The bed frame was huge, taking up a significant portion of the bedroom. Carved from dark wood that had aged to something close to black, it had probably stood in this room for centuries. How many generations of wolves had slept here? How many had done what we were about to do?
The thought made my belly flutter in a way that had nothing to do with scientific curiosity.
Feral positioned himself between my thighs. His weight settled over me. He kissed me again.
“Still yes?” he asked against my mouth.
“Still yes.”
He entered me slowly, giving me time to adjust to the pressure. The stretch was significant. He was larger than I’d anticipated, though I’d had only a few anatomical reference points to work from. My body accommodated him with surprising ease, the initial resistance giving way to a fullness that bordered on overwhelming.
I made a sound, something between a gasp and a moan.
Feral went still above me, his forehead pressed to mine, his breathing harsh against my face. “Are you alright?”
I nodded, unable to form coherent words. The sensation of being completely filled, of having him inside me, was more intense than I’d calculated for. My internal cataloging system tried to note the specific pressure points, the warmth spreading through my lower belly, the involuntary flutter of muscles adjusting to accommodate him.
He moved slightly, and my brain stopped trying to document anything at all.
“Good,” I managed. “That’s—Yes. Good.”
When he pulled back and thrust forward, the headboard struck the living wood wall behind me with a firm thunk.
Neither of us acknowledged it. The impact wasn’t hard enough to warrant concern, just a natural consequence of the bed’s placement and our movements. I filed it away as unimportant background noise and focused on the more relevant data, like the way Feral’s jaw clenched when he pulled back and the way his breathing stuttered when he pushed forward again. Heat built where our bodies joined.
He found a rhythm, slow and deep, watching my face with the same attention he usually reserved for territory maps and patrol reports. I’d never been studied with such intensity. My researcher brain wanted to analyze why that should feel so exposing when I’d spent my entire life being the one doing the observing.
The headboard hit the wall again, harder this time.
Feral’s pace had increased. My hips rose to meet his thrusts, matching his rhythm. The bed frame protested with a series of creaks that would’ve concerned me if I’d been capable of sustained concern about anything other than the mounting pressure building low in my belly.
A metallic scrape registered somewhere above us.
The short sword mounted on the wall, one of several decorative weapons I’d noted during my first tour of the room, wobbled on its peg. Time seemed to slow as it tipped forward and dropped.
Feral’s arm shot out, catching the flat of the blade with reflexes that shouldn’t have been possible for someone currently engaged in other activities. He set it aside on the nightstand with a decisive clunk and returned his attention to me without breaking the pace of his thrusts.
I stared at the now-empty peg on the wall for approximately two seconds before redirecting my gaze to him.
“Did you just… A sword nearly impaled my head!”
“Decorative,” he said. “Not sharp enough to impale anything.”
“That is not reassuring. It didn’t look decorative.”
“It’s fine.”
“You caught a sword.”
His thumb found my clit, circling with heady pressure. “Stop thinking, Victoria, and feel.”
He had a point.
The bed frame emitted a low, concerning creak from somewhere structural. We both froze, listening. The sound stretched out, wood settling under strain, before finally subsiding.
“How old is this bed?” I asked, scientific curiosity breaking through the haze of arousal.
Feral considered the question with more seriousness than it probably deserved given our current situation. “Old.”
