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Then I sink lower.

Beautiful, he sends, the word barely coherent. The word makes me clench around him, and his claws punch back into the furs.

I stop instantly, panting. “Did I hurt you?”

His laugh through the bond is dark and wrecked. No. You pleasure me until my bones lose language.

That is a hell of a sentence to process while I’m halfway impaled on him.

His restraint is a living thing beneath me. I can feel the beast in him trying to thrust up. I can feel the old mating instinct roaring at him to seat himself fully, lock deep, fill. But he doesn’t. He holds still because I told him to, because my choice matters more than his hunger, because devotion in Onyx has always had claws turned inward.

I bend down and press my forehead to his chest, but the new angle shifts him inside me, and I cry out.

Pleasure slams through me without warning as one of those ridges drags right over my prostate. My hips jerk down another fraction on instinct, and that sends another shock through me so strong my arms almost collapse.

Onyx’s hands clamp around me, steadying, not stopping. There, he sends, voice turning darker. I feel it. I know where the beast fills you sweet.

My breath stutters. “Don’t—don’t say things like that right now.”

He does not laugh; his hunger is too huge. I will say the truth while you take me. You are open around my first body. You are wet with what heals you. You are shaking because pleasure has teeth now, and you still want more.

I whimper.

There’s no other word for it. I hate that there’s no other word for it, but that’s what comes out of me. A wrecked, helpless sound that makes his body pulse inside mine and his slick spill hotter around the base.

I start moving. Not much at first. I can’t take all of him yet, and the part of me that used to measure desire against proof of courage would have been stupid about that. Onyx isn’t. The bond gives me nothing but awe.

He worships what I can take, not what I can’t. So, I use the part of him inside me, rising and lowering in small, careful rocks, letting the ridges drag over that deep place with each motion.

My hands spread over his chest as pleasure builds in layers, fingers digging into the ridges there. His body is huge beneath me, furred legs braced, skull tilted back, antlers shadowing the root ceiling, cock hidden halfway inside me and halfway slick between us. He looks like a nightmare being ridden by a man who should have known better.

I do know better. I just don’t care.

Then he grabs my thighs and lifts me up, thrusting up as far as he can go.

“Onyx! Fuck—!”

The world whites out.

It is not the same as me sinking onto him. Not even close. That had been a choice, my body opening around him with trembling courage and his restraint lying still underneath me like an animal with its throat in my hand.

My body spasms once, panicked by the sudden depth, and then pleasure rolls through me so hard my head drops back. The den blurs above us, roots and blue lantern-light and the shadow of his antlers all smeared together, and Onyx’s mind pours through mine, dark and huge and satisfied.

Take it, Little Ember, he sends, and nothing in the words is soft except the devotion underneath them. Take the part of me you wanted. Take the beast that opened for you.

I try to answer, but all that comes out is a wrecked sound when he lowers me slightly and thrusts up again, using his strength to give me more without forcing all of himself into me at once.

I feel every ridge, every pulse of him, every impossible inch my body has accepted because his slick keeps soothing the places that should have burned too much. My cock jerks against my stomach, untouched, and his gaze tracks the movement through the skull like he could devour the sight.

“Too much,” I gasp, even as my hips twitch down another fraction.

The bond catches the lie immediately.

His hands tighten, lifting me again, not letting me collapse. Too much and still you come down for more. Sweet greedy mate. You shake on me, and still your body opens. You whimper like the taking is too deep, then you clench because you want it deeper.

The shame that should answer those words doesn’t come. Maybe he’s burned it out of me. Maybe I’ve finally stopped believing wanting him makes me something I need to apologize for. I only shudder and spread my knees wider over his furred hips, letting him see exactly what his voice does to me through the bond.

I suck in air, shaking. “Do that again.”