This is the bite that was my undoing. Sinking my teeth into her right here changed everything.

I’ll lose myself in her all over again…and again and again.

I hook my fingers in the waist of her panties and back up to ease them down her thighs and over her knees, the bond tugging at even the slightest inch of separation. She gasps as I spread her legs and return to lick the bite mark, my eyes hooded. I want to keep looking at her, but I also want to close my eyes and enjoy her scent, her taste, the sounds she’ll make when I run my tongue from her opening to her clit. Her fingers slide through my hair and her grip tightens to pull at the wet strands.

“Javi…” she whispers.

We’ve had to be quiet for so long that it feels instinctive to shush her, but then I remember where we are. I kiss farther into the hinge of her hip, over the soft red curls between her thighs, and then I flit my tongue out with the barest touch to her clit.

“I’m gonna lick you until you scream, Peach,” I growl. “Don’t hold back.”

I put her legs over my shoulders and devour her, licking up and down her seam, pushing my tongue inside her and then drawing out again to roll a kiss over her clit. She stays sitting up, and every time I open my eyes she’s watching me—like she’s afraid to take her eyes off me. I lay my hands on her hips to slide up her body, under her purple sweater, finding where her breasts are peaked and sensitive.

A moan shudders through her just as her thighs clench around my head. “Javi!” she gasps out.

“Come for your mate, Peach,” I command.

She comes into my mouth, melting on my tongue, pulling at my hair. I keep doing exactly what made her gasp and moan, and a sharp cry comes right after she does.

I pull away and drag the back of my hand over my mouth before following her up, yanking my shirt off over my head and tossing it to the floor. Peaches scrambles to get undressed, plucking at the sweater and losing herself in it for a moment. Her laughter is like music when she gets stuck, her arms tangled in the excess purple fabric, her hair a bouquet in the neckline. I get on my knees to help her, a smile coming to my lips as inevitably as spring lighting up the world again.

It’s awkward and fun and new…and she’s the most beautiful damn thing I’ve ever seen.

We’re in each other’s arms again, coming together naturally. I can’t stop kissing her—finding the secret place where she’s ticklish beneath her ear, returning to my bite marks, brushing my lips over every freckle as the move from her cheeks to her shoulders and breasts. I could go back to licking her—and I almost do—but she catches me by the shoulders and gazes into my eyes.

“Knot me, Javi,” she whispers. “Please.”

And who am I to resist?

I take off my jeans in a rush and they join the pile of our clothes on the floor, leaving me skin to skin with my mate. My cock nestles between her thighs and I find her wet with slick, ready to be bred and claimed.

Of course, that’s just my wolf talking.

Because she might be mine; she might be close to her heat, desperate and needy…

But Ilovethis woman.

I love her with every broken piece of myself.

I push inside her slowly, taking my time, eager to experience what sex with her will feel like when we’re not desperate and scared. And it’s good—it’s so much better than I could have ever dreamed, the friction of her tight cunt around my cock warm and inviting. I keep playing with her as I fuck her, covering her breast with my hand, lowering my lips to the other and sucking her nipple into my mouth.

She finally screams as an orgasm rolls through her. Satisfaction glows in my chest, my ego sated.

And as a reward, I slide home, pressing my knot into her tight, wet heat.

She squeezes around me as I swivel my hips, feeling something new and strange between us. This is by choice—no more captivity or games. This is who we are when we choose each other, and this is where I’ll always choose to be.

With her. Pleasuring her. Making her happy.

“Love you…” she mumbles, her words garbled. “Love you, love you…”

That confirmation alone is enough to send me hurtling over the edge, groaning as I come inside my mate. Her pussy clenches around me as she joins me, and I ride out the bliss of this moment alone in her room.

Alone by choice.

Together by choice.

My knot, as always, stays stubbornly locked inside her. I fall to the side in her tiny little bed, finding her purple sweater under my head. It’s incredibly soft, and I nestle into it, inhaling her scent. Her eyes shine in the lamplight from her side table, illuminating a room impossibly different from the one we’ve lived in until now.