I lost count of how many times he knotted me. Lost track of where one orgasm ended and the next began.
My world narrowed to the stretch of his cock, the lock of his knot, the flood of his cum, and the bone-deep satisfaction that followed before the need built again.
This is what heat means.
The thought surfaced through the haze.
This was what Omegas experienced when they found their true mate. This endless cycle of craving and fulfillment. This surrender to biology so complete that consciousness becomes optional.
I understood now why mated Omegas spoke of their first heats with glazed eyes and secret smiles. Why the clinical literature described heat bonding as "transformative psychological recalibration."
They were being polite.
The truth was messier.
Wetter.
More primal.
The truth was that I had become an addict whose dealer never let her come down long enough to remember sobriety.
♠ ♥ ♦ ♣
I surfaced briefly to find myself clean again. My skin smelled of soap and Rook—his scent layered over mine like a claim written in pheromones.
The soreness between my legs had deepened into a constant, delicious ache that pulsed with my heartbeat.
And I was dressed.
Clothes.
Actual clothes.
A soft black sweater that smelled like him, the cashmere brushing against my oversensitized nipples with each breath. Black leggings that fit perfectly, hugging my hips and thighs like a second skin.
No underwear—my heat made that impractical, slick still seeping from me in a slow, steady stream—but real clothes, nonetheless.
When did he dress me?
The image formed through the fog—Rook's tattooed hands sliding fabric over my unconscious body, lifting my arms, smoothing the sweater down my torso.
Gentle.
Possessive.
Caring for what belonged to him while I floated in heat-induced oblivion.
Another hit of the drug. Another way he's made me need him.
I tried to hold onto the thought, to examine the strange tenderness of it—this serial killer who dismembered bodies with surgical precision, now dressing his Omega like she was precious, fragile, and worthy of protection.
But the heat pulled me back under before I could make sense of the contradiction.
Perhaps there was no sense to be made.
Perhaps love and insanity had always been the same thing, and I was only now learning the language.
♠ ♥ ♦ ♣
