"Small sips," he murmured, his pale eyes soft with concern, watching my throat work as I swallowed. His free hand came up to brush damp hair from my forehead, the ridges of scar tissue on his fingers surprisingly gentle against my heated skin. "Don't want you getting sick."
I drank obediently, the cool water soothing my raw throat. How much had I screamed? How long had this been going on? The questions felt distant, unimportant compared to the simple comfort of being held.
"You need to eat something," Remy said, appearing at my side with a protein bar he'd already unwrapped. His voice was hoarse—from his own sounds or from talking me through orgasms, I couldn't remember. His amber eyes were tired but warm, shadows beneath them I hadn't noticed before, his dimple making a brief appearance as he offered the food. "Just a few bites, chere. Keep your strength up."
I managed half the bar before the heat started stirring again—embers catching, need building low in my belly. I whimpered, pressing back against Harper's chest.
"How much longer?" I heard myself ask, the words slurring.
"Maybe another day," Harper rumbled against my hair, his massive arms tightening around me, his chest vibrating with a soothing rumble that seemed to resonate in my bones. His beard brushed against my temple as he pressed a kiss there. "You're doing so well, sweetheart. So strong. We've got you."
Three pairs of hands soothed over my skin—Harper's broad palms on my arms, Remy's clever fingers in my hair, Silas's scarred touch tracing my collarbone. Their combined scents wrapped around me, grounding me, reminding me I wasn't alone.
Then the next wave crashed over me, and everything dissolved into need.
Silas.
His name was the only thought I could hold onto as the heat surged to its highest peak yet. My body was screaming, the emptiness unbearable, and I reached for him blindly—the onewho hadn't yet taken me, the one whose turn it was, the one I needed with a desperation that bordered on madness.
"Please," I sobbed, my hands finding his chest, his shoulders, his face. My fingers traced the hard planes of his cheekbones, the stubble on his jaw, desperate to feel him, to anchor myself to something real. "Silas, please, I can't—it hurts—I need—Alpha!"
"I know." His voice was rough, strained, barely controlled—nothing like the quiet, careful man I'd come to know. His pale eyes burned into mine, pupils blown so wide they looked black, intense and feral in a way I'd never seen from him. His scarred hands gripped my waist, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. "I've got you. Going to make it better."
He didn't tease. Didn't make me wait. One moment I was reaching for him, the next he'd flipped me onto my stomach with terrifying ease, his scarred hands gripping my hips and pulling me up onto my knees. The movement was so fast, so effortless, that it reminded me just how strong he was beneath that lean frame.
"Can you hold yourself up?" His voice was a growl, low and commanding, sending shivers down my spine. One hand pressed flat between my shoulder blades, feeling the tremors running through my body, assessing. "Or do you need me to hold you?"
"I—" I tried to brace myself on my forearms, but my arms were shaking too badly, threatening to collapse. I'd been through so many waves already, my muscles wrung out, my strength depleted. "I can't?—"
"Then I'll hold you," he said, his voice dropping even lower, rougher, as his hands repositioned me. His hands gripped my hips and pulled me back, positioning me so my ass was in the air, my chest pressed to the mattress, my face turned to the side against the pillow. The position was obscene—completelyvulnerable, completely exposed, my slick-soaked folds on display for him.
"Look at you," he breathed, and I heard something raw in his voice—awe, maybe, or reverence, or hunger so deep it bordered on pain. His scarred fingers traced down my spine, over the curve of my ass, dipping into the cleft, leaving trails of fire in their wake. "So wet. So ready. You have no idea how long I've wanted this. How many nights I laid awake thinking about you."
His fingers slid through my folds, gathering slick, and I moaned into the pillow. Even that light touch felt overwhelming—my body was so sensitized, so desperate, that the barest contact sent sparks shooting through my nerve endings.
"Silas, please—" I tried to push back against his hand, but his other hand pressed down on my lower back, holding me still, immobile.
"Not yet," he said, his voice rough, barely controlled, a thread of something dark running through it. "Want to feel you first. Want to know every inch of you." Two fingers sank into me without warning, and I cried out at the intrusion. He was rougher than Remy had been, less finesse and more raw need, his fingers pumping in and out with a relentless rhythm that made my toes curl.
"So tight," he muttered, curling his fingers forward to press against that spot on my front wall, his voice dropping to something guttural and primal. "So fucking tight. How are you still this tight after—" He broke off, adding a third finger, and the stretch made me gasp. "That's it. Open up for me. Going to need to take more than this."
He worked me with his fingers until I was trembling and gasping, my inner walls clenching around him, slick dripping down my thighs. I could feel another orgasm building—could feel the pleasure coiling tighter and tighter—but every time I got close, he would pull back, denying me release.
"Silas, please—" I sobbed, my hips bucking against his hand. "Please, I need to come, I need?—"
"You'll come on my cock," he said, his voice pure command, brooking no argument, his fingers stilling inside me and holding me right on the edge. "Not before."
His fingers withdrew, and I whimpered at the sudden emptiness. Then I felt him shift behind me, felt the blunt head of his cock press against my entrance, and every thought in my head dissolved.
"Tell me you want this," he said, his lips brushing my ear as he leaned over me, his chest pressed to my back, his cock notched against my opening. His voice was a low rasp that vibrated through my skull, his breath hot against my neck. "Tell me you want me."
"Want you," I gasped, trying to push back against him, trying to take him inside, but his grip on my hip held me immobile. "Need you. Alpha, please—please?—"
He slammed home in one brutal thrust. The angle was deeper than anything before—he hit places inside me that had never been touched, bottoming out with a force that punched the air from my lungs. I screamed into the pillow, my hands fisting in the sheets, my body clenching around the sudden intrusion. He was big—not as thick as Harper but just as long—and the position let him sink impossibly deep.
"Fuck." Silas's voice cracked, his hips pressed flush against my ass, his fingers digging into my hips hard enough to leave bruises. I could feel him throbbing inside me, could feel the tremors running through his body as he fought for control, could feel his forehead drop to rest between my shoulder blades. "Such a good girl….so fucking perfect. Been wanting—needing?—"
He didn't finish the sentence. Instead, he pulled back and slammed in again. There was nothing gentle about it. Nothing playful or tender or slow. Silas fucked me like he was tryingto exorcise something—hard, fast, brutal thrusts that drove the breath from my lungs and the thoughts from my head. His hips slapped against my ass with enough force to echo off the walls, the wet sound of our joining obscene and primal.
