I needed her on my bed, immediately.

I lifted her off the ground, and Eleanor’s legs wrapped around my waist instinctively. Then she froze with her hands on my shoulders.

“Your back,” she gasped, trying to scramble off me, but I never gave her the chance.

Tossing her onto my bed, I whipped off the remnants of my bloody shirt.

Eleanor sucked in a shocked breath at the sight of my unmarred skin, and then I was on her, settling between her parted thighs.

Leaning over her, I tore off her clothes with a swipe of my claws, and her breasts were bared to me. I lowered my mouth to her left breast, sucking on her nipple while the fingers of my other hand twisted and pinched at her other nipple.

Eleanor’s breathing grew more labored, her restraint gone now that she knew I wasn’t injured.

Her fingernails dug into the skin of my back as she rolled her hips shamelessly against my thigh.

Perceiving the scent of her wet arousal and feeling her desire as though it were my own, it took everything in me not to take her at that very moment.

I intended to savor this moment—from that first kiss to the moment she gave in fully to my ministrations—every second of it.

Eleanor could have cared less.

Palming my erection through my pants, she reached for my belt buckle. I caught her wrists before she could reach it, pinning them above her head as I moved away the thigh she’d been grinding on, leaving her immobile and frustrated.

“I’ll fuck you once you earn it, and not a moment before,” I informed her.

Belligerence ignited in the depths of those emerald-green eyes, but she didn’t say anything. She just bucked her hips up silently, urging me to take her, her arousal a wet patch on her pants.

A growl left my lips, and before I was fully aware of what I was doing, I ripped off her pants, baring her to me.

Fuck.

She was so wet her inner thighs were drenched.

I slid my hand along her opening, coating my fingers in her arousal, and Eleanor’s back arched off the bed and farther into my hand. Keeping my eyes on her green ones, I shoved my fingers inside her.

Eleanor bucked, taking me beautifully, a gasp on her lips as I touched her.

“Touched” wasn’t the right word.

I fucked her with my fingers, my thumb on her clit as I brought her close to orgasm, but never let her finish.

Our room was silent save for the panting, groans, moans, and the obscene wet noises from my fingers thrusting into Eleanor.

She spread her legs wider, silently urging me deeper. I curled my fingers within her and she jumped, nearly dislodging them, but I slid back in.

Eleanor tried and failed to tug her trapped hands from my grasp, her hips moving against my fingers greedily.

“Alexander, please,” she begged. “I need you.”

The sound of her voice, so urgent and throaty, did something to me. Something that triggered the most feral part of me thatwanted to mount his mate and show her that I was the only one for her.

I was hard, so fucking hard that it hurt not to be inside her, but I couldn’t end this without tasting her.

I retracted my fingers and let go of Eleanor’s hands. Eleanor let out a gasp of complaint that I immediately choked off when I pushed her legs open and kissed my way down her body.

Eleanor’s entire body tensed beneath mine, her nails digging into the sheets when my lips touched her.

Eleanor tasted divine. She was warm and wet, her hips undulating against my lips, bucking and shivering as I explored her.