He looks at me.
"Not one of you has mentioned it since you broke the bond," I say.
The silence stretches.
I see the moment he gets there. The dawning realization.
"The scent match," he says. "It dissolved when I broke the pack bond."
"Yes."
"Which means—"
"Which means the bond wasn't making us want each other." I hold his gaze. "We want each otherdespiteit. The match is gone, Alex. And nobody said anything about it." I pause. "Because itdidn't matter."
He stares at me.
"It didn't matter," I say again. Soft and certain. "Because it was never the match. It was always just us. We've barely spoken about the bond in all the weeks we've been together. Because… it's just a bond. But we wanted each other anyway."
He pulls me in.
Not a gentle pull. The kind that means something has finally been given permission to be what it is. His arms lock around me, his face goes into my neck and he exhales—long and slow, the sound of a man putting down something he's been carrying for a very long time.
Then he tips his head back and looks at me and I see everything in his face. The steadiness that's always there. The want he's been managing for months. The hunger of someone who has been careful for so long that being allowed to stop being careful is its own kind of overwhelming.
"Vee," he says.
"Yes," I say. Before he asks anything.
He pulls me down onto the bed.
Alex is not gentle.
He's been gentle for months. Patient and controlled and deliberate, always one careful step away, always managing. That's over now and the difference is immediate and complete. He kisses me like he's been waiting. Because he has been, months of waiting distilled into this and his hands move over me with the certainty of someone who has thought about this and is done thinking.
I pull at his shirt. His hands find the hem of mine. We rearrange ourselves and each other, faster than careful, and when his mouth finds my neck I make a sound that I feel in my spine.
His scent is everywhere. Juniper, sharp and overwhelming in the best way, and my omega doesn't lunge toward it the way she did in heat. This is different, chosen. This is me wanting him with my whole self rather than my biology demanding him. The distinction matters. I feel it in everything.
"Alex," I say against his jaw.
"I know," he says. "I've got you."
He does. He has me completely. Hands sure, mouth certain, taking his time because now, finally, he can. He works me open slowly, fingers first, his purr starting low in his chest and building, and by the time he moves between my thighs I'm shaking.
He pauses above me.
Looks down at me.
"Still sure?" he asks. His voice has gone rough.
"If you stop now," I say, "I will never forgive you."
He laughs. Brief and warm and real. Then he pushes inside.
The stretch is significant and perfect. He goes slow at first, feeling how we fit together, and I hear him make a sound against my temple that belongs somewhere between a groan and his name for me.
Then we find the rhythm.
