Caden roared inside my skull. The need was savage. I couldn't pretend it away.
She jerked her head up, eyes red, cheeks wet, the pain alive on her face. My mouth crashed into hers and I tasted nothing but salt and her.
She kissed me back, hard, gasping, teeth and lips and the bitterness of everything we'd lost.
We slammed into the wall, then the dresser, then tripped backward onto the bed. The clothes and pictures on the covers went flying. Half the goddamn closet, pajamas, socks, the whole mess. She clawed at my shirt buttons, ripping the first two open before I managed to yank her sweatshirt off over her head.
I didn't even try for gentle. Neither did she.
She locked her thighs around my waist and hauled me down, urgent as hell. I kissed her again, hotter, meaner, maybe a little desperate, because what else were we supposed to do? Years of missing her detonated behind my ribs.
Her hands were everywhere, my back, neck, shoulders,fingers pinching just to anchor herself. Even her tears tasted angry.
I got her jeans unzipped and she shimmied them off, nearly kneeing me in the stomach. The sheet twisted under us. She didn't care. Neither did I. I wanted to eat her alive.
Every time our skin touched, Caden crowed.Take her. Claim her.
She yanked my shirt over my head, dragging her fingers over my back, and I nearly lost my shit. Her bra was next, a plain cotton thing, practical as ever, but it looked so perfect on her I wanted to shred it in my teeth.
"Is this okay?" I managed hoarsely, caging her wrists in one hand.
She bucked, panting, eyes crazed. "We're doing this, yeah?"
"Yeah," I said, my whole body one live wire.
"God yes," she said, and the words undid me.
The rest was a blur. Her panties, soft and damp, tore down her thighs. My jeans shoved somewhere off the bed. The mattress creaked, sheets crushed, cold air burning into my shoulders while everything south of my heart was lava.
I braced a hand above her head and drove into her, raw and hungry. She met me, every thrust, every curse,every dig of her nails. There was no grace to it, only the violence of need and the hundred things we never got to say.
She came first, locking up tight, mouth open in a ragged gasp. I followed, barely catching myself before I could bite down along her shoulder, pulling out before I spilled myself inside her. The urge was primal, hot and bright and fuck, it took everything in me not to mark her then and there.
I collapsed beside her, a mess of sweat and ache, lungs stuttering in the dark.
She was gorgeous. Flushed, wide-eyed, hair stuck to her cheeks, lips red from kissing. She didn't look away. I don't think she could.
For a minute, all I could hear was the sound of us breathing.
Caden paraded around my chest, smug as hell.She's ours now. Mate. Bite. Now.
I banished him with a curse, but he didn't care as I searched her face for regret. There was none. Only hunger, still, and a weird, sweet relief.
I wanted to say something sharp, or funny. But all that came out was, "You okay?"
She snorted, half laughing, half crying. "You're insane."
"I missed you," I said, stupidly.
She punched my chest. "Idiot. You don't know me."
We tangled together, neither of us bothering to move, not even to find a blanket. The chill on my skin was nothing compared to her, all hot and alive.
Caden's need to bite was a living thing. He kept muttering,do it, do it, do it,but I held the dragon down. This wasn't the night for that. Not yet.
Chance
When I came downthe stairs after a long dawn flight and shower, the whole main floor was alive. Sunlight through the curtains, cinnamon in the air, and the wild, vibrating sound of Maeve Spicer wrangling my daughters in the kitchen.
