My lion purrs. Low, steady, the deep vibration that starts in the chest and radiates outward. I've never purred during sex before. I've never wanted to. But Nico's body under my hands, Nico's sounds through the pillow, Nico in my building in my pride in mylife— my lion is content in a way that goes past desire into something territorial and permanent.
I take him in my mouth and the pillow does absolutely nothing.
"Ezra—" His hips jerk. His hand leaves the pillow and finds my hair, gripping, and I let him. Let him hold on while I take him deep, slow, learning what makes him shake. The flat of my tongue on the underside — he shivers. Suction on the head — his thighs tense. When I swallow around him, his whole body goes rigid and he pulls the pillow back over his face with his free hand.
I work him until he's trembling, until his thighs are shaking and his grip in my hair is tight enough to sting and the sounds through the pillow have stopped being words. Then I pull off.
"Don't stop, don't —whydid you stop—"
"Because I want to be inside you and I won't last if I keep going."
He takes the pillow off his face. His eyes are blown, dark, unfocused. His hair is wrecked. His chest is heaving. Helooks like a man who has been systematically dismantled and is entirely in favor of continued dismantling.
"Then get inside me," he says. "Now."
"Do you have—"
"Suitcase. Side pocket. I packed optimistically."
I almost laugh. Of course he did. Of course Nico packed lube in the side pocket of his suitcase for a business trip because he's thorough and prepared for every contingency including the one where he ends up in a room above a bar being taken apart by a lion shifter.
I find it. Slick my fingers. When I push the first one inside him, he bites the pillow — not over his face, actually biting it, teeth sunk into the fabric, and the image of that does something to me that I'm going to be thinking about for the rest of my life.
"More," he says, muffled by the pillow between his teeth.
I give him more. Two fingers, slow, curling, finding the spot that makes his back arch and his teeth clench harder on the pillow. He's tight. It's been a while, I can feel that, and I take my time despite every instinct screaming at me to hurry.
"I'm ready," he says. "Ezra, I'm ready, I've been ready since you walked through the door—"
"You weren't ready twelve seconds ago."
"I'm a fast learner."
Three fingers. He takes them with a full-body shudder and a sound that the pillow barely contains. His hand finds my wrist again — the same grip from the first kiss, fingers circling the bone, holding on like an anchor.
I pull my fingers out. Roll on a condom. Slick up. Position myself.
"Look at me," I say.
He takes the pillow out of his mouth. Looks at me. His eyes are dark, steady despite everything, and he's holding my gaze the way he's held it since day one — directly, completely, the full weight of his attention.
I push in.
Slow. Inch by inch, watching his face, watching the way his eyes widen and his lips part and his breath catches at the stretch. He takes me, all of me, steady, his body opening around mine with a trust that has nothing to do with efficiency and everything to do with the man he is underneath the spreadsheets.
When I'm fully inside, we both stop. Breathing. His hands are on my shoulders, gripping. His legs are around my waist. The moonlight catches his face and he looks — wrecked. Beautiful. Mine.
My lion saysmineand I say it back. Not out loud. Not yet. But inside, where it counts, where the man and the animal live in the same body and finally, for the first time, agree.
I move. Slow at first, deep strokes that make him grip my shoulders and press his mouth against my neck to muffle the sounds. Then harder, finding the angle, adjusting until I hit the spot that makes his whole body clench.
"There— fuck, right there—"
"Quiet."
"I'm trying—"
I put my hand over his mouth. Not rough — careful, cupping his jaw, my palm against his lips. His eyes go wide. For one second I think I've gone too far — he's a man who controls everything and I've just taken control of the one thing he uses to regulate himself. His voice. His composure. The steady stream of words that keeps the world at a manageable distance.
