It’s too late now.
“Say it.” His voice dropped to that rumbling register that bypassed my ears entirely. “Say you’re mine.”
I opened my mouth to deny him again. To hold onto some shred of dignity or control. But what came out was, “Yours.”
The word hung between us for a heartbeat. His pupils dilated until his eyes were almost entirely black. A muscle in his jaw ticked. His hands tightened fractionally on my face.
Then his control snapped.
As his mouth crashed down on mine, my last coherent thought was that after tonight, nothing would ever be the same. And then thinking stopped entirely as the heat’s madness claimed us both.
4
— • —
Damon
The second she said it,Yours,something inside me broke.
Not shattered. Broke open. Split wide to reveal the most primal, instinct-driven part of me I’d spent years burying under protocol and control.
She was mine.
I surged forward and crushed my mouth to hers. No hesitation, no restraint. Just raw hunger. The taste of her short-circuited my brain, sweet and sharp, lips parting for me like her body already knew what her mind hadn’t caught up to yet. I drank her in, tongue sweeping deep, claiming her mouth like it was the first part of her I’d take tonight.
She moaned into me, hips arching up to meet mine, her thighs parting in silent invitation. I settled between them likeI belonged there. Like I hadn’t spent the last decade noticing every stolen glance, every quiet grace, pretending she didn’t exist because the alternative meant surrendering to something I couldn’t afford.
She’d always been too pure, too untouched by the darkness I carried. A delicate flame I watched from afar, convinced even a whisper of my world would snuff her out. I bore responsibilities that couldn’t allow indulgence, least of all withher. But the moment her scent hit me tonight, sweet and molten with the sharp edge of heat, my wolf lost all restraint. She wasn’t untouchable anymore. She was calling to me with every molecule of her body, and I answered with my mouth on hers, devouring the taste I’d denied myself for far too long.
Her heat poured off her in waves. I pushed the emerald dress up past her knees, past her thighs, baring her completely to my eyes. The silk bunched at her hips while I deepened the kiss, pressing my body flush against hers so she could feel the full length of my cock, hard and straining behind the fabric. She gasped into my mouth, her hips lifting instinctively, grinding against the ridge of me like she couldn’t get close enough. Slick soaked through her panties and dampened the front of my slacks. My cock throbbed at the contact, every ounce of restraint screaming, but I held the line, barely. Her scent was everywhere, in my nose, on my tongue, driving my wolf to the edge of madness.
“Fuck, you smell like heaven,” I rasped against her skin. I nosed along her throat, where the blood pounded just beneath delicate skin. My mouth latched onto the place where I’d eventually mark her. Not yet. Not tonight. But soon. I bit down, just enough to make her gasp. “Do you even know what you’re doing to me?”
Her voice shook, but she didn’t answer me with words again. She gasped when my teeth scraped her neck, nails suddenly raking down my back. I heard the sharp rip of fabric as her claws tore through my shirt, leaving hot lines in my skin.
My jacket was long forgotten, lying somewhere near the door, abandoned like the last shred of restraint I had left.
I didn’t realize how far gone I was for her until I heard the fabric ripping beneath my own fingers. I had shredded the bodice of her dress without thought, baring her chest, revealing the dark lace cupping her breasts and the hard peaks of her nipples beneath it.
She looked fucking tempting.Fucking mine.I pinched one nipple through the lace and she moaned my name, the sound going straight to my cock.
“Look at these tits,” I rasped, voice thick with possession. “Plump and perfect. You know how long I’ve wanted to get my hands on them?”
I kissed down her throat, across her collarbone, my hands roaming lower. “And your hips, fuck, Rhea, those hips were made to be grabbed. Made to ride. Always swaying, always so fucking tempting I could barely breathe when you walked into a room.”
I moved lower, ripping more of her dress, exposing inch after inch of flushed skin. She was completely bare to me now, aside from the two delicate scraps of black lace that covered the most intimate parts of her body, and even that left nothing to the imagination. The sight of her like that, writhing beneath me, made something feral rise up in my chest.
I dipped my head and bit her waist, not a teasing nip this time but a claiming bite, hard enough to leave a mark, hard enough to taste blood, though I stopped just short of breaking skin. Her body arched into me with a gasp, her fingers fisting the sheets.
I pulled back, barely, enough to see her face. “Say what you want.”
Her lips trembled, but the words came out strong. “I want you. I want you to claim me. I can’t take it anymore.”
Her bra ripped off in a flick of my wrist, and I didn’t even care that the force of it dragged against her skin hard enough to leave a mark. Her breasts bounced free, flushed and perfect, nipples tight and begging.
My mouth latched onto one like I was starving. I bit down, hard, and she screamed, the sound edged with pain. Her body tensed, a whine catching in her throat. I soothed it immediately, circling the sore peak with my tongue, licking until the pain melted into moans. Her fingers threaded back into my hair, clutching, grounding herself, but her hips lifted toward me in silent plea.
“You’re mine,” I growled against her skin. “Every fucking inch of you.”
