Page 98 of Sweetheart: Part One

“Vex.” Drake’s voice was a more demanding growl than I’d ever heard, and suddenly I was lost in violet galaxies again.

“Yes?”

Shit.

He’d noticed me spiralling.

“Come back to me, Dreamgirl,” he breathed. It wasn’t backed by an alpha command, yet it was stronger than anything I’d ever felt. In that moment, it was just me and him on a silent, empty planet.

And he was worried. Worried that wherever it was I’d just gone, it meant I might not want him. “Don’t… stop,” I whispered. “I never want this to end.”

He relaxed, and I was swallowed by his gaze as his two fingers dipped back into my core and he returned his mouth to me, this time twice as desperate.

Fuck.

He turned his head and pressed his teeth to the soft inner flesh of my thigh again. This time, it was enough to leave a mark.

It wasn’t a bond, but itwasa claim.

His bite.

I came with a cry, back arched as he pumped his fingers faster, drawing out my orgasm, eyes fixed on me as he watched every second until I was a shivering, boneless heap.

“That was…” Shit. I couldn’t find words.

He shifted above me, fingers curling around my chin. “I’m not done. You said you never wanted this to end,” he breathed. His pupils were still wide, and blackcurrant wine was tinged with wildness. I saw the alpha beneath, feral, touch starved, imbalanced. The one with needs I knewIcould meet.

I couldn’t speak, mind still unscrambling from the most intense orgasm of my life.

He leaned close, teeth brushing my ear, then my jaw as if he wanted to bite me again and again. I shivered, powerful instincts leaving me absolutely frozen as his teeth found my neck for just the briefest second.

Then he spoke, and my mind flatlined.

“I love you.”

Numb nothingness carved a way for those words to sink in.

When they did, I… believed them.

I believed him.

Bound and vulnerable beneath my alpha, it was in this moment that I felt the flooding warmth of safety that I hadn’t in longer than living memory.

Iwassafe with him.

The realisation was like a rush of cold air in deprived lungs, and a breathless smile appeared on my lips. Right then, it was for no one else that I wanted to be his.

Visceral and earth shattering, that truth shifted everything. Splintered fragments making up the final imprint of my soul that had ever dared hope—a child, broken and silenced—breathed a wish.

And in the moment, a soaring dream broke free of miles of packed dirt burying everything good since I’d been ripped from my home. From the second I’d scent matched an impossible pack I knew I could never have. From each moment in which I’d been left alone; by my mother, by Aisha, by my own damning choice—one I’d made of fear.

Butthiswas true and real, and I needed it more than I’d ever prayed for anything in my weary, cursed existence.

I want more.

For me.

For him.

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