"Alex."
"Yeah."
"I don't know what we are."
"I know."
"This might make it worse."
"I know."
He leans down. Presses his mouth to my stomach. Drags lower. My hip. The crease of my thigh. His breath is hot on my skin and I'm trembling and when his mouth finds me my hand shoots to his head and grips and my back arches off the mattress and I have to clench my jaw shut to keep quiet.
He's not careful. He's not tentative. He tastes me like he's starving — like the shift turned this into a need that goes deeper than want — and his hands grip my thighs, holding me open, holding me still, and I can feel the vibration of his groan against me and my vision dissolves at the edges.
"Leo — I need —"
He pulls back. Strips his pants. He's hard and flushed and breathing like he's been running and when I wrap my hand around him his hips jerk forward and his eyes close and the sound he makes — low, broken, surrendered — is the hottest thing I've ever heard.
I push him. Down. His back hits the mattress and I climb over him, knees on either side of his hips, and his hands find my waist and grip hard enough to leave marks. We're both shaking. Both burning.
I sink down onto him and we both stop breathing.
The stretch of him fills me completely and my body clenches and I press my hands flat against his chest and hold there because I need a second. Just one second where I'm not moving and he's inside me and the connection between us is so loud I can feel his heartbeat through my palms.
I move. Roll my hips. His fingers dig into my waist and his head presses back into the mattress and his throat is exposed and something in me wants to put my mouth there — not gentle, not soft, wants to bite, wants to mark — and the thought should scare me but it doesn't. It feels right the way breathing feels right.
I lean down and do it. Press my teeth to the side of his neck. Not hard enough to break skin. Hard enough that he gasps and his hips slam up into me and his hand fists in my hair and holds me there.
"Fuck — Alex —"
I ride him. Not slow. Not careful. The rhythm builds fast because we're both past the point where slow was an option. His hips drive up to meet mine and his hands are everywhere — my waist, my breasts, my hips, pulling me down harder onto him — and the sounds he's making are raw and unguarded and I'm matching them, giving up on quiet because my body is done pretending this is something I can control.
I press my hand against his chest — right over his heart — and his whole body arches beneath me and his eyes fly open and they're different. The pupils blown wide, the brown almost gone. And underneath, just for a second, a flash of amber. Animal.
"Don't stop," he says.
I don't stop.
I grind down and he drives up and the friction is perfect and building and my thighs are trembling and I can feel the edge — not just the physical edge but something deeper, something that lives in the connection between his body and mine, in whatever opened when the circuit formed.
I come so hard my hands curl into fists against his chest and my whole body locks down and I hear him say my name — just my name, nothing else, like it's the only word left in him — and he follows, his hips stuttering, his hands bruising on my waist, his face pressed into my throat where I can feel his mouth open against my skin.
We stay like that. Connected. Breathing. The heat between us cycling down.
I press my forehead to his. His eyes are brown again. Human. He's looking at me with an expression I haven't seen from him before — open, stunned, a little afraid.
"That wasn't just sex," he says.
"No."
He's quiet for a moment.
His hand finds mine. Laces our fingers together. Holds on.
Somewhere in the building — far away, muffled by walls and doors and distance — a howl.
Leo's hand tightens on mine.
