We stripped slow. Me peeling off my top, him lifting his hips so I could tug his pants down. Naked, skin to skin in the dim light filtering through the curtains, I settled over him again. His cock was hard, thick against my pussy as I ground down once, coating him with how wet I already was. Weeks together meant I knew every inch of him, the way he fit, the spots that made him tense.
“Look at me,” he said, voice a low growl, when my eyes flicked away for a second. “Don’t hide.”
I reached between us, guided him to my entrance, and sank down inch by inch. No slamming home. Just this deliberate slide, feeling him stretch me open, filling me up until I was seated fully, his balls pressed against my ass. His hands came to my hips, gripping firm, thumbs pressing into the soft skin, possessive, marking me without apology. Those amber eyes never left mine, watching every flicker on my face as I adjusted, clenching around him.
“Fuck, you’re tight,” he breathed, jaw tightening as he held still. “Ride me. You’re mine. Every inch.”
It was intense like this, slow, everything amplified. The creak of the bed, the slick sound as I lifted up and dropped back, the catch in his breath. I set the pace, rocking my hips in a lazy roll, taking him deep each time. His jaw tightened more, stubble shadowing the sharp line, but he held back, letting me control it while his grip on my hips dug in enough to leave marks on my thighs. Marks I’d trace in the shower tomorrow, smirking at the memory, knowing he put them there on purpose.
I rode him like that, unhurried, my hands braced on his chest for leverage. Up and down, slow drags that had his cock dragging along my walls, hitting that spot that made my toes curl. The room felt darker, quieter, just us, his eyes boring into mine, possessive and focused, like I was the only thing in his world. Heat built low in my belly, deep and steady, not the frantic rush of our quicker fucks. I wanted to say it then, the words bubbling up,I love you,but they stuck, turning into a soft exhale instead. Too vulnerable, even here, with him watching me like he could read every secret I had.
“Tell me how good it feels,” he said, thumbs stroking my hip bones.
“So fucking good,” I whispered, voice breaking as I ground down harder, my clit rubbing against his base. “You fill me up everywhere.”
He groaned low, jaw clenching, veins standing out on his neck as he fought not to thrust up. I picked up the rhythm just a touch, grinding harder on the downstroke. He throbbed inside me, close but waiting. My breaths came in sharp little huffs, and it hit me slow, that wave cresting without warning, my pussy clamping down on his cock, pulsing as I came, thighs shaking against his sides.
He bucked up once, twice, spilling hot inside me with a gritted curse, his grip bruising as he held me down. I kept moving through it, milking every drop, until we both stilled and I collapsed forward onto his chest, his arms wrapping around me, holding me there.
Afterward we were tangled together, breathing hard, the sheets twisted around our legs, his arm heavy across my back. I traced a slow circle on his skin, over his sternum, over the beat of his heart.
“I keep waiting for something to go wrong,” I said into the dark.
My finger kept tracing circles on his skin. He was quiet long enough that I lifted my head to look at him.
“Nothing is going to go wrong,” he said.
“You say that with a lot of confidence for a man whose life involves wolf politics and territory disputes.”
“Those are my problems. Not yours.”
“We’re in this together. Your problems are my problems.”
He looked at me, and his expression shifted, just slightly, a flicker of guilt or worry or something I couldn’t quite name crossing his face before he smoothed it away. I searched his face. His voice was certain, his eyes locked on mine, but there was a tightness around his eyes that hadn’t been there a week ago. A tension in his jaw that showed up when he thought I wasn’t looking. I’d been noticing it for days. The way he checked his phone and put it away too fast, the way he’d go quiet in the middle of a conversation and come back half a second later like he’d been somewhere else. Yesterday he’d stepped out of the library to take a call and when he came back his shoulders were stiff and he’d kissed me a little too hard, like he was trying to drown out whatever was in his head.
“You’d tell me, right?” I said. “If something was wrong. You wouldn’t just carry it around and not say anything.”
“I’d tell you.”
“Promise me.”
He held my eyes. “I promise.”
I settled back against him, my face in the crook of his neck. His arm tightened around me. I closed my eyes, wanting to believe him, and I did believe him, mostly. But that strain in his facestayed in my head long after his breathing went slow and even beside me.
I woke up sometime around 3 am. The room was dark, the curtains blocking most of the moonlight, just enough coming through to see the outline of his face on the pillow next to mine. His arm was still around my waist, his face relaxed in sleep, all the tension gone from his jaw. He looked younger like this, softer, the sharp edges that made him intimidating during the day smoothed out. I could see the boy he must have been before the crown, the company, the weight of everything he carried.
I lay there watching him breathe and thinking about what Mary said.
Let yourself have the good thing without bracing for the bad thing.
I was trying, really was, and his arm tightened in his sleep, pulling me in like his body knew I was there even when his brain didn’t. I pressed my face into his neck, breathed him in, the warm skin and sleep smell of him, and tried to just be here. In this bed, this room, with this man who listened to my terrible accents, held kittens like grenades, kissed me on a porch, turned out to be a wolf, and somehow became the best damn part of my life.
My chest ached with how much I wanted to keep this. Not loosely, not carefully, not with one hand ready to let go. I wanted to grip it tight and hold on and not give a shit about expiration dates for once in my goddamn life.
I fell back asleep with his heartbeat in my ear and didn’t dream about anything bad.
But in the morning, while I was in the shower, I heard his phone ring through the door. The water was loud but his voice cut through it, low, clipped. I couldn’t make out most of it, just fragments between the spray hitting the tile. Then, clear enough that I caught it: “Yes, Mother. I have to go.”
