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“I know how big you are. Stop being careful with me.”

I dragged her sweater over her head. Her bra clips snapped. Her jeans—the waistband caught, tore clean at the seam— and she laughed breathlessly as she kicked them free. Her panties bunched at her thighs, and I hooked my fingers under the cotton, peeling them down in one motion.

A growl started low in my chest and stayed there. My bear pressed against the inside of my skin, heavy and hot and impossible to ignore. Every muscle in my back locked.

Take. Ours.

She was flushed from her throat down. Her nipples were tight, pebbled against the cool air. Her thighs had fallen open under my weight, and she was already slick enough that her scent hit me like the first heavy smoke from a banked fire. Deep. Sweet. Unmistakably her. My cock throbbed so hard that I felt it everywhere.

When I put my mouth on her breast, her nipple tightened further against my tongue. She arched off the sheet, a sharp breath catching in her throat. I took my time with the other one—using my teeth just enough to make her gasp. I dragged my tongue over the swollen bud until she was tossing her head and grinding her hips before moving lower, peppering kisses along her ribs and across the soft dip of her stomach.

She’d told me to stop being careful, and I intended to hear her moans of approval the whole way down. I pushed her thighs apart with both hands, my palms rough against her inner skin, and I put my mouth on her. She was slick and hot. I worked her open with my tongue, teasing her clit until she lifted her hips off the sheet.

When she was gasping, I slipped two fingers inside her—slow, testing—and she was so tight and so wet that I nearly came against the sheet. Her hand gripped my hair hard enough to hurt. I didn’t tell her to loosen it. I leaned into it.

I curled my fingers inside her and put my mouth back on her clit until her thighs trembled. I held her open and didn’t stop. Every time she tried to lift her hips, I pinned them back down with my arm. Every time she said my name, I answered by giving her more of me—deeper fingers, harder tongue, teeth just at the edge of her clit until she was clenching around my hand and her back bowed off the mattress.

Her cunt gripped my fingers with every curl, slick coating my knuckles, the wet sound loud every time I pulled out and pushed back in. I licked broad and flat, then sucked her clit between my lips and felt her thighs shake around my ears. She tasted richer the wetter she got, like honey left to ripen in the sun.

I pressed three fingers inside her now, stretching her, and her hips fought against my arm. Every time she said my name, it broke into pieces. I kept her pinned and worked her until her thighs locked and she came hard, clenching around my fingers, wetness spilling over my chin, her voice a rasp.

The scientist was gone. The real Hazel was in the room—sweating, open-mouthed, one hand fisted in my hair and one gripping the sheet, her thighs shaking around my head, her hips fighting my arm—and she was falling.

I’d done that. The useful man hadn’t. The man and the bear together, and she was coming apart on my tongue because of it. She clenched around my fingers so hard that my knuckles ached. Her whole body shook. I didn’t stop moving until she was pushing weakly at my head, breathless and trembling.

Then I lifted my mouth off her and climbed up her body. Kissed her thigh. Her hipbone. Her sternum. Her mouth—deliberately, so she tasted herself on me, and the sound she made was hunger. Surrender.

Hazel reached between us, wrapping her hand around my cock. She stroked the head, slick with pre-cum, guiding me to her entrance. My hips punched forward, sliding into her. All the way in.

She was so tight that I had to grip the pillow beside her head to keep myself from moving, and she made a sound low in her throat as her thighs circled my hips. She gripped my shoulders—not to hold me back, to hold me there—and I gave her a careful stroke.

“Look at me,” I said.

She did. Breathless. Eyes dark. Her hand went from my hair to my shoulder to the thick fur at the back of my neck, gripping, holding me in place.

“More.”

Her breasts pressed into me with every stroke, nipples dragging against my chest. She took everything I gave her—hands in my hair, legs wrapped around my back, heels digging into me with every stroke.

The slap of skin filled the room with each drive. Her cunt took every inch, wet and hot and tight, pulling at me on the way out.

A growl tore out of my chest, raw and unfiltered, vibrating through her ribs, through my own, through the space between us. Every thrust anchored her to the mattress. Every withdrawal dragged a broken sound out of her that made me want to bury myself deeper.

I pulled back. Slammed forward. Let my weight fully settle over her chest, my hips grinding hard against hers, the rhythm feral and unchecked. My bear wasn’t dormant anymore. He was with me. Riding the same pulse, sharing the same breath. Her mouth opened on every thrust, and I said her name once, low, then again when she clenched.

The bed frame scraped against the floor.

She said, “Yes,” and then something that wasn’t a word. Then she gasped my name and came apart around my cock with her eyes locked on mine.

I broke on the sound she made. I felt her clench, tight and hot and rippling around me, and my hips drove forward, burying myself to the hilt.

I put my face into the curve of her throat and I let go of everything: my weight, my breath, the sound I’d never made in front of another person in my life. It came out low and long against her skin, more growl than groan, shuddering through my entire frame as I came inside her.

I didn’t have the strength or the will to hold it back. She held me through it, one hand in my hair, one flat between my shoulder blades, and she didn’t let go.

My bear settled when it was over. He rested, content, still buried inside her, still heavy on her, still hers. For the first time in years, he didn’t have to go back into the box. He had found his ground.

Ours, he said, quietly.