, unmarked, whole. Too whole, like someone who’d spent a day getting pampered in a spa, not being ravaged all night by a werewolf in heat.
Sighing, Ash let his hand drift across Rick’s shoulder and came away with a fistful of loose hair. He blinked at it, then smirked. “Damn. You’re shedding more than a Siberian husky.”
Rick huffed. “Comes with the territory.” His voice was low, bitterly amused. You never get the fun parts without the mess. He could still feel it, the animal in him retreating, leaving him raw and overcharged, testosterone buzzing in his blood, muscles twitching for a fight or a fuck.
And Ash was taking it all in stride. “Guess I won’t have to shave your back, then,” he said, his hands sliding over smooth planes of hard muscle.
“Lucky you.”
Ash’s fingers wandered lower, skimming the dark fur on his chest. “Well, you’re still fuzzy in the right places.”
Rick snorted. “That’s the one coat I keep year-round.”
“Mm.” Ash stretched out with a jaw-cracking yawn, then winced, hand flying to his hip. “Ouch. I think my hole’s officially wrecked.”
Rick swore under his breath and rolled Ash onto his stomach. The kid laughed, went boneless, sprawling across the mattress, ass bared without shame. Rick spread those round cheeks open and froze. The swollen, flushed slit stared back at him, angry red, puffy, raw from being used so brutally. Guilt and hunger clashed like knives inside him.
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered, chest cinching tight. He bent before he could stop himself, mouth pressing to the batteredflesh like an oath, kissing the tender ring, tongue working slow, reverent strokes.
Ash gasped, then moaned, his whole body wriggling, pushing his ass back against Rick’s face. “Mmmmh… I could get used to being woken like this…”
