Page 29 of Untamed

“Yes.” He doesn’t make me ask twice. “I want you, and if I have to stay in these jeans much longer, they’re going out the window.”

I know that irritation, and Orion fights the denim down with genuine resentment before we end up on the kitchen floor with cold linoleum beneath my knees and untouched coffee cooling above us. I push into him slowly, watching every change in his face while the new bond throws pieces of his pleasure back into me. His breath catches halfway in, the stretch tightening his body around mine, and I stop until his legs lock around my waist and drag me closer.

“Keep going.” Orion’s legs tighten around my waist as he says it. He pulls me closer instead of leaving me to guess whether the stretch is too much.

I do, sinking the rest of the way inside while his forehead drops against my shoulder. He’s tight around me, still adjusting, and the new bond makes it impossible to pretend I only feel my side of it. The stretch reaches me through him at the same time pleasure rolls through my own body, enough sensation layered together that I have to brace one hand against the floor and breathe before I move again.

Orion’s fingers tighten at my shoulders. Don’t stop.

I pull back slowly and push into him again. His hips lift to meet me, the movement more certain this time, and the answering pleasure hits through the bond before the sound leaves his mouth. I feel his want alongside mine, not identical to it but close enough that I know exactly when the drag turns good and when he wants more pressure.

I find a rhythm there, letting him pull me closer with his legs while my hand stays at his hip. Every time I move into him, the bond opens wider. His pleasure hits first, hot enough to steal my breath, and beneath it I can still feel Orion wanting me closer while his animal instincts pace restlessly through the bond. The distinction stays clear enough that I never lose him inside everything else coming through.

“Harder.” He turns his face against my neck, breath hot against my skin. “I want more than that.”

I give him more, driving into him harder until his shoulders shift against the floor and a rough sound catches in his throat. Orion reaches for my hands, catches both wrists, and pushes them upward until his arms are above his head. His fingers close over mine and hold them there, making the answer unmistakable before I put any pressure into the hold.

Yes.

I pin his wrists the way he asked and thrust into him again. Satisfaction pours through the bond so clearly that I nearly lose the rhythm. Orion’s legs tighten around me, dragging me deeper whenever I ease up, until I finally stop treating him like he might break and give him the pressure he keeps asking for. His body meets mine on every thrust now, the sound of skin against skin mixing with his breathing while the bond feeds every sharp flare of pleasure back into me.

My knot begins to swell, and Orion tightens around me as the bond pulls taut. His animal instincts surge through the connection with one clear demand, so powerful my own body answers before I can separate his need from mine. Hold him here. Finish it. I stop anyway.

Orion’s hands tighten at my shoulders. “I want your knot.” I hold his gaze, breathing hard enough that every inhale drags his scent deeper into me.

“Arlo, knot me. I want the bond completed with you.” Orion keeps his eyes on mine through the words. His hands stay locked at my shoulders while he waits for me to move.

I drive forward and lock us together, my knot stretching Orion wide enough to tear a cry out of him as his heels dig into my back. The bond surges wider with the pressure, carrying his pleasure, his shock, and the restless weight of his bear until all of him is pressed against me at once.

Then the memories hit. A white room replaces the kitchen. Leather straps hold Orion’s wrists to a metal table while gloved hands move around him without asking. A needle slides into his arm. Someone asks whether he can still feel his legs. An Alpha leans over him and tears into the left side of his neck while Orion screams.

The memory flips. Blood covers the floor. The same Alpha is underneath Orion now, begging, and Orion’s hands are becoming claws. The man understands too late that the bear has come far enough through to kill him.

Then the memory tears sideways into mine and I’m behind observation glass again, watching a young Omega strapped to a table while somebody requests another dose. He screams while a Collective operative records the reaction without looking at him, and the scene ends with my hands around that operative’s throat and the clean snap that put me in Wolfscorge.

The kitchen comes back all at once. I jerk as far away as the knot allows, struggling for air. Orion’s hands loosen and one palm comes to my face.

Orion’s hand stays against my face while he searches my expression. His thumb presses once beneath my cheekbone before he asks, “Did you see that too?” He doesn’t pull away while he waits for the answer.

Shock floods back through the bond from Orion. “Yeah. Both directions.”

His palm stays against my face. “What did you see from me?”

“The facility. The Alpha who bonded you. Enough that I need a minute before I can say more.”

He studies me for a few seconds without asking anything else, then his forehead comes down against mine. I keep it there until my breathing settles and the kitchen stops tilting around us.

When Orion turns his head, fresh blood is still sliding from the mark down the side of his neck. My attention catches on it immediately. The bite is mine now, the scent of his blood mixed with mine and the permanent bond burning warm between us, and every Alpha instinct I have wants my mouth back on it.

I look at him first. Orion tips his head farther without being asked, and that permission nearly undoes me. I bend to the mark and drag my tongue slowly over the broken skin. Orion shudders beneath me, fingers tightening at my shoulder while I lick the blood from the mark. The taste of him sends another deep pulse through the bond, warmer this time instead of violent, and a low purr starts in my chest before I realize I’m making it. I suck carefully at the bite until the bleeding slows, then press my mouth over it again and stay there for a few breaths because neither of us seems ready for me to move.

“It doesn’t feel like the first one,” he says after a while.

I lift my head enough to look at him. “How?”

“The first bond felt like somebody shoved me behind the bear and locked the door. Like they wanted the animal and everything else was in the way.” His fingers settle at the back of my neck. “This one doesn’t. I can feel him, but I’m still me.”

“You are still you. I can feel the difference.” I keep my hand at his neck while I say it. The bond stays crowded with him, but none of it blurs where Orion ends and everything else begins.