Page 20

The first morning, I wake up to an empty bed and a sound coming from my closet. My heart stops. I’m on my feet with my claws out before I even know I’m moving. Then I see her.

She’s on the floor of my walk-in closet, naked, my mark bright on her neck, surrounded by a pile of my clothes. She’s pulled down every shirt I own: my hoodies, my sweaters, my robe. She’s dragged the duvet and the pillows off the bed too, and she’s arranging all of it in a circle around herself, tucking, folding, smoothing it down, so focused she doesn’t even notice me in the doorway.

She’s nesting. In my fucking clothes.

Nothing’s ever hit me this hard in three hundred years. It goes straight to my chest and straight to my cock at the same time.

“Red.”

She jumps and looks up at me, eyes huge and glassy from the heat, my favorite cashmere sweater pressed to her face.

Oh my God. Oh my God, he caught me. He’s going to think I’m crazy. I just needed it to smell like him…

“You stole my clothes,” I drawl.

“I needed them.” Her voice cracks. “They smell like you.”

I lean against the doorframe and cross my arms. “You know I’m right here, right? You could just smell me.”

She glares at me. Then a cramp hits her, and she curls into the middle of her nest with a whimper, and my smugness dies on the spot.

I step into the nest. She grabs my wrist and pulls me down with a strength she shouldn’t have, and I let her. I let her arrange me in the middle of her pile of my own clothes like I’m another fucking pillow.

“Stay,” she orders.

I laugh. “Bossy.”

“Please.” She climbs on top of me, her pussy soaked, dripping on my stomach, already grinding on my cock. “Please, Nik, I need it…”

“Ask me properly, baby.”

Asshole. Fucking asshole. Gorgeous, monster, asshole…

“I heard that.”

“I know you heard that!” She sobs and grinds harder. “Please fuck me. Please knot me. Please, please, I’ll do anything…”

I grab her hips and slam her down on my cock. She screams, and her whole body goes loose.

That’s the thing about her heat: nothing helps except me. Not water, not sleep, not a cold shower. The cramps only stop when I’m inside her. The fever only breaks when she comes. And the only time she can sleep is when my knot is locked in her and she can feel me holding her still.

She rides me like she’s starving, her nails digging into my chest, my sweater still clutched in one fist. I let her set the pace for exactly one minute. Then I take over, pulling her down on every thrust, hard, until my knot is grinding against her and she’s crying out with every stroke.

“Is this what you needed?” I growl. “Is this why you stole my clothes, Red?”

“Yes,” she sobs. “Yes, please, don’t stop…”

“Then fucking take it.”

I shove my knot inside her. She screams and comes so hard she bites my shoulder, and I come right behind her, holding her down on me while she shakes. Even locked on my knot, she won’t stop trembling. Her teeth are chattering. Another cramp is already building low in her belly. I can feel it through the bond.

And I rumble. I didn’t even know I could do it. It starts deep in my chest the first time she cries from a cramp, low and steady, almost a purr, and she goes still on my knot and melts against me.

“What is that?” she whispers.

“No idea.” I stroke her back. “Never done it before.”

“Do it more.”