Page 43 of The Alien Minotaur's Bride

His tail tightened around my hip. His eyes were very dark.

"I wanted your hands on me. Your scent around me. I wanted to go home – to the dwelling, to my nest, to the life we've been building." I swallowed. "I want to be yours. Really yours. Not because you took me. Because I'm choosing it."

He was silent. His hand came up to cover mine where it rested on his chest.

"The mating bond," he said quietly. "That's what you're asking for."

"Yes."

"It's permanent. Irreversible. Once the bite is given, it cannot be undone." His voice was careful, measured, but I could feel the tension running through him. "You would be bound to me for the rest of your life. There would be no going back. No changing your mind."

"I know."

"Mara–"

"I know." I held his gaze. "I've thought about it. In this room, alone, with my body falling apart because you weren't there – I had a lot of time to think. And I know what I want."

"What do you want?"

The question was simple. The answer was enormous.

"You," I said. "All of it. The dwelling and the nest and the milking and the heats. The way you ask before you touch me. The way you changed your whole world to fit me before I ever asked you to." My voice cracked slightly. "The way you just broke through a government facility because you couldn't stand to be separated from me for one more minute."

His breath caught.

"I want to be your mate. Your omega. The person you waited three rotations to find." I pressed my palm harder against his chest. "I want to choose this. Fully. With all of it."

He was quiet, his heartbeat thundering under my hand.

Then he said: "You're certain."

It wasn't really a question. He could smell my certainty. Could probably feel it through whatever bond already connected us.

"Yes," I said. "I'm certain."

His eyes closed. When they opened again, they were wet.

"Then it must be your choice," he said. "The words must be yours. Tell me what you want, and I will give it to you."

I looked at him – at this enormous, terrifying, impossibly gentle creature who had crossed the dark between stars to find me. Who had raged against officials and broken through walls and would destroy anyone who tried to take me from him.

Who was still waiting for me to choose.

"Mate me," I said. "Make it permanent. Make me yours."

His tail lashed once, and his eyes went dark, and he moved.

He laid me down on the pallet with devastating gentleness.

His hands stripped away the thin facility shift, baring my skin to the warm air. My breasts were full again, aching pleasantly, and when his mouth found them I arched into him with a gasp.

"Mine," he murmured against my skin. "Finally. Truly."

"Yours."

He took his time. Even now, even with the bond about to lock into place, he was careful with me – his fingers working me open, his mouth drawing out my milk in slow, reverent pulls, his whole body attuned to my responses. I came once just from his hands, then again when he finally pressed inside me.

"The bite," he said, his voice rough. He was seated deep inside me, not moving yet, his body trembling with the effort of holding still. "It must come at the peak. When the bond is most open."