Page 78 of In the Light of the Moon

I wiped down the table and countertops while he tackled the dishes, which was a routine we easily sunk into. However, someone had cut off the record player while we were bustling around, and the television blaring instead was a small but palpable interruption in our usual calm.

While his mother and sister were debating on which movie to turn on, I ran a calming touch over Orion’s back, knowing I would find the muscles tense beneath his shirt. After starting the dishwasher, he straightened and leaned his back against the counter. Orion closed his eyes and inhaled toward the highceiling, and his fingers tapped in a rhythm I’d seen many times. I found myself breathing in time with him, and itdidmake me feel calmer. Perhaps there was something to breathing exercises.

Without opening his eyes, Orion opened his arms, and I immediately stepped forward into his embrace. He smelled like the forest and coffee, and the strengthened calm I felt with him was worth everything and more. His shirt was soft, and I kissed the area just above my mark at the same time he kissed the top of my head.

After a few moments of holding each other, Orion bent to whisper in my ear, “Thank you.”

I hummed, “For what? You’re the one who cooked.”

His big shoulders shrugged, slightly nudging my face at the same time, “For just being yourself.” I knew that he could feel my smile with my face pressed to his chest like this, and I could feel his pressed against my hair.

And then his sister’s voice behind us made me jump, “Hey, O, do you have any—oh, gross.”

Orion’s growl was halfhearted, like he felt he needed to do it, “What, Mona?”

“I was just trying to see if you had any popcorn, but if you just want to make out in peace, I’ll leave you to it.”

Orion gave a long-suffering sigh, and gently maneuvered around me. After reaching in the pantry, he retrieved a glass container filled with popcorn kernels and shook it a few times in his hand. He pulled out a saucepan and set it on the stove. “Here.”

Ramona looked almost horrified, her eyes wide, “What the hell am I supposed to do with that?”

“I can show you,” I volunteered and offered an encouraging smile. I waved her over, and she dragged her feet all the way to stand beside me at the stove. “Go spend time with your mom,” Igave Orion a gentle shove on his side, and after a few tries, I got him to get moving.

“Don’t think I’m done with you. You’ve got promises to keep,” he muttered on his way out, and I caught his cheeky smirk just before he disappeared around the corner.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Orion

With my mother and sister sleeping in the two guest rooms, I had to delay my plans for Sylvie and I. Instead of savoring and caring for her, I was waiting on my mother and sister. Instead of ramping the both of us up all night and morning, bringing Sylvie to the edge again and again, we settled for hushed lovemaking underneath the covers.

I tried to tell her that the volume with which we did it made no difference—Meredith would know with scent alone. But I also had no reason before to get the bedrooms soundproofed, so she would hear anything we did as well. When you had hearing as sensitive as ours, you learned to live with unwanted noises very early on.

Sylvie still felt uncomfortable with me fucking her fast and hard into the mattress. Instead, our brows were stuck together, connected like magnets, while I thrusted into her as deeply as I could go. Her legs were wrapped around my naked waist, my boxers kicked off as soon as our hands fumbled for each other under the comforter. She’d discarded her usual oversized t-shirtas well, and I reveled in the feeling of her flesh against mine. To be with my mate was the closest I would get to a religious experience. Closer even than those moments I ran free in my wolf form.

Nothing would compare to the feeling of sinking into her warmth. Of letting myself become trapped in her grounding eyes that were gazing at me like I was her salvation.

“I love you,” she whispered, cried, and I groaned the words back to her. Even that, though, couldn’t encompass all that I felt for her. Or all that she was to me. So, with my body, I gave her more, all that I had left to give.

Sylvie’s inner walls constricted on me, almost making me come right then and there, and I trapped her scream underneath my palm. I wanted so badly to let her pleasure be known. Both the human and Wolf in me wanted to hear how much our connection affected her, but I heeded her wishes and made sure to keep this moment between us as private as possible.

I watched as a worshipper at her feet as my mate became overcome with another wave, and I held my own back to give her as many as possible. The way she was handling my family’s unexpected visit made me even more proud, more in love with her. I wanted to give her everything.

Sylvie groaned around my palm, but I understood her words perfectly, “Come in me,please.”

That was enough to snap my restraints. Ever since I was able to experience locking into my mate, knotting and breeding her, I couldn’t resist in the slightest when she asked for it.

My hips slammed harder into her, stinging of her nails digging into my back sweet and distant, until my own release flashed like lightning behind my eyes. Though I was able to muffle Sylvie’s exclamations, I hadn’t the wherewithal to do the same with my own. And by the glazed look in her eyes, Sylvie barely noticed my long, sustained growl as my knot began toswell and lock us together. My thrusts stuttered, now trapped in Sylvie’s body that so graciously accepted this unnatural treatment.

Sylvie dug her own claws into my back while I painted the inside of her, filling her with my cum and knotted cock plugging her up.

Stuck inside, I did my best to hold my weight off of her, even when my body felt a thousand pounds. My shoulders were heaving with sated panting, and my mate kissed over my brow and temple while we both trembled.

With another groan, I shifted us onto our sides, face-to-face, and she slung her leg over my hip. “I love you,” I whispered again, voice drowsy and rough.

“And I love you, Orion. This is nice,” she said and petted my hair, smoothing the unruly curls that were certainly a mess after a night’s sleep and what we just did.

“Being trapped on my dick and held hostage with my morning breath.”

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