Page 96 of Mate
Koen’s response is a bittersweet exhale against my cheek. “I think I’d have you bite me right under my jaw. People would glance at it and think that it’s obscene. But they’d immediately know who I belong to.”
His words hitch me higher, and it’s happening. I’m going to come. Koen’s hands are on my waist, palms so large, fingers so long, they easily cover me in warmth from hip to hip— and the hard shift of his muscles against my back— his stubble chafing my neck glands in that delicious soreness— and this unbearable tension that pulls me in all directions—
I stay there, teetering. On the edge of a cliff, in constant equilibrium.
I sob. The harder I grind, the more I ache. “I can’t— Why can’t I come, Koen? Why do I feel so . . .”
“Empty?”
I nod. How does heknow?
“Okay, it’s okay. Put your fingers inside.”
“No— not big enough.Yourfingers.”
He groans. “Hush. Do as I say, or I’m going to . . . yes. Good. Like that. I know what you need. Come here.” He cranes my neck backward. One of his large hands cups the back of my head, pressing my lips into his skin. “Keep touching yourself and lick the base of my throat.”
I do. Gingerly. And—
He exhales a groan.
I freeze.
Because . . . Oh.
Oh.
“Oh my God,” I moan against his flesh, but it comes out like a mumbled, shapeless noise. I’m starting to get the whole gland thing, because running my tongue over it is like tasting Koen’s scent. The most potent, most perfect narcotic exploding right into my bloodstream.
And I think he likes it, too. He encourages me with low, filthy praises, telling me how beautiful I am, how perfect, what an honor it is for him to be here, with me, how he wouldn’t want it any other way, how he would do unspeakable things to have it again. So I suck, and take more, even as I feel his muscles vibrate and the rope of his scent drawing tighter around me.
“Shit, you smell so good.” He sounds as shaken as I feel. “Fuck the covenant. I want to be so deep in your cunt, you’d be squirming to breathe— ”
That’s what does it— the picture he paints of him, buried inside me. Of a world in which he and I—we— are a possibility. My body clenches, my vision whites out, and the orgasm that follows is so sharp and sudden, I cannot tell the pleasure apart from the pain.
There might not be an after, not followingthis. And honestly, I don’t mind. I forget everything— my fingers, my pride, my pounding heart— and all I breathe is him.
Koen.
I’m not aware of being laid down on the bed, in his arms, pressed to him. My nerve endings are unresponsive for a while, but once I’m able, I turn around, luxuriating in the feeling of my bare chest against his, skin to skin, nearly close enough to—
The brain haze clears at once. What just happened hits me like a sucker punch. I’m nauseous. Spinning.
I practicallyforcedKoen to—
He’s the Alpha of the Northwest, and he shouldn’t—
He can’t— but I—
“It’s okay.” He kisses my forehead. I try to push away, but his grip is unbreakable. “Serena. It’s fine.”
“But I— ”
“You didn’t.”
“Yes. I— ”
“No.”
