"I'll fix that." Against my throat, his mouth moving down, the promise in it deliberate and specific.
He undresses me without rushing any of it. His hands move over each piece of clothing before he removes it, like he's paying attention to what's underneath before he gets there — the curve of my waist, the line of my ribs, the soft skin at my hip that makes me pull in a breath when he traces it. He registers each reaction and comes back to it. The inside of my wrist. The spot where my neck meets my shoulder. The place just below my ribs that makes my stomach pull tight every time.
He gets me down to nothing and steps back and looks at me.
I let him look.
"Come here," he says.
He lays me back on the bed and undresses. He takes his time working down my body — his mouth at my collarbone, my sternum, the curve of my stomach. His stubble drags across my skin and I feel it everywhere, a slow burn that builds with everyinch he moves. His hands hold my hips and he puts his mouth on the inside of my thigh and I grab the sheets.
"Dalton—"
"I've got you," he says. Against my skin. "I've got you."
His mouth moves to my center and I stop being coherent.
He's unhurried and absolutely precise, his tongue working in slow circles while his hands keep me exactly where he wants me, and every time I get close he reads it and adjusts — not backing off, just changing pressure, changing angle, keeping me right at the edge until I'm pulling his hair and saying his name like a warning.
"There," he says, when he finds the thing that makes my hips lift off the bed.
"Don't stop—" I grab his hair. "Don't stop—"
He doesn't stop.
I come apart under his mouth with my hand fisted in his hair and the bond blazing hot on my wrist, the mark pulsing with every wave of it. His name breaks out of me and he stays with me through all of it, his hands steady on my hips, his mouth soft afterward, working back up my body while I'm still shaking.
He moves over me. I pull him up and he comes, settling his weight against me, his forehead dropping to mine.
"Alex," he says. Just that. My name.
"Yes," I say.
He pushes inside me slowly and we both go still.
The room is quiet. The lamp is on. His weight is against me and his forehead is on mine and I feel the wall he's built around this moment — just the two of us, just the bond running hot between us, nothing from the day getting in.
We move together. Unhurried, deliberate, his hands learning what they already know and taking their time with it anyway. His mouth at my ear saying my name and things that aren't words, his thumb finding my clit and working slow circles thatmake my breath come in short pulls. I dig my nails into his back and he makes a sound low in his chest that I feel more than hear.
"More," I say. Into his neck.
He gives me more.
I come the second time with my face pressed to his shoulder, his body driving into mine, the bond on my wrist blazing white, and he follows with my name in his throat and his hands gripping my hips hard enough to leave bruises.
***
I don't move.
I don't want to move.
Him on his back. Me against his side, his arm around me, his heartbeat under my palm. The lamp still on. The window showing nothing but dark trees and Alaskan night.
His heartbeat steady under my hand, his arm warm and certain around me, the bond running its quiet hum — that I'm not ready to break. The day sits outside this moment and I'm keeping it there for a little longer.
My other bonds find me when I go still enough to feel them.
Leo has stopped moving — I can tell by the frequency of him, the difference between Leo burning something off and Leo finally putting it down. Gray is what Gray always is, low and constant, the hold of someone who doesn't spike and doesn't drop. Jake tight. Jim reaching.
