They always did.
But they couldn’t touch the specific, targeted intensity that Jai created. That was new. That was the thing the pack doctors hadn’t warned me about, because how could they? A true mate changed the rules. A true mate turned the generalized compulsion of the rut into something focused, specific, relentless.
I wanted him. Not in the abstract way I’d wanted things before. In the way that lived in muscle and bone, in the achebehind my teeth, in the low, insistent throb that had taken up residence behind my sternum and showed no signs of leaving.
I wanted his mouth. His hands. The small, surprised sounds he made when I caught him off guard. I wanted to map every inch of him with my hands and my mouth and then do it again, slower, until I’d memorized the geography.
And I wanted to bite him. God, I wanted to bite him. The junction of his throat and shoulder called to me like a frequency only I could hear. My teeth ached with it. My wolf paced behind my ribs, restless and urgent, the instinct to claim, to mark, to bind so deep it felt like it had been coded into my DNA before I had a name.
I’d agreed not to. So I wouldn’t.
The door to my bedroom was open. Jai reached it first, paused on the threshold, and looked back at me over his shoulder. The city light caught the line of his jaw, the fullness of his mouth, the alert intelligence in his eyes that never, ever switched off.
He didn’t smile. He didn’t need to. The look was enough—challenge and invitation in equal measure, the particular expression of a man who knew exactly what he was walking into and had decided, against his better judgment, that he wanted it anyway.
I followed him through the door. The rut followed me. And between us, hanging in the air like something with mass and weight, the word we’d both said: agreed.
For tonight, it was enough.
My bedroom ran on two settings: dark and darker. The single lamp on the nightstand was dialed to its lowest setting, throwing a warm amber glow that barely reached the foot of the bed.
The rest of the room lived in shadow—the dresser, the chair by the window, the built-in closet with its recessed handles. The city beyond the glass wall was a blur of gold and gray, the river adark seam through the grid, buildings reduced to blocks of light stacked against the night.
It was a room built for one person. The bed was king-sized because anything smaller would have been uncomfortable, not because I’d ever expected to share it. The sheets were charcoal, the duvet the same. No decoration. No photographs. Just the facts of the space, rendered in materials expensive enough that you stopped noticing they were expensive.
Jai stood at the foot of the bed and pulled his t-shirt over his head in one clean motion. No performance. No tease. Just the practical removal of an obstacle, the way he did everything—direct, efficient, borderline surgical. The shirt hit the floor somewhere behind him that I didn’t track where.
I was too busy looking at him.
His body was a map of things survived. A thin, pale scar ran the length of his left ribcage, raised slightly, the kind that came from something sharp moving fast. Another at his right shoulder, smaller, puckered. A third across his lower abdomen, faded to white, almost invisible unless the light caught it just right.
His chest was lean, defined without being built, the kind of musculature that came from utility rather than vanity. His skin was creamy white, almost luminous in the low lamp light, and the contrast with the dark sheets behind him was severe enough to hurt.
I stripped my own shirt off without thinking about it. The fabric caught on my watch—the Patek, heavy on my wrist—and I freed it with a quick twist of my arm. The shirt landed on the chair. My skin felt too tight, too warm, the rut humming under the surface like a second pulse. The room’s temperature was perfect.
My body disagreed.
The distance between us was maybe four feet. I closed it in two steps, my hand coming up to cup the side of his jaw before either of us had time to overthink it. His skin was warm. Slightly damp at the hairline. I tipped his face up the inch it needed and kissed him.
Not gently. Deliberately. My mouth found his and I took my time with it, slow and thorough, the way you’d approach something you’d been thinking about for longer than was strictly healthy.
His lips parted on a half-breath, and I tasted cherry blossom and heat and the faint, clean edge of the toothpaste he used. His mouth was soft in a way that contradicted everything else about him—the sharp tongue, the quicker wit, the bone-deep stubbornness that had been driving me insane since the day we met.
He made a sound against my mouth. Low. Surprised. The kind of noise that started in the back of his throat and traveled straight down my spine, settling somewhere below my belt with the particular weight of something I had no intention of ignoring.
My hand slid from his jaw to the back of his neck, fingers pressing into the short hair there, and I felt him lean into it. Not surrendering. Choosing.
The rut pushed harder. The heat behind my eyes intensified, a dull, insistent pressure that made the room feel smaller. I kissed him deeper. Slower. My tongue traced the line of his lower lip and he made that sound again, softer this time, and his hands came up to grip my shoulders. His fingers dug in. Hard. The kind of grip that said I am here, I am present, and I am not going anywhere.
I broke the kiss. His breath came fast. Mine didn’t, because I’d spent thirty-five years learning to control my breathing underconditions considerably worse than a pretty man’s mouth, but it cost me.
It cost me more than I wanted to admit.
I mapped him with my mouth. Throat first. The line of his jugular, pulsing under my lips, warm and alive. I pressed my mouth to the spot and felt his pulse jump against my tongue.
His head tipped back. His hands tightened on my shoulders. I worked my way down the column of his throat to the sharp cut of his collarbone, teeth grazing the bone—careful, careful—and the sound he made was closer to a groan, rough and unfiltered.
His chest came next. Lean muscle under warm skin. I took my time. My mouth found his left nipple and closed over it, tongue circling, and his back arched off the bedpost he was braced against.
