Page 93 of Heat Lightning

Over and over, with each thrust, he unraveled me. He spoke life and death into me. Maybe it was his peaking rut or my omega pheromones overwhelming him.

Or maybe, just maybe, it was real—and he wanted the rejection anyway.

It wasn’t until he made me come the first time and I reached over my shoulder to pull his mouth to mine that I realized… there was no itchy mask in the way.

Only stubble and soft, pillowy lips.

With a gasp, I ran my fingers through his tangled hair. “Atlas!” I couldn’t see him in the dark, but it didn’t matter. I’d know his scent and the feel of him against my skin blind.

“Max,” he groaned, knocking our sweaty foreheads against each other. “Just give me one more night. One more with you, when you want me. Please?”

“I’ll always want you,” I promised, gripping his hair between my fingers. “Always.”

He groaned, a broken sound bitten off by the punch of his cockhead into my breeding gland.

He made love to me like that, bringing us to the edge with steady, forceful thrusts into that magic button. He’d pull out just before it contracted and sucked the cum from him, and then do it all over again. The heat in my veins grew to a fever pitch, but I didn’t want it to end. I reached down so I could feel him moving inside me.

“I’ll never let another in here,” I said, drunk on him. “Only you.”

He snarled, teeth ghosting on my neck. “Just me?”

“Just you,” I whimpered, hoping he’d forget this awful night and bite me. “You’re my m-mate. Make me yours.”

He didn’t.

We shuddered together one last time, his knot snug inside, and I felt the heat leave my body like the last dregs of a sickness finally purged. He held me tight, chest pressed against my back.

Secretly, selfishly, a tiny part of me hoped he was right—that the bond would dissolve, and my love for him would go along with it.

But of course, it didn’t. Because along the way he’d latched onto my heart, wrapping those tentacles around and around, and this thing between us wasn’t about a bond at all anymore.

It was love. Love that he wouldn’t accept.

I cried again when his knot softened, much faster than before, and he pulled out. I’d never been as empty as I was right then.

Anxiety rolled off him. Usually his scent after sex lulled me into sleep, but now the copper was sharp, and the ozone tasted like stress. Did he regret what he’d said already?

I didn’t want to face it tonight. I didn’t want this to end.

“Don’t leave me,” I begged, turning in his arms to face him. The outline of his features was visible, but the details still hid from me, leaving only his shining, tear-filled eyes glinting in the dark. “Promise me, you’ll be here in the morning. Whatever it is, we’ll face it in the morning.”

He kissed the tip of my nose, and then my forehead, and pulled me into his chest with a shaky exhale. “I promise.”

TWENTY-FIVE

ATLAS

You protect everyone else, but who protects you?

You can’t fix everything for everyone else all the time. And that’s okay. I can help. I’ll carry things with you.

Max slept in my arms, finally at rest after tossing and turning for hours. I couldn’t join him; I was too restless and sweaty, aching for something I couldn’t let myself have.

Make love to me, please.

If only he knew I had loved him far longer than he realized. Far longer than I realized.

But that was the problem, wasn’t it?