Page 18 of Riding with the Shifter

I was fucking born to claim this woman, to worship her with my hands, teeth, tongue and cock. And she was born to be claimed, to be filled, to be mated to me on the most primal level.

I lose myself in the hot, wet clasp of her body, in the honey of her mouth and the salty taste of her skin. I drive into her, a beast in rut, chasing that perfect peak.

And when I feel her tighten around me, her orgasm swelling like a tidal wave, I let myself go with a roar of pure, animal triumph.

“Ryder!” she screams as she shatters in my arms, her body milking me for every last drop of my cum.

“Zara,” I groan, burying my face in her neck as I shudder and keep coming, lost in the bliss of our connection. “My Zara. My mate. Mine.”

She holds me as I come down, her hands gentle in my hair, her heart beating in time with mine. And in that perfect moment, I know this is just the beginning.

The beginning of forever, of a love that will last beyond time.

The love of a wolf for his mate, fierce, wild and fucking eternal.

Later, as I drift off to sleep, still buried deep inside my woman, my love, my everything…

I know I will spend the rest of my life proving worthy of this gift, this miracle, our perfect bond.

Twelve

Chapter 12

ZARA

In the weeks following our claiming, Ryder and I fall into a new rhythm. We go on dates, real dates, out in the open for all of Broken Arrow to see. Dinner at the diner, movies at the drive-in, picnics in the park. He holds my hand, kisses me softly, looks at me with such open adoration it takes my breath away.

It’s like a dream, this sweet and wild relationship. Like something out of my smutty romance novels, all soft glances and gentle touches, then the savage couplings with my wild beast.

There’s nothing slow or gentle about what happens when we’re alone. Behind closed doors, Ryder is a man possessed, a wolf in rut, devouring me with a hunger that borders on feral. He takes me with a raw, primal passion that leaves me shaken and sated, marked with the imprint of his hands, his teeth, his desire.

It’s fucking intoxicating. The tender lover and the wild beast, both sides of him focused only on me, on us, on the bond that ties us together, body and soul.

I’m happy. Deliriously so. So of course, that’s when the doubts start to creep in.

It starts small, just a niggling sense of unease in the back of my mind. Am I really ready for this? For the intensity, the commitment, the enormity of what it means to be a werewolf’s mate?

I love Ryder, I do. But part of me is still the cautious, guarded girl who’s been burned before. The woman who’s learned the hard way that fairy tales don’t always have happy endings.

I try to push my doubts aside, to focus on the joy, the rightness of being with my wolf. But they linger, like a shadow at the edge of my happiness, waiting for the right moment to pounce.

That moment comes on a lazy Sunday morning, as Ryder and I lie tangled in his sheets, basking in the afterglow of another marathon claiming session. I’m draped across his chest, my fingers tracing idle patterns on his sweat-slicked skin, when he drops the bombshell.

“Move in with me.”

I still, my heart skipping a beat. “What?”

He tilts my chin up, his blue eyes intense. “Move in with me, Zara. I want you here, with me, all the time. I want to fall asleep with you in my arms and wake up to your face every morning. I want your fresh scent on my sheets, your clothes in my closet, your heartbeat next to mine.”

Oh. Oh wow. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted to hear, everything I’ve dreamed of in my deepest, most secret heart. But…

“Ryder, I… I don’t know. It’s so soon, so fast. We’ve only been together a few weeks.”

He frowns, his brow furrowing. “In human terms, maybe. But in wolf terms, we’ve been mated since the moment I first scented you. You’re my partner, the other half of my soul. Moving in together is just the next step.”

I bite my lip, my heart torn between fear and excitement. “I know, but… I’m not a wolf, Ryder. I’m human, with human worries. I need time to adjust, to wrap my head around this.”

His jaw tightens, a flash of hurt in his eyes. “Are you having second thoughts? About us, about being my mate?”

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