Page 40 of Heat Unscripted

Her hands found my skin. Mine found hers. The clothes came off in pieces, a shirt over my head, fabric shoved aside, too rushed to be graceful. And then nothing between us. Just heat and skin and the plain fact of touching after years of careful, professional, killing distance.

The cedar and bourbon wrapped round the honey and milk. Not fighting it. Not swallowed by it. Fused. One scent out of two that had always been built for each other, finally allowed in the same room with nothing in between.

Her fingers dug into my shoulders as I settled between her thighs. The heat of her branded against my skin, her scent thick enough to taste, sweet enough to drown in.

I’d imagined this. A thousand times. In hotel rooms after conventions, in the back of black cars between studios, in the goddamn booth when her voice wrapped around me like a physical touch. Always shoved it down. Always told myself it was just chemistry, just admiration, just the professional respect of one artist for another.

Liar.

The first press of her body against mine, no barriers, no excuses, locked every muscle I had. Her breath hitched, her nails bit deeper, and the sound that tore from her wasn’t a whine, it was a broken, breathlessyesthat my name had been carved into. My mouth crashed back to hers, swallowing the sound, swallowing the taste of her, the honey and cream and something darker beneath, something that was only ever for me.

She was small beneath me. Not fragile, never that, but delicate in a way that made the strength in her grip, the way her thighs locked around my hips, feel like a goddamn revelation. Her body moved with mine like we’d done this a hundred times before, like her muscles remembered the rhythm of me before her mind did. The first slide of skin against skin, her back arching, my hands gripping her hips, sent a growl ripping up my throat, low and rough and completely beyond my control.

Her eyes flew open. Green and blown, pupils swallowing the iris, her lips parted on a silent gasp as I rolled my hips again, just to feel her take me in. The cedar in my scent spiked, the bourbon note burning hotter, and her scent answered, thicker, sweeter, the honeyed warmth of her slick coating my skin where we pressed together. I couldfeelher, wet and ready and so fuckingminethat my vision whited out for a second.

“Tuck—” The word was a rasp, her voice still wrecked from the crash, but the sound of my name in that ruined, honeyed contralto undid something behind my sternum I hadn’t known was tied shut. Her hands slid down my chest, her fingerstrembling not from hesitation but fromwanting, from the same overwhelming need that had my muscles locking, my breath coming in sharp, uneven pulls.

I caught her wrist, pressed her palm flat against the headboard. “Look at me.”

She did. Immediately. No hesitation. Her gaze locked onto mine, her chest rising and falling in quick, shallow breaths, her scent flaring warm, not with obedience but with trust. The realization sat heavy behind my ribs. This woman, who had spent eleven years hiding, who had built her entire career on never letting anyone see the real her, was giving me this. Giving meherself.

The first thrust was slow. Deliberate. I watched her face as I pushed inside, watched her lips part, her eyes flutter shut, her throat work on a sound that didn’t come. The tight, wet heat of her wrecked every plan I had for staying in control, better than any fantasy, better than any stolen moment I’d ever let myself imagine. Her body stretched around me, her nails scoring down my back as I bottomed out, her whine vibrating against my chest where we pressed together.

“Fuck,Iz—” My voice broke. The cedar in my scent charred black at the edges, the bourbon note rich and dark andclaiming. I pulled back just to feel her chase the loss, just to hear the broken sound she made when I thrust back in, deeper this time, harder. Her legs wrapped tighter around me, her heels digging into my ass, urging me on, demandingmore.

I gave it to her.

The bed frame hit the wall. The sound of skin slapping skin filled the room, mixed with the wet, obscene noises her body made every time I buried myself inside her, the breathless little sounds she couldn’t quite form into words. Her scent was everywhere, thick and sweet andmine, coating my skin, filling my lungs, drowning out everything but the feel of her, the tasteof her, the way her body clenched around me like she never wanted to let go.

Her wrist came free. Her hands found my face, her fingers pressing into my cheeks, forcing me to look at her. Her eyes hadn’t left mine, dark and wide in the low light, her lips swollen from my kisses, her skin flushed pink. She wasbeautiful. Not the polished, professional Isobel Gretan her coworkers knew, but the real her, messy and desperate andalivein a way I’d never seen before.

“Mine,” I growled against her mouth, the word torn out of me before I’d decided to say it, past logic, past consequences or the fact that the world was probably burning downstairs. “You don’t have to say it. Show me.”

She couldn’t. Her voice was gone, stolen by the crash and the suppressants and the sheer force of what was happening between us. But her hands slid to my shoulders, her nails digging in, and the whine that vibrated in her chest was answer enough.Yours. Yours. Yours.

I claimed her.

With everything from a man who’d lied to himself for years, who’d sat in meetings and sealed booths and that stupid axe-throwing place telling himself the pull was professional, the attraction was creative, the kick in his blood every time she laughed was respect. Done lying now. For good.

She claimed me back.

Her teeth found my shoulder. The whine that came up out of her wasn’t the fragile thing from the living room, it was full and fierce and it sounded like winning, going through both of us into every bone I had. An Omega who’d picked her Alpha and was broadcasting it with the same uncompromising power that had made her the most wanted voice in the world.

We moved together with no technique in it, just instinct, two bodies finally let do the thing they were built for. Her gaspsset the time. My growl held under it. Skin on skin, breath and motion, the whole graceless real music of it.

The orgasm hit her like a wave. Her back arched off the bed, her body locking around me, her scent exploding into something so sweet it was almost painful. The pulse of her around me sent me over the edge, my release tearing through me with a force that left me blind for a second, my hips stuttering as I spilled inside her, my mouth crashing to hers to swallow her broken, voiceless cries.

We collapsed together. My weight braced on my forearms, my breath ragged, my skin slick with sweat. Her fingers traced idle patterns on my back, her scent wrapping around me like a second skin. The cedar and bourbon in my scent had softened, warming into something deeper, something that smelled likehome.

Her lips brushed my shoulder. A press of warmth, a silent promise. Still no sound, but I felt the shape of it.

Mine.

“Yours,” I said. “Just too stupid to say it.”

A whine got out of her, bright and warm and edged with something that, somehow, sounded like a laugh.

I pulled her in closer and she let me. Whatever the world out there was about to do to us, it could wait at the bottom of the stairs.