He withdraws his fingers and positions himself at my entrance. Pauses with just the tip pressing against me, making me whimper with need.
“Say it.” His voice goes rough. “Tell me you want this.”
“I want this.” The admission feels like defeat and victory all at once. “I want you. Now stop making me wait.”
He slams into me in one brutal thrust. I cry out, digging my nails into his shoulders as I adjust to the fullness. He doesn’t give me time to breathe, just pulls out and drives back in with the same force.
He sets a punishing pace that makes the desk shake. “Is this what you needed? For me to stop being gentle? Stop treating you like you’re fragile?”
“Yes.” I wrap my legs around his waist, pulling him deeper. “I’m not fragile. I’m not going to break.”
“No, you’re not.” He bites my neck, sucking hard enough to leave a mark. “You’re strong enough to take everything I give you and still demand more.”
I clench around him, making him groan. “Then give me more.”
He changes the angle, hitting the spot inside me that makes my vision go white. Every thrust sends pleasure racing through my body, mixing with the anger until I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. The desk creaks under ourcombined weight, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I register that we’re probably destroying his research materials.
Good. Let him deal with the mess later.
“Touch yourself.” He orders between thrusts. “I want to feel you come around my cock.”
I lick my index finger and bring my hand between us and circle my clit. The added stimulation makes me gasp, makes my inner walls flutter around him. He feels it and increases his pace, driving into me harder and faster until I’m certain the desk is going to collapse.
“That’s it. Let go. Stop fighting it.”
I’m not fighting. I’m chasing the pleasure building at the base of my spine.
He reaches between us and replaces my hand with his, rubbing my clit with his thumb while he continues to pound into me. I feel my orgasm building, coiling tighter and tighter until I can’t breathe through it.
“Come for me,” he orders. “Let me feel you.”
My orgasm crashes over me without warning. I clench around him, crying out as waves of pleasure roll through my body. He follows me over the edge, and his knot swells and locks us together as he empties himself inside me with a groan that sounds like my name.
We’re both panting, pressed together on his desk with his knot keeping us joined. The anger hasn’t disappeared—if anything, it burns hotter now, because I can’t even escape him. Can’t put distance between us while my body is still joined to his. His knot keeps us locked together, forcing intimacy when all I want is space to think.
For one fleeting moment, a strange thought surfaces: Is this rage even mine?
The fury feels too big. Too consuming. Like something inside me grabbed hold of the anger and fed it, fanned it into flames far larger than the situation warranted. Reeyan didn't create the curse. Didn't design the ritual requirements. He's as trapped by circumstance as I am.
So why do I want to destroy him for it?
The thought slips away almost as quickly as it came, buried under a fresh wave of resentment. Of course, the anger is mine. He kept me here. He completed the bond. He's asking me to marry him. Any woman would be furious.
I shove the unsettling question aside and focus on the more immediate problem of being physically locked to a man I'm not sure I can forgive.
He presses his forehead against my shoulder, and I feel him breathing hard against my skin. “We’re stuck here for at least five minutes, so you might as well get comfortable.”
“Comfortable,” I scoff. “I’m locked to you with your knot buried inside me while trying to process that marrying you is the only way to break the curse. Comfortable isn’t really on the table.”
“I don’t want you to marry me because I’m trying to trap you.” His voice goes quieter. “I want you to marry me because it’s the only way to break the curse. Because your pack needs you to do this, and I need to be the one standing beside you when you attempt it.”
“My pack doesn’t even know they need saving.” I finally look at him. “They think the emotional distance is normal. Howdo I explain that I had to marry a Grayhide wolf to free them from magic they don’t know exists?”
“You tell them the truth. Show them the evidence. Let them see what Moira Ashwood did.” He brushes hair away from my face with surprising gentleness. “They’ll understand once they know.”
“Will they? Or will they see it as betrayal? Their archivist sleeping with the enemy, marrying outside the pack, and violating every principle we claim to value?” The fear I’ve been avoiding surfaces. “What if I break the curse and they hate me for it?”
“Then they’re idiots who don’t deserve what you’re sacrificing to save them. “But I don’t think that will happen. I think once they’re free of the curse, once they can feel again, they’ll understand what you did and why.”
