"Agreed," he says.
It's two syllables, quiet and without qualification, and somehow that matters more than any elaborate answer would. I feel the tension in my shoulders release by a fraction.
Without fully thinking it through, I reach out and take his hand.
The effect is immediate. Heat surges up my arm in a long, rolling wave, flooding through my chest and pooling low, and my breath catches audibly, without my consent. Alden goes completely still, storm-gray eyes dropping to where my fingers are laced through his, then coming back up to my face. The silver edge in his irises has surfaced.
I turn his hand over and press his palm flat against my sternum, directly over my heart.
The beat there is embarrassingly rapid. His palm is broad and rough with calluses, hot enough through the thin fabric of my shirt that I feel each ridge of scarred skin like a separate point of contact. A fine shiver moves through me, and it isn’t from the cold.
Alden's jaw tightens. He feels it—the hammering under his hand, the way my breath has gone shallow. His other hand slides around my neck, gripping gently, fingers curling into my hair, and he closes the remaining distance between us.
He doesn't ease into it. His mouth comes down on mine with the full weight of everything he's been holding back, and the kiss detonates through me like a struck match.
I open for him instantly. His tongue slides against mine, slow and deliberate at first, tasting and taking measure, and then deeper as my fingers curl into the front of his shirt. He kisses with his whole body, chest pressing into me, his hand at my neck angling my head where he wants it. The bond flares hot, amplifying every point of contact until my skin feels like it's been turned inside out.
I slide my hands under the hem of his shirt.
My palms skim up over the rigid planes of his abdomen, the muscle hard and defined beneath my fingers, skin fever-warm. I feel the slight catch of old scars, the flex of his stomach as my touch moves higher across his chest. He inhales sharply through his nose.
Then he groans—ragged and low and pulled out of him like he didn't mean to let it go—and something in him breaks loose.
He grips the backs of my thighs and lifts me in one motion. I wrap my legs around his waist on instinct, and he moves across the room with me locked against him, unhurried and purposeful. His mouth drags to my jaw, scraping teeth along the line of it, then down to my throat. He finds the mark he left, and when his lips close over it, the sensation punches through me so sharply I gasp and grip his shoulders to stay anchored. Every nerve ending I have redirects to that single point. Heat pours through the mark like light through glass, spreading outward until my thighs tighten involuntarily around him.
“Alden,” I gasp his name, my voice a breathy whisper.
“I want you. I’ve wanted you since the first time I saw you,” he growls.
He drops me onto the bed. Not gently.
I bounce once against the dark linens, and then he's gripping the hem of his shirt and pulling it over his head, and I forget to have thoughts about it. The broad lines of his shoulders, the scar that cuts across his ribs, the controlled power in every line of him. I'm staring and I don't bother pretending otherwise.
He reaches for my shirt, and I lift my arms and let him take it.
His gaze moves over me with an intensity that raises goosebumps across my skin, and then he lowers himself over me and his mouth finds mine again. This kiss is slower but no less consuming, thorough and chases away all coherent thought. His hands move over me with the same deliberate attention—tracing my waist, the curve of my sides, learning the shape of my hipsand backside with rough-palmed focus that makes me arch into him.
His hands slide up my sides and cup my breasts, thumbs tracing my nipples until they are taught peaks.
Heat pools between my legs, and I roll my hips against Alden, feeling the impressive firmness and length of his erection.
I drag my fingers down his back, feeling the shift of muscle beneath skin. He's responsive in a way I didn't expect, breath catching when I press into old tension, a low sound escaping when my nails graze lightly downward. I reach between us and feel the hard length of him straining against his pants, and his hips roll forward instinctively at the contact, his exhale rough against my cheek.
Clothing comes off in pieces, without ceremony. His hands are efficient and mine are less so, distracted by the texture of him, the warmth, the way he reacts when I touch certain places. By the time we're down to nothing, I'm flushed all the way to my chest and breathing like I've been running.
Alden looks at me for one long second. The silver in his eyes is nearly total now, the wolf riding close to the surface, and the restraint in that look is the most deliberate thing about him.
“You are the most amazing creature I have ever laid eyes on,” Alden declares in a ragged voice.
Then he takes both my wrists in one hand and pins them above my head.
My pulse spikes hard. He holds them there easily, one-handed, the grip firm enough that I feel the boundary without any real force behind it. His free hand hooks under my knee and draws my leg around his hip, opening me to him, and the intent in his expression sends heat flooding low and urgent through my whole body. My insides ache to feel him.
He drives into me in one deep, forceful thrust that bows my spine off the mattress.
A moan tears from my throat as he fills me. He swallows it with his mouth, setting a pace that leaves no room for anything else—hips snapping forward, each movement deliberate and hard and precisely calibrated to take me apart. The grip on my wrists keeps me anchored as my whole body rocks with the force of it, and the wooden bedframe groans. I can't touch him. I can't do anything but feel, the stretch and the friction and the deep, gathering pressure building with every stroke.
The mark burns warm at my throat, as hot as my insides as they cinch around his invading cock.
