He thrust into me again, so deep I couldn’t see anything but the hard blue of his eyes and the rust-bright flash of blood on his cheek. Every part of him was at war with holding back—his hands shook on my hips, his teeth grinding so hard I heard the joints pop—but he didn’t go gentle, didn’t settle for sweet. The first pumps were bruising, wild, the way you only fuck when you’re both a heartbeat away from falling apart completely.
I dug my nails into the back of his neck, then down his spine, dragging red trails through the sweat and grime. He hissed at the sting, then bent his head to bite my shoulder, hard enough to leave a mark for a week. My body wantedto cave in, but he wouldn’t let me—he just pressed closer, set a ruthless pace, one hand coming up to close around my throat, thumb resting just under my jaw, not choking but holding me still. I looked up at him, unblinking, daring him to take more, and he did: he twisted his fingers in my hair and fucked me so hard I slid up the cage, the wire branding my back. My cunt clenched, desperate and wet, and every time he withdrew, I felt the emptiness like a loss.
If there were words between us, I don’t remember them. Just that I lived for the scrape of metal mesh and the slap of our bodies, for the way he refused to break eye contact even as his rhythm got frantic, even as sweat dripped from his face onto my lips, even as my orgasm built sharp and mean and absolutely inevitable.
“Are you going to come for me?” he whispered, voice gone so raw it didn’t sound like him. “Tell me.”
“Make me,” I snapped, and so he did. His hand tightened on my jaw, and he shifted his angle, pinning my knees wider with his hips, fucking me so deep and so savage I saw white. The world went silent except for the crash of dogs and the slap of our bodies, and when I came, it was a full-body spasm, a soundless scream that left my throat raw. He didn’t stop, didn’t slow, just kept pounding into me, chasing his own release with a single-minded violence that was almost holy.
When he came, his whole body locked up, every muscle a live wire under my hands. He bit my shoulder again, and I loved him for it. I loved every goddamn broken, furious atom in him.
After, we collapsed sideways in the cage, tangled and sticky and shaking. The wire left marks in my thighs and arms. The dogs kept howling, but softer now, like they knew something had changed in the pack order.
Dean laughed, rough and stunned, and the sound was so alive I felt like crying. He brushed the hair from my eyes and kissed my forehead, surprisingly gentle, then licked the sweat from my bare shoulder, eyes a little wild.
“I could stay in here all night,” he said, voice thick.
“You’d get caught. They’d call the cops.”
He grinned, blood on his teeth. “Think anyone would adopt me?”
I kissed him again, then laughed, an animal sound, rolling as I slid off his lap and landed ass-thudding to the tile. The jolt made the aftershocks fizz up my spine; the wire mesh left a ghost of his fingerprints mapped across my ribs. He reached down, tucking himself away with a casualness that started a new furnace in my chest, and drew me into his lap again, legs splayed wide, my bare back sticky with sweat, my top half flushed and raw and covered in red press-marks where the mesh had bit into me.
We sat like that, the two of us a ragged, sweating heap in the dirty corner of the empty kennel. The air settled, still electric, the dogs finally falling to a panting buzz. I watched Dean’s chest rise and fall through the torn neck of his t-shirt, the dark hair curling damp at his collar, the cut of his jaw now smeared with blood and lipstick and my own shine. He looked like a goddamn wreck. I’d never wanted anything more.
“Jesus,” I said, finally. “That was—” I couldn’t find a word for it. Biblical, maybe, or something even dumber.
He leaned back, braced on his elbows, and grinned at me like he’d just finished rebuilding an engine from scrap. “You can say it,” he said, voice rough but gloating. “Say I was the best you ever had.”
“You’re the dumbest,” I told him. “You know they have hidden cameras back here, right?”
He shrugged. “Better than being on YouTube for losing a fight to three Sultan idiots.”
I snorted, then shivered when cool air hit my sweaty skin. “Help me up,” I said, but when he did, I ended up on my knees, mouth at his belly. For a second, I considered testing if he could go again, but the ache between my thighs said I’d already pushed my luck past the limit.
He smoothed my hair with one palm, slow, then rolled us up to standing and started buttoning my shirt for me,none of the usual guy-clumsiness in his fingers. I caught his hand at my throat before he could button all the way, wanting him to see the fresh red fingerprints he'd left there, my collarbone bright and bitten. He got the message; the look on his face turned hungry again, then melted into something softer that scared the shit out of me.
“You okay?” he asked, for real this time.
I nodded. My voice came out ruined, breathy. “You?”
He tugged his cut straight, then took in the little cube of cage and the puddle of blood drying on his jeans. “Yeah.” Then, “Sorry, I lost it back there.”
I pushed my face against the warm patch between his jaw and shoulder and inhaled, getting a full hit of sex and sweat and spilled adrenaline. “You only lost it a little.”
He laughed, but kept his arms clamped tight around me, swaying us gently side to side. I’d never thought of myself as a romantic. I believed trauma bonded people about as well as trauma did anything—temporarily, not permanently—but I could feel my heart rabbiting out of my chest.
“We need to erase the security cameras,” I said.
Dean laughed, and I led him back through the kennels. FUck, my world had changed.
10
Dean
The morning after the Sultans bled their trouble all over the Humane Society, I swung by the cinderblock building to see if Emily would look me in the eye after last night, or if she’d revert to treating me like one of the wild ones—dangerous, possibly rabid, not to be trusted until sedated.
She was there, behind the counter, refilling the water bowls. I watched her through the glass as she worked. The movements were all wrong: hands moving too fast, spilling more than she poured; shoulders hitched up, like she was ready for a blow that never came. She wore the same navy polo from yesterday, new stains crawling up the placket,but her hair was loose and unwashed, the color darkened by sweat and maybe a few tears.
