"Words," I say. "I need words."
"Yes," she whispers. "I can be quiet."
"Good girl."
The phrase falls out of me without thought, and the effect is immediate, her scent floods the room, honey and vanilla so thick I can taste it, and her hips buck forward, pressing against my thigh. I shift my leg between hers, giving her something to grind against, and she does, shameless and desperate, her body chasing friction.
I drop to my knees.
The position is deliberate. Not submission - I'm a Beta, and I don't play Alpha power games - but devotion. I'm on my knees because that's where I want to be. Because the most important thing in this room isn't the sleeping child or the broken Alpha or the grieving strategist. It's her. It's Willow. And I will kneel for her.
My hands find the waistband of her jeans, and I look up.
"May I?"
She stares down at me with wide, wet eyes. In the dim light, she looks like a painting, flushed and tear-streaked and impossibly beautiful. Her fingers tremble as she reaches down and unbuttons the jeans herself, pushing them down over her hips.
She's wearing simple cotton underwear, pale blue, with a small bow at the front. The fabric is dark at the center, soaked through, and the scent that rises from her is overwhelming. Sweet and hot and wet and ready.
I lean forward and press my nose to the wet fabric and she chokes on a moan.
"You smell incredible," I murmur against her. "Honey and vanilla and slick. You're dripping, Willow. For me. Not because of a match. Not because of biology. Because I'm on my knees and you want my mouth."
"Yes," she breathes. "Yes, please."
I hook my fingers in the waistband of her underwear and pull them down. Slowly. Inch by inch. Revealing soft skin, the curve of her thighs, and then, God, her. She's bare, or nearly so, and glistening. Her slick has coated her inner thighs, and in the dim light, I can see everything. The swollen folds. The hard little bud of her clit. The entrance to her body, clenching around nothing, desperate to be filled.
I press my mouth to her.
She tastes like her scent, honey and warmth and something indefinably Willow. My tongue sweeps through her folds, gathering slick, and the sound she makes, a strangled, bitten-off cry, makes my cock jerk so hard in my jeans that I grunt.
I've done this before. With Serena. With a few others, in the years before the agency. But it's never felt like this. It's never tasted like this. My mouth is on her, and I feel like I'm drinking from a well I didn't know I was dying of thirst for.
I find her clit and circle it with my tongue. Slow, deliberate strokes, not enough to make her come, just enough to make her shake. Her hands find my hair, fingers tangling, pulling, and the sting of it sends sparks down my spine.
"Deklan, " Her voice is barely a thread. "Please…"
"Tell me what you need."
"More. Faster. Please."
I hum against her, and the vibration makes her hips buck. I hold her steady, hands gripping her thighs, fingers pressing into the soft flesh, and I set a rhythm. Firm, steady strokes of my tongue against her clit, alternating with broad licks that gather her slick and spread it upward.
She's shaking. Her thighs are trembling against my shoulders. Her slick is coating my chin, my lips, running down my throat. And the sounds she's making, tiny, bitten-off whimpers, each one punched out of her on the edge of a moan, are the most erotic thing I've ever heard.
I slide two fingers inside her and she breaks. Her hips slam forward, and I have to pin her against the wall to keep her from collapsing. My fingers curl, finding that spot on the front wall of her channel, the one that makes her see stars, and I stroke it while my tongue works her clit.
"Deklan, Deklan, I'm going to…"
"Do it," I growl against her, and the vibration of my voice pushes her over.
She comes with a silent scream. Her mouth opens, but no sound comes out, just a rush of air, a shudder that starts in her core and radiates outward. Her inner walls clamp around my fingers, pulsing, and fresh slick floods my hand, my wrist, my chin.
I don't stop. I work her through it, slowing my tongue, easing my fingers, drawing out every last tremor until she's trembling and oversensitive and pushing weakly at my head.
I pull back and look up at her.
She's wrecked. Absolutely wrecked. Slumped against the wall, chest heaving, eyes closed, and lips parted. Her jeans and underwear lay beneath her on the floor, and her slick is on my face. And she's beautiful. The most beautiful thing I've ever seen.