“Not tonight,” I whisper, and he takes the invitation for what it is; his mouth finds mine again, rougher this time, more demanding. I let him take control, and it’s a relief, honestly, to not have to think for a little while, to just let myself be devoured. He walks me backward down the hall, never breaking the kiss, one hand at my back, the other tilting my head just so, until I nearly trip over a basket of laundry and laugh into his mouth.
We’re at his door before I even register the movement, and then he’s pressing me up against the wood, mouth trailing down my jaw, teeth grazing my throat. I tilt my head back, eyes fluttering shut, and feel the shudder that goes through him when I let out a helpless little sound. I feel drunk on the sensation, on the power of making him lose his careful control.
He finds the hem of my shirt and pushes it up, warm palms flattening against my stomach. I brace my hands on his shoulders, hold on tight, and let him strip the shirt over my head. It lands somewhere on the floor. The air in the hall is cold, but his hands are so hot and greedy that it hardly matters. He kisses me again, slower now, like he wants to taste every inch of my mouth, and then he pulls back, breathing hard.
“We shouldn’t do this,” I murmur, but my hands are already drifting to his waistband, and I’m not fooling anyone.
He grins, and it’s wild and reckless. “We’re already doing it.”
I groan with mock defeat, and he scoops me up, one arm under my legs, the other steadying my back, carrying me through the door as quietly as possible. We both freeze for a second as we pass Alora’s room, listening for any sign she’s awake, but there’s nothing. Caleb’s eyes meet mine, conspiratorial, and he grins as he nudges his door shut behind us.
His room is neat in a sparse way I recognize all too well, the bed made military-tight, but the second I’m in his arms again, all his discipline dissolves. He sets me down on the edge of the bed and drops to his knees in front of me, hands running up the outsides of my jeans, slow and reverent. He’s never looked at me like this before, not with this much raw hunger.
My heart gallops, nerves alive, as he undoes the button at my waist and draws my jeans down, his palms following every contour of my thighs. I feel, for a moment, like I might come apart from being looked at like this. He hooks his hands behind my knees, spreads my legs, and leans in, dragging his mouth up the inside of my thigh slowly. My underwear is black cotton, plain and practical, and for a second I’m acutely mortified by the thought of him seeing me—really seeing me. Not just the parts I choose to display, but all of me. My thick thighs, the scars, the body built for survival and not for show. I want to crack a joke or pull away before he can clock the full reality, but he’s looking at me with such laser focus that I can’t even muster self-deprecation.
“Dina,” he says, voice low and starkly reverent, “do you have any idea how fucking perfect you are?”
He kisses the inside of my knee, then my thigh, then the line of my hip, inhaling like he wants to memorize the scent. His hands are rough, but they touch me like I’m breakable. For a second, I’m so overcome by the rawness of it that I can’t move. I just sit there, breathing hard, thighs spread wide, letting him kneel between them and worship me. He slides my underwear down my legs, slow enough that I want to scream, and then he leans in and puts his mouth on me. It’s not tentative, not trial and error. His tongue is hot and sure, and he moves with an intensity that makes my head spin. My hips buck, and I hear myself make a noise I’ve never made before; something between a gasp and a plea. He groans in response, like the sound does something to him, and he doubles down, licking and sucking until I’m shaking, one hand in his hair, the other clawing at the bedsheets.
He pulls back just enough to look up at me, grinning, then says, “I want to see you come for me.”
The words shoot through me like a fuse. I’m panting now, my vision growing fuzzy, my whole world narrowed to the heat of his mouth and the relentless drag of his tongue. My legs are spread so wide I feel like I’ll break, but he just holds them there, big hands bracing my thighs, keeping me open for him. I can’t look away from the sight of him between my legs, eyes locked on mine, like he’s daring me to look away.
And then he slides two fingers inside me, thick and perfect, crooking them just right as he keeps sucking my clit, and I nearly black out with the force of it. My vision goes white at the edges, and I hear myself cry out, the sound so raw and wild I barely recognize it as my own. I come so hard I nearly arch off the bed, but he holds me steady, working me through it until I’m gasping and boneless. When the aftershocks finally let mebreathe, he eases his grip and kisses my thigh, slow and gentle, like he’s proud of what he’s done to me.
He stands, stripping off his shirt and sweatpants, and I see all of him for the first time. The body I’d only glimpsed in flashes; every scar, every stretch of muscle, every mark of a life spent fighting. His cock is hard and heavy, flushed dark against his skin, and my wolf all but howls at the thought of having him inside me, and I want him so badly I forget all about guilt, about fate, about the ancient rules of the pack. All I want is this man, in this moment, with nothing between us.
