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“Nik! My dress!”

“I’ll buy you another one.”

“You keep saying that!”

“And I keep doing it.” I set her on her feet under the spray and turn her around. My shadows find the zipper before my hands do, and the black velvet slides off her shoulders and hits the shower floor with a wet slap. I kick it out of the way.

Then I take her arm and hold it up into the water, right under the spray, and look at those four marks. They’re darker now. They’re going to bruise. Another alpha put marks on my mate’s skin, and my vision goes red at the edges.

“Hey.” Her other hand cups my jaw and turns my face down to her. Her makeup’s running. Her hair’s soaked. She’s looking up at me with those big brown eyes, completely unafraid. “I’m right here. I’m fine. You got him.”

“The Boogeyman got him.”

“Because you let him.” Her thumb strokes my cheek. “You were gonna rip his throat out in the middle of your own club, Nik. In front of my girls.”

“Yes.”

She doesn’t even flinch. “Okay,” she says. “Then wash him off me.”

I grab the soap. I scrub her arm first, slow and careful, until the water runs clear and I can’t smell him anymore, until there’s nothing left but soap and water and her. Then I keep going. I wash her shoulders, her neck, her back, every inch of her, my hands sliding over her wet skin, my shadows rising out of the steam to help, until she’s trembling and leaning back against my chest.

“He only touched my arm,” she whispers.

“I know.”

“Then why are you washing my…” She gasps when my hand slides between her legs. “…everywhere?”

“Because I fucking can, baby.”

She laughs, breathless, and it turns into a moan when I push two fingers inside her.

I kiss the side of her neck. Then I start to rub my scent into her. I’ve never done this before. I’ve never needed to. It comes from the same place the rumble does, somewhere old and deep in my chest I didn’t know was there until she walked into my club. I drag my jaw down the side of her throat, slow, across my mark, then down to her shoulder. I press my wrists to the insides of hers and hold them there. I rub my face into the crook of her neck until she smells like me, only me, so thick no alpha in the world could ever mistake who she belongs to.

“Nik.” She’s shaking. “Oh my God, Nik, what are you…”

“Scenting you.” My voice comes out three layers deep. “So every alpha who comes within a mile of you knows exactly whose you are.”

“You’re such a caveman,” she gasps.

“I’m worse.” I pull my fingers out of her and turn her to face the glass. “Hands on the wall, Red.”

She puts her hands on the wall. I push into her from behind, slow, all the way to the hilt, and she cries out so loud it echoes off the tile. The water’s still pounding down on us. The steam’s so thick I can barely see. All I can feel is her, hot, wet, and tight around me, her back slick against my chest, her heartbeat slamming under my palm where I’ve got her pinned by the throat.

I fuck her hard. I’m not slow, and I’m not careful. Every stroke is a growl, and every growl says the same thing: mine, mine, mine. My shadows wrap around her wrists and pin them flat to the glass. Another one slides down and finds her clit. I bite her shoulder, not hard enough to break skin, just hard enough to leave another mark that’s mine.

“Tell me,” I snarl in her ear.

She knows exactly what I want. “I’m yours,” she sobs. “I’m yours, I’m only yours, I’m…”

She comes before she can finish, clenching around me so hard I see red. I knot her right there against the glass and come with a roar that rattles the bathroom mirror in its frame.

We stand there for a long time after, locked together, the water still pouring down, her forehead pressed to the glass and my face buried in her neck. I breathe her in. She smells like soap, water, sex, and me. There’s nothing else on her now. Nothing at all. And the beast in my chest finally goes quiet.

“Better?” she whispers.

“Better.”

She’s quiet for a second. Then she turns her head just enough that I can see her smile. “You know you’re gonna have to buy me another dress, right?”