He moved lower, his hands parting my legs with a firm, silent command. I expected him to come back up, to seek my mouth, but instead, he dropped to his knees at the edge of the bed.
"Neal—"
"Hush." His voice was a low growl.
Then his mouth was on me.
The sensation was a lightning strike. He was as thorough with his tongue as he was with his medicine—focused, intense, and devastatingly effective. I arched off the bed, my fingers tangling in his hair as I let out a jagged cry. The bond was screaming now. He didn't let up until I was shaking, my first climax crashing over me in waves that left me breathless and sobbing his name.
He didn't give me time to recover. He moved up my body, his eyes glowing with his wolf. He caught my hands, pinning them above my head with one of his, while the other guided him to my entrance.
"Look at me," he commanded, his voice thick.
I looked. I saw the man who usually tried to save me, now utterly undone by me.
He pushed inside, slow and agonizingly deep. It wasn't just a physical joining; it felt like he was stitching himself into my veryDNA. I gasped, my legs locking around his waist to pull him deeper, needing to close every millimeter of space between us.
"You're mine," he whispered, the words a vow. "Do you hear me? No more destroying yourself. You belong to me now."
"Yes," I choked out, meeting his pace as he began to move.
He was relentless. Every thrust was a claim, a steady, powerful rhythm that drove the exhaustion from my bones and replaced it with fire. We moved together in the small, quiet cabin, the only sound the ragged hitch of our breathing and the snap of the bond as it finally, finally settled into place.
When the end came, it was violent and beautiful. He buried his face in my neck, his teeth grazing the skin over my pulse point as he came, his body rigid as he poured everything he’d been holding back into me. I shattered along with him.
Later — much later — I lay in his arms, warm and sated and more relaxed than I'd been in weeks.
The soup had gone cold on the nightstand. Neither of us cared.
"You still need to eat," Neal said. His voice was drowsy, his fingers tracing lazy patterns on my bare shoulder. “I’ll feed you.”
"Mmmkay."
"Then sleep. Real sleep."
"I am sleeping." I pressed a kiss to his chest. "Or I will be. Give me five minutes. I’ll eat fast."
He laughed softly. "You're still impossible."
"You love it."
The word hung in the air between us.Love.Neither of us had said it out loud. But the bond knew. The bond had always known.
"I do," Neal said quietly. "God help me, I do."
I smiled against his skin.
Chapter nineteen
Iwas three bites into my oatmeal when the bond hit me.
Cal's end—sharp, urgent, and underneath it something I hadn't felt from him in days. Something that made me drop my spoon and push back from the small desk Neal had set up in Stone's observation room.
Hope.
The emergency lights began to pulse.
I was already at the door when the overhead speaker crackled: "Medical response to east wing. Room four. All available staff."