He kneels on the bed, crowding me back until I’m sprawled against the pillows, legs spread, thighs still trembling. His hands frame my hips, holding me so tight I’ll probably bruise, and I’m glad. He kisses me, slow and deep, and I taste myself on his lips. It should embarrass me, but it just makes me want him more. I press up into him, desperate for the weight of his body, the bite of his teeth at my jaw, the thick, relentless press of his cock against my thigh.
He breaks the kiss, dragging his mouth along my ear, and murmurs, "You’ll have to keep quiet for me, or we’ll wake her." He means the baby in the next room, and for a second, I almost laugh, but the heat in his voice wipes all humor from my mind.
He lines himself up and pushes in, slow at first, letting me feel every inch, the stretch so good it hurts. I dig my heels into his back, and he groans, the sound dark and desperate. He’s so big I have to adjust, shifting my hips up to take him deeper, and the sensation nearly undoes me. I want to scream, but I clamp my lips together, stifling it. He sees it, feels it, and his mouth curls into a wolfish grin.
He fucks me like he means to stake a claim, every thrust harder than the last. The headboard thumps a slow, steadyrhythm against the wall. I try to smother the noises that threaten to spill out as his hands never stop moving, one at my throat, thumb stroking my jaw, the other gripping my ass, kneading and guiding me, as if he knows exactly how to unmake me and is determined to do it.
My body is hypersensitive, every nerve ending tuned to his touch. Each time he pulls out, slow, then slams back in, I see stars. My breath comes in ragged bursts; my nails rake down his back, and he hisses, a sound that’s half pain and half pleasure. I want to mark him too, want him to carry the evidence of me on his skin. He’s close, I can feel it, but he slows down, grinding circles inside me, drawing it out until I’m half-wild with need.
I lose count of how many times I come. Once, twice, the third nearly making me sob, all of them muffled into his neck or my own hand, because I’m terrified of waking Alora and also completely unable to stop. When I finally feel him let go, he buries his face in my shoulder and growls, low and animal, the sound vibrating through me from the inside out.
We collapse in a tangle of limbs. My head spins, and my legs are weak. I can still feel the imprint of his fingers on my hips, the bruised ache between my thighs, and the echo of his voice in my ear.
I get the feeling he’s imprinted himself on me in more ways than one, and my wolf will never forget this moment.
Chapter 13 - Caleb
I’ve had so many mornings when it’s impossible to tell if I’ve slept or just hallucinated a few hours of relatively peaceful darkness. Today is one of those, and as I idle in the frozen lot outside the pack hall, drinking my cold coffee, I try to decide whether last night was just another one of those hallucinations.
I’m early, which is not my usual move, but I needed space to replay everything that happened with Dina. Not the sex itself, though it comes back to me in flashes; the feeling of her nails in my back, the way she called my name, her body soft and strong, shuddering against mine, but the aftermath dominates my thoughts even more. The way she slipped out after Alora’s sunrise alarm call, her voice brisk and businesslike as she talked about “getting ready for the day.” I tried to catch her for more than a minute, get her to slow down, but she moved too fast, and Alora was becoming increasingly insistent. She said she’d be back in time for my patrol, which she was, but she was later than usual and made it clear she didn’t want to talk. And now I’m sitting here kicking myself, I didn’t even try.
Earlier, I convinced myself it was all a win. We argued, we fucked, and maybe that’s progress. My wolf is riding high on the taste of her, a smugness brewing in my chest that’s almost unbearable in his desire for more. But now, in the thick of the morning, with the engine heat barely keeping up and the radio spitting static, all I can think is that nothing has really changed, has it? I got what I wanted, but wanting her isn’t the same as having her. It’s not the same as deserving her.
I close my eyes and let my head rest back against the seat. The ache in my body is less physical than it is a memory that wants the night again, wants every sensation and every whispered: “don’t stop.” I want to believe it meant something.My wolf certainly does, already imagining a future where Dina wakes up in my bed, and I pour coffee in my kitchen, where Alora grows up thinking this is normal, and not some borrowed fantasy.
The thought of Alora pulls me up short because the thought of building a family with Dina and Alora suddenly feels tangible, and I didn’t realize how good it would feel.
Or how unlikely.
The familiar voice that always lingers in the back of my mind comes to the fore, the one that sounds like my old alpha; you don’t deserve that. You didn’t earn it. And even if you did, someone like her, someone who survived the worst of Cheslem, would never really want you. Not after everything you did, not after the lives you helped ruin.
