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I lie there awake, holding her, with the taste of oak in my mouth and her scent filling up my lungs. And I think about how I would wait for her to ask me. However long it takes.

A month. A year. A hundred years.

I’m good at waiting.

But I’m going to need to carve a new bee.

Nine

Chapter Nine: Hattie

The first thing I see when I open my eyes is a bee with teeth marks in it.

It’s right there on the corner of the headboard, about six inches from my face. One of the little bees Rowan carved me. Except now it’s got a big chunk bitten out of it, two neat rows of dents straight through its wings.

I stare at it, trying to remember. Then I do.

His mouth on the back of my neck. Right on my gland. Just for a second. Then the crunch of wood, and him roaring into the headboard while he came inside me.

He bit the bed. Instead of me.

He’s wrapped around my back right now, still inside me, still knotted, one huge arm across my chest. And his lips are right there on my gland. Not biting. Just resting there. Guarding it.

My throat gets tight. I’m in the middle of my heat, crying over a damn wooden bee. Get it together, Hattie.

“You’re awake,” he mumbles into my skin.

“You bit my bed.”

“I’ll carve you a new bee.”

“I don’t want a new bee.” I reach up and touch the dents. “I want that one.”

He doesn’t say anything. He just kisses my gland, soft, and holds me tighter.

* * *

Day three is the worst.

Everybody says the middle of a heat is the worst part, and I never got it, because every part of my heats was the worst part. But now I get it. The first two days, my body was desperate. Now it’s just greedy as hell.

I wake up from a nap already burning and wet and aching so deep I cry out before my eyes are even open. And Rowan’s right there. He’s always right there.

“I got you,” he says, rolling me on my back. “Come here.”

“I want to be on top.”

It comes out of my mouth before I even think about it. He goes still and looks down at me.

I’ve never been on top of anybody in my life. I’ve been with exactly two men, and both of them were a waste of a perfectly good fucking evening, and both of them wanted me flat on my back with my mouth shut. But right now my heat is running everything, and I need to run something.

Rowan rolls on his back in the middle of my nest and pulls me on top of him. His hands land on my hips.

“Then take what you need, sweetheart.”

Lord, this man.

I straddle him. His cock is lying hard and heavy on his stomach, thick and dark and still shiny from last time. I wrap my hand around it and lift it up. My fingers don’t meet. They never do. It’s hot in my palm, and I can feel the grain, those little ridges running all the way up to the head.