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“I don’t want them.” I sob in pure frustration, pressing harder, all soaked, sticky underwear and hard ridges, markssucked into tender skin, deep inhales. “I don’t want anyone but— ”

The first orgasm hits me so hard, I dig my nails into his shoulders. Koen drags it even longer, wrings as much out of it as he possibly can without even touching me, just little slides of his hips where I need them the most. I tremble in his arms and let him take me apart as he tells me how beautiful I am, how good, how lost he is.

It ends too soon. It’s not enough.

“Okay?” he asks, and I shake my head.

“I’ll never be okay again.”

“Yeah.” He is hoarse. Desperate but amused. “We’re both fucked.”

Pleasure inches down my spine. I close my fingers around Koen’s palm, which is work-rough and large, and I try to pull it down to my inner thigh. He stops me halfway there. “Why?”

“I can’t, Serena. If I touch you there, it’s over.” His kiss on my cheek is light. “There’s this voice in my head, screaming at me that I should hold you down and knot you and shred your gland until it’ll scar in the shape of my teeth, and I’m trying very hard to muffle it.”

“So, I can touch you. But you can’t touch me.”

“Correct. Serena— ” he warns when I take his other hand, but falls quiet as I splay his fingers open. “What are you doing?”

I grip his wrist and bring his open palm up to my left breast.

“Fuck,” he bites out through gritted teeth.

“Technically,” I point out through the hitch in my breath, rubbing myself against his rough hand. “You’re not touching me. I’m doing all the work, but if it’s too much— ”

“No.” He shakes his head and adjusts his posture, like he needs to see this, how I’m moving. It’s undignified. Wild. Frenzied in a way I’ll be ashamed of later. But he orders, “Do not fucking stop,” and I cantastehow much he wants me,feel it ricochet against my bones. His desire is so thick, all-encompassing, I don’t know how he can stop himself. But when I lean forward and nip at his gland, he simply lets out a deep, rumbly grunt and talks to me like I’m the only person in the universe. “The first time I saw you, I thought that of course the universe would deliver someone with the most perfect pair of tits I’d ever seen and then yank her away from me.” I press harder against his palm. He groans. “It’s hard to keep my hands off you, killer. And you never wear anything under my shirts— ”

“I hate bras.”

“I hate them, too. My afterlife will just be me, watching you move around my house in nothing but my clothes. Knowing that you’re warm and fed and safe and so damnsoft.”

“Please.” I need to come again. Find a spot on the side of his throat, lick it, savor the tremors that shake him every time I cant my hips into his cock. On some strokes, he arches up. Once, I think he’s going to come. He does, too, and his intake of breath is so deep, I almost think he’ll throw me off him.

But he has better control than that. He urges me softly, patiently. Tells me to take what I want. His voice is hot against my cheek. The skin of his glands feeds me with something explosive. That’s why it wasn’t enough, my first orgasm. What I need ishimin my bloodstream. Lock and key.

“Koen?” I slur, almost there. “Do you think this is the last time? Do you think we’re n- never going to do this again?”

He doesn’t respond. But right as I’m about to come I hear him say, “If it were, I would regret nothing.” That’s when my mind blacks out, and my body bursts into flames.

After, I wait for the shame to sink into me, but it never does. I revel in the sticky fabric, teeth marks, temple nuzzling. Prickly stubble and faintly green forearm veins as he gets himself under control.

“I can wash your clothes and— ”

His hand tightens around my scalp. Something between a mild threat and an invitation to back off. “I’m going to bury my face in them the second you go to bed, killer.”

It’s heady, how much he wants me. Mixes with what’s left of my Heat fever. Coats the inside of my nostrils and the buds on my tongue with delicious, unspoken requests. The idea of denying him is repulsive, plain and simple.

“I want to give you what you need so badly,” I say.

His large hand strokes down my hair, soothing me and himself. I burrow into him and feel him shiver in response.

“I know that you took an oath. And I know that this is doomed. But . . . Koen. There is very little that I wouldn’t do for you, if you were to ask me.”

“Serena.” I hear the blurry edge of his smile. A quiet sigh. “I would throw away my pack, my life, and my entire world for you. Which is the exact reason I cannot have you.”

CHAPTER 27

His nuisance. That’s what she is.