Page 53 of Remmen

His hands came up to my hips and I caught them and pressed them flat to the mattress.

“Let me,” I said.

His fingers dug into the sheets, but he kept his hands where I’d put them. His jaw was tight and his breath came hard through his nose, the iron ring clicking softly. His cock twitched inside me with every beat of his heart. I put my hands on his face and held him there.

“I’ve got you,” I told him.

His expression broke open.

I slid the rest of the way down and we both stopped breathing. He was so deep I could feel him in my spine, in the back of my teeth. I sat there for a moment, just feeling him, full to the point of aching, his heartbeat pulsing inside me.

Then I started to move.

Slow rolling circles of my hips, taking him at my pace. His hands stayed where I’d put them and his head tipped back and his eyes went molten gold and his mouth fell open. I watched the composure drain out of him and it was the hottest thing I’d ever seen — this man who held a whole settlement together with his bare hands, flat on his back and obeying because I told him to.

I rode him slow and deep. I braced my hands on his chest and found the angle that hit every nerve I had, and I kept it, rolling my hips down on every thrust until I felt him hit the end of me and we both groaned. His abs were clenched hard under my palms. I ran my nails down the center of his chest and he hissed, and his hips bucked up into me involuntarily, and the thrust went deep enough that I cried out.

“Do that again,” I panted.

He did. His hips came up to meet mine and the angle changed and he was deeper than I thought I could take and it was perfect, the full thick drag of him on every stroke. I lost my rhythm, caught it again, and got one hand on his horn. His whole body shuddered, and a growl tore out of his chest that I felt through my thighs.

I rode him harder. I couldn’t help it. The orgasm was building slow and enormous, tightening low in my belly with every thrust, and his hands were still on the mattress and his eyes were still on me. His fingers had twisted the sheets into ropes, but he waited for permission, his cock so thick inside me I could feel every thrust before he made it.

I leaned down and kissed him, sloppy and desperate, and his mouth was hot and open under mine. “Let go,” I whispered against his lips.

His hands broke free. They clamped onto my hips hard enough to bruise and he drove up into me, once, and the orgasm hit me so hard I couldn’t see. It tore through me, clenching me tight around him, and I shouted his name and didn’t care who heard while he fucked up into me and held me down on him.

He followed me over three strokes later. He buried himself as deep as he could go and came with a groan that I felt in my teeth, his whole enormous body locked tight under mine, filling me in long shaking pulses while I held his face in my hands and watched his eyes go blind with it.

I collapsed on top of him. His arms closed around me, loose now, spent, and his chest heaved under my cheek. I could hear his heartbeat hammering, slowing down by degrees. His cock was still inside me, softening, and I clenched around him just to feel him twitch, and he made a sound that was half laugh and half groan and I grinned against his skin.

“Marry me,” Remmen rumbled in my ear as we settled back down against the bed.

“What?” I asked.

“Marry me,” he said again. “You’re my mate. Be my wife.”

I lay there with his weight half on me and his hand still tangled in my hair and waited. I knew the feeling that was supposed to come next. The cold slide of doubt, the memory of another man’s voice making promises he’d break before the ink dried. Alistair on one knee in that restaurant with the ring he’d spent too much on and the smile I’d believed was real. Two years on Perren breaking myself apart for a future he was already giving to someone else.

I waited for it to rise up and poison this. For the part of me that had learned the hard way what promises were worth to flinch and pull back and say something careful like let’s not rush.

It didn’t come.

I searched for it. The fear wasn’t there. Alistair had promised me the world while quietly handing it to someone else. Remmen had blurted out the most terrifying truth of his life trying to set me free. He’d fought for me, bled for me, and when I’d told him he was wrong in front of his whole town, he’d backed down.

I smiled. “Name the date and I’ll be at the altar.”

CHAPTER 23

RAUF

Shit stank less with Mestyn gone.

I snorted. I was getting philosophical in my old age. But I’d never expected to see so many summers, especially not peaceful ones. There were days I didn’t even lust for blood.

Nakhil came running up the drive. “There’s a truck coming,” he said.

“Did you see who was driving?”