ROWAN

I did not want to let go of her.

That was the honest truth of it, standing there with her in my arms in the low lamp light of her room at four in the morning. I wanted to hold her and breathe her in and not think about a single thing that had happened in the last twelve hours, and for approximately thirty seconds I had exactly that, her back under my palms, her hair under my chin, her breathing evening out against my chest.

Then I felt her hands go from gripping to releasing, and the shift in her body, the first small pull back. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

I loosened my arms before she had to ask.

She stepped back and looked up at me and I could see her building the wall back up behind her eyes, brick by brick, the way she always did when she thought she was getting too close to something.

"Rowan." Her voice came out firm, but her hands were still resting against my chest and she had not moved them yet. "We cannot keep doing this. I am married to your father. The last time, it was because you wanted my wolf to manifest. That has not even happened yet, so what is the reason this time?"

I looked at her.

She was standing in her night lace with her hair half up and her arms between us and she was right about everything and I still could not make myself take a step back.

"Can you not see it, Amaris." I kept my voice low. "I mean it. All of it."

Her eyes went sharp. "I do not care if you mean it." She dropped her hands from my chest and crossed her arms. "Why would you call off your wedding? Because of me?"

"Before you," I told her, "I was marrying Lila because it was the next thing on the list. Alpha’s son, future heir, find a mate, secure the bloodline. That was all it was. I was doing it because it was what came next, not because I wanted it."

I watched her face. "When you came, things started mattering that had not mattered before. Things that had nothing to do with becoming Alpha."

She stayed quiet, her jaw set, but she had not moved away.

"Like what," she said, low.

"Like you."

I reached forward and took her face in both hands and tilted it up to mine and felt the resistance in her jaw and held it there gently anyway.

"I do not care that you are married to him," I told her, right up close, looking directly into her eyes. "I am not letting you go this easily. I am not doing it."

"Rowan—"

I brought my mouth to hers.

She made a sound low in her throat and her hands came up and grabbed the front of my shirt and I kissed her the way I had been stopping myself from kissing her for months, deep and slow and thorough, my hands sliding from her face into her hair and angling her exactly where I wanted her.

She kissed me back before she had finished deciding whether to, her grip tightening in my shirt, her mouth moving against mine with a desperation that matched everything I had been carrying since she arrived in this pack. I pulled back a fraction just to breathe and she followed it, chasing my mouth with hers, and I felt something come loose in my chest that had been wound tight for a very long time.

I walked her backward.

Her back hit the door and I pressed into her and felt the whole length of her against me, her chest rising fast against mine, her fingers sliding from my shirt to my shoulders and gripping there.

I cupped the back of her neck and deepened the kiss and her nails dug into my shoulders and she made a sound against my mouth that I was going to carry for a long time.

I pressed my knee between her thighs and felt her breath catch and her grip on my shoulders tighten, and I held her there against that door and felt her start to shake and kept kissing her until her breathing had gone completely ragged and her fingers were twisting hard in my collar.

I lifted her and she wrapped her legs around me without being asked and I carried her to the vanity and set her down on the edge of it, her night lace riding up her thighs, her hands still tangled in my hair.

I ran my mouth down her jaw, her neck, pressed my lips to the curve of her throat and felt her pulse hammering hard against them. I sucked lightly at the skin and she tipped her head back and gave me the full length of her neck and I worked my way down it slowly, feeling her fingers curl tighter in my hair with every press of my mouth.

Her skin tasted like her soap and the faint salt of a long night and I took my time with it because I had been wanting to and I was done pretending otherwise.

My hand found her breast through the thin lace of her nightgown and I kneaded it, slow and deliberate, feeling her nipple harden against my palm, and she arched into it with a sharp breath, her head dropping back.

I slid the strap off her shoulder and put my mouth to her breast and she gasped and both hands fisted in my hair holding me there, her thighs tightening around me. I drew her nipple between my lips and grazed it lightly and felt her whole body jolt and pull me closer.

I worked at her until she was trembling and gripping me and pulling instead of pushing, moving against me in a way that made it very clear she had stopped thinking about your father’s room entirely. Then I raised my head and looked at her, flushed and breathing hard on the edge of her vanity with her night lace slipping off one shoulder.

My hands moved to her thighs.

I spread them slowly, my palms pressing warm against the insides of them, and stepped between and watched her face as I did it, watched her try to hold her expression together and fail entirely. Her bottom lip caught between her teeth. Her hands gripped the edge of the vanity on either side of her hips. She was watching me watch her and neither of us looked away.

"I want to taste you," I murmured against her neck.

Her breath left her hard. "Rowan." Her hands pressed against my shoulders, not pushing, just pressing. "I am supposed to be in your father’s room right now."

"I will be quick." I pressed my lips to the corner of her jaw.

She let out a short disbelieving sound. "You are going to be quick."

"I will have you cumming while you are still trying to resist me." I pulled back and watched the corner of her mouth fight itself.

She lost.

"Record breaking," she murmured.

I dropped to my knees in front of her.

I pushed her night lace up her thighs and hooked my fingers into her underwear and drew it down and off slowly, pressing a kiss to the inside of her knee, then the inside of her thigh, working upward in slow deliberate presses until she was gripping the edge of the vanity with both hands and her breathing had already changed completely.

I spread her thighs wider and lowered my mouth to her and pressed my tongue flat against her and her whole body jerked at the contact, a sharp broken moan cutting out of her before she could stop it, her thighs closing reflexively around my head before she forced them back open.

I worked slowly at first, deliberately slowly, taking my time learning what made her breath hitch, what made her fingers tighten in my hair, and what made her hips roll forward against my face without her meaning to.

When I found the spot that made her moan openly into the quiet room I stayed there, circling it with the flat of my tongue, building her up and backing off just before she got there, twice, feeling her frustration in the way her hips pushed more urgently and her hands gripped my hair harder each time I pulled back.

I pushed two fingers inside her.

She gasped so sharply it cut right through the silence of the room and her hands clenched hard in my hair and she tightened around my fingers and I curled them forward and kept my tongue working at the same time, building a rhythm that had her legs shaking against my shoulders and her back arching hard off the edge of the vanity.

I could feel every part of her responding to it, the way she moved against my face without thinking about it, the way her moans had gone from controlled to completely open, the way her thighs pressed against my shoulders like she was trying to hold me exactly where I was and never let me leave.

She was moaning continuously now, unguarded and breathless, her hips rolling against my face, her whole body chasing what I was building toward. I could feel her getting close, the way she clenched tighter around my fingers, the way her breathing had gone completely desperate, the way she was pulling my hair toward her rather than away, grinding against my mouth with no pretense left at all.

The door creaked open.

We both turned.