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He fills me so completely I have to stop halfway, both of us breathing hard, both of us staring like this is the first time and the last time and every time we should have had in the two years between.

“Mia,” he says, my name wrecked in his mouth.

“I know.”

I do.

I know because I feel it. Everything he isn’t saying. Everything I’m not ready to say. The vow underneath the touch. The promise underneath the hunger.

I lower myself the rest of the way.

We both go still.

For one long moment, there is no movement. No teasing. No banter. Just the two of us joined, the bond open, and the terrifying, impossible truth of being known.

Then Nash’s hands flex on my hips.

Not pushing.

Asking.

I move.

Slow at first because he is large and I am sore and my shoulder is throbbing, and none of that matters because the way he looks at me is doing far more damage than the injury ever could. I ride him with one hand braced on his chest, the diamond on my finger catching the low light every time I move.

His gaze keeps dropping to it.

To the ring.

To my body taking his.

To my face.

“Mine,” he says, voice barely more than a growl.

The word hits the bond like a match to dry grass. Every old fear in me should rise. Every warning bell should go off.

But they don’t.

Because I can feel him through the bond. He isn’t taking. Isn’t trapping. Isn’t closing a fist around me.

He’s offering the word like a vow. A savage wolf vow. Spoken in vicious devotion.

So, I lean down as much as my shoulder allows, brush my mouth over his, and answer him.

“Mine.”

His control shatters.

He surges up enough to kiss me, one hand sliding into my hair while the other anchors my hip. I move faster. He meets me, thrust for thrust, careful even when he’s losing his mind, and that somehow makes it hotter.

The room fills with the sound of us. Breath. Skin. His low groans. My broken curses. The bed creaking under us. The city beyond the window still alive and oblivious below.

The bond opens wider.

I feel his pleasure alongside mine, feel the fierce joy in him, the absolute reverence, the way he’s holding back from the edge because he wants me there first.

“Nash.”