The bond tightens the moment I step fully inside.
She doesn’t look up right away, but I feel her awareness snap to me like a struck wire. Her breath changes. Her scent shifts—heat blooming beneath calm. My cock responds instantly, thickening, heavy and insistent.
I don’t speak.
I want to see what she does.
Slowly, she lifts her head. Blue eyes meet mine. No fear. No defiance either. Something softer. Something that makes my chest ache in a way I don’t have language for.
“You came back,” she says quietly.
“As I said I would.”
I cross the room and stop behind her. Close enough that my heat bleeds into her back. Close enough that she leans—just slightly—into me before she realizes she’s done it.
That’s all the permission I need.
I lower my mouth to her neck and kiss her where her pulse jumps hardest. Not a claim. Not yet. Just contact. Warm lips. Slow breath. My teeth graze skin.
She melts.
It’s immediate. Her spine softens. Her shoulders drop. A sound slips from her throat—half breath, half whimper—and she reaches back blindly, fingers clutching my forearm like she needs the anchor.
“Gods,” she whispers.
I wrap an arm around her waist and pull her fully against me. She fits like she was carved for this position, ass settling into my groin, my cock pressing hot and hard against her through nothing but air. I grind once, deliberately.
She gasps and arches back into me.
“Still quiet?” I murmur into her ear.
Her answer is to tilt her head, baring her throat again.
I growl.
I turn her in my arms and take her mouth in a kiss that’s nothing like the teasing ones from before. This is deep. Devouring. My tongue slides in, takes, demands. She moans into it, hands fisting in my hair, pulling me closer like she’s afraid I’ll disappear if she doesn’t.
I lift her easily, carry her to the platform, and lay her back against the pelts. She watches me with parted lips as I straighten, as I strip the last of my armor away and let it fall heavy to the floor.
Her gaze drops.
Tracks the length of me.
My cock juts thick and heavy from my body, ridged and studded with bone, already leaking. Her breath stutters when she sees it.
“Kallus,” she says again—this time like a plea.
I reach for the rope.
Her eyes follow my hand. No fear. Only heat. Anticipation sharp enough to sting.
I bind her slowly.
Wrists first—high above her head, secured to the anchor ring in the platform. Then her ankles, spread wide, leaving her open and exposed. I add more rope, looping it around her thighs, her waist, beneath her breasts. Each knot deliberate. Ritualistic.
She’s breathing hard now.
“Still with me?” I ask.
