He pulls back to meet my eyes. “Last chance, Rhianelle. I’ll let call for Svenn and beg him to come back. Tell him to fight me and lock me away again. Because if you don't—"
I silence him by pulling his mouth down to mine.
He removes his lips from me and leaves me gasping for air.
He kisses me again, deeper this time and I feel myself melting into him. This is still the monster Svenn warned me about.
"Did you know that I might keep you here?" His rough voice is the sound of dark lullabies. "Lock you in these caves where you'd be mine and only mine forever?"
I bite my inner cheek and say nothing. The answer is written all over my face.
"And you still came?"
He lifts me effortlessly over his shoulder and carries me back through the tunnels.
“Put me down.” I thump a useless fist against his back.
He doesn’t so much as break stride. I keep trying to wriggle free. An arm tightens around my thighs in silent warning. There’s no breaking that hold. The fight drains from me in a slow exhale. I bury my face against warm skin instead, breathing him in despite myself.
The main denopens before us. Svenn doesn’t stop until we reach the bed piled high with wolf pelts. He tosses me onto themound. I back away instinctively toward the head of the bed. He follows, stalking over me on hands and knees.
“Svenn has been kind.”He smiles without warmth. “I won’t go as easy on you, sweetheart.”
The nickname is a mockery on his tongue.
His hand slides between my thighs. I know what he’ll find even before his fingers slip beneath the silk band. A whimper still escapes me when he feathers his knuckles over my intimate part.
He makes a low sound of satisfaction.
"Look at you," he murmurs. "You’re so wet for me.”
His fingers slide inside me. I gasp and my back arches off the furs. He works me with devastating precision, thumb circling while his fingers curl and stroke. The pleasure builds impossibly fast.
"That's it," he says softly. "Let me feel you."
I shatter around his fingers, crying out.
Before I've recovered, he settles over me and pins me to the furs. He enters me and I arch off the bed with the force of it. The stretch is almost too much.
He braces one hand against the wall above the bed. The other grips my hip. Then he starts moving. The bed slams against the wall in a rhythmic thump that matches the pounding in my heart. His hips thrust hard against mine and he buries himself to the hilt.
His face tenses as I touch him. I trace his features, trying to ground myself in sensation. "You need to stop that, Rhianelle," he warns.
But I don't stop.
I see him now.
This isn't the Svenn who tries to restrain himself, who holds back out of fear of hurting me. This is my husband in his most unhinged form. The bond itself given flesh and terrible hunger.
The rhythm he sets is relentless. Each strokes drives me higher. I stare into those punishing dark eyes, unable to look away. I can't get enough of the intense way he's staring down at me, like I'm the only thing that exists in his entire world.
"You wanted this to happen," he says, voice rough. “Remember that.”
The pleasure builds overwhelmingly. My vision starts to white at the edges. I'm going to break apart.
I do.
The orgasm crashes through me so intensely I see stars. My whole body convulses. I can't breathe or think. I can't do anything but feel.
