But I already know.
My lips close around her throbbing clit, giving her the suction she needs to be pushed into the turbulent waves of her release. With a gasping shudder, she breaks open for me. Noa trembles in my hands, her body unraveling in a rush of sweet and devastating surrender.
And fuck if it isn’t a sight that ruins me—my mate, my entire world—falling apart in my palms and trusting me to hold her together while she drowns in the violent bliss ripping through her body.
Her cry echoes off the tile, raw and everything I’ve ever wanted from her andforher. I don’t let up, my mouth stays latched to her cunt as I continue to coax her through every pulse of pleasure as she shakes against me.
Only when she’s limp and breathless in my hands do I show mercy and release her. I press one last kiss to her clit before lifting my gaze.
Her head hangs, chin nearly touching her chest, wet hair clinging to her cheeks and collarbones. When her eyes meet mine, there’s still heat simmering beneath the surface.
“I want you. Take me to my nest, Ren.”
I go still.
For a breath I’m convinced I misheard her. Her words don’t match the line I drew for myself, the quiet agreement I made that I’d wait as long as she needed. I’m trapped between carnal instinct—the animal pull to take her—and the part of me that’s terrified of pushing her before she’s truly ready. Of undoing everything I repaired today by unintentionally hurting her again.
Cutting the McNamaras out of my life and claiming her in front of everyone who matters went a long way at sealing up the wounds I’ve carved into her heart. But I’m not arrogant enough to believe it’s fixed everything, that I don’t still have ground to earn back.
Finally being inside her, taking her the way my whole body screams at me to, there’s a large sliver of me that still feels like that’s something I haven’t fully earned yet.
“Noa…” I start, and her name drags out like gravel.
Her shaking fingers threaded in the longer wet strands of my hair tighten, anchoring us both in her touch. “You told me thatwhen you finally fucked me, it would only be when I could look at you and know you’re mine,” she murmurs, her voice scraped rough and thin from having my cock down her throat moments ago. Her eyes, now human but pupils still blown wide, search my face like she’s checking for cracks in the promise I made her. “I can do that now, Rennick. You’re mine.My alpha. What you did today…it made me trust that. Completely.”
My alpha.
The sharp inhale that follows comes from my chest, not hers. It takes me far too long to realize it.
Something I thought I’d broken past the point of fixing flickers to life. It’s small, almost nothing, but I feel it all the same. A careful stitch threading through the torn place where my faith in myself used to live.
Noa may have given me her trust, but my trust in myself, the belief that I’m worthy of her in any way, still needs rebuilding. But her words now feel like the first step in that climb.
She slips one leg off my shoulder, moving before I’m fully prepared to adjust, but some instinct in her knows I’ve got her. That I’d never let her fall. Still trembling from the aftershocks, her slick body slides down the front of mine and I catch her immediately, arms wrapping around her and holding her tight to my chest as I guide her feet back onto the shower floor.
I don’t let go even when I know she is steady. I can’t bring myself to.
“Are you going to make me beg?” she whispers, fingertips tracing a mindless pattern over the center of my chest. Her touch lands right above where I can feel the hum of what remains of our fractured bond, the part that refused to die even when I deserved for it to. I wonder if she knows this, if she even knows what she’s doing.
Her soft plea cuts straight through whatever frozen place I had fallen into. It’s like being shoved violently back into my own body.
I bend and capture her mouth, giving up any illusion of restraint the moment our lips meet. My tongue pushes inside to taste her and in turn, I make sure she can taste herself on me as I lick into her. She lets out a breathy whine, fingernails digging into my skin as she clings to me and meets my hunger with her own.
We break apart only when we have to. We are both panting, breaths mixing between us. I keep my forehead pressed to the crown of her head as I speak into her hair. “No begging.”
Startled, she shrieks when I move, scooping her back up into my arms. One arm under her knees, the other behind her back. She tucks herself against me, arms around my neck, face fitting into the space beneath my chin as if it was carved out for her. And the sound she makes—soft, warm, happy omega—purrs through both of us. I reach back and shut off the water. The quiet that follows only amplifies her contentment, turning it into something I can feel in my bones.
The air outside the shower is cool on our damp skin and I reach for the dark gray towel hanging on the hook outside the glass. It’s big enough that I can awkwardly wrap it around both of us with one arm while the other keeps her tucked close. It won’t dry us completely, but it pulls enough of the water from our skin to keep the nest from taking the brunt of it. This is her first real nest, one she’d crafted with tender care, the least I can do is try to protect it.
Once I’m sure we won’t walk a trail of water into her space, I carry her out of the bathroom and across my bedroom to the cracked closet door.
Her lips keep finding me along the way, trailing kisses across my heated skin wherever she can reach. My collarbone, the slopeof my neck, the edge of my jaw. Small, lingering touches that draw a low rumble from my chest to join the softer one she’s still making. Having her like this, safe and happy in my hold, it settles me in a way I’m still struggling to wrap my head around.
Perfect. She’s perfect.
I nudge the closet door open with my shoulder and leave it ajar to allow for some light to stream through once I have us tucked inside.
The nest waits for us in the far corner, built where my sport coats used to hang. They’re missing now, and I couldn’t care less to know where they ended up. The structure that’s made up of layered bedding and clothes that smell of both of us looks like nothing much at first glance but is actually one of the most precious things I’ve ever seen. Because my omega built it. For us. Staring at it, I realize, with a strange sort of satisfaction, that I’ll have to find somewhere else to store the rest of my wardrobe. This space now belongs to Noa.
