Chapter 18: The Confession
The sleep was thick and dark, a well Rhys had fallen into gratefully. It was dreamless, a blank space of exhaustion after the hours of tender, relentless care. His body was a heavy, warm weight on the mattress, one arm still stretched out across the space where she had been.Aurora woke to a different rhythm. The heat wasn’t gone; it had only banked itself, a furnace turning over coals in the pit of her belly. It surged awake with her, a liquid, aching need that made her whimper into the silent room.The pale light through the lace curtains told her it was still day. Rhys was beside her, a mountain of muscle and ink and deep, steady breathing. The sight of him, so vulnerable in sleep, sent a possessive thrill through her.He was hers. In this hazy, submissive space, the logic was flawless.Her Alpha. And he was here, naked, offering what she needed even in his unconscious state.Her movements were slow, careful. She didn’t want to wake him.She just needed… relief.A little.She could take the edge off herself. He’d done so much for her.This, she could do for herself.For them.
She slipped from the sheets, the cool air hitting her damp skin, and climbed over him. The memory of the fruit, his stern voice making deals, was a distant echo. Now there was only scent and heat and the thick, heavy shape of him against her thigh. She braced her hands on his chest, solid as stone, and positioned herself.
Her first attempt was clumsy, her body tight and uncooperative from hours of disuse. She guided him, a gasp escaping her lips at the mere touch.Then she sank down.
It wasn’t the slow, controlled descent she’d imagined.The need was too sharp, too commanding. Her muscles gave way all at once, and she took him in one rough, deep slide, her hips meeting his with a soft, wet sound of finality.The breath left her body.Full wasn’t the word. This was invasion, completion, a claiming so profound it stripped every coherent thought from her mind. He was there.A deep, stretching pressure that touched a place inside her she hadn’t known existed. Her eyes rolled back, her mouth open in a silent cry. For a second, she just stayed there, impaled, vibrating with the shock of it.
Then the instinct took over, older than thought.Breed.Breed.Breed.A guttural, broken noise rattled in her throat. Her hips jerked, a frantic, untutored rise and fall. She did it again, grinding down, seeking that impossible depth.The lace canopy above her blurred. The empty fruit bowl on the nightstand ceased to exist. There was only the frantic, driving need to be filled, to be seeded, to have his pups growing in her belly. She was so lost in the rhythm, in the brutal, perfect friction, that she didn’t notice the change in his breathing. Didn’t see his hands, which had lain open and slack at his sides, slowly curl into fists on the rumpled sheets.Rhys woke to paradise and war.
One second he was submerged in nothing, the next he was buried to the hilt in a wet, scorching heat, with Aurora writhing on top of him, a beautiful, desperate creature lost to her own nature. A groan was torn from him, raw and involuntary. His eyes flew open, taking in the sight of her: head thrown back, blonde hair sticking to her flushed skin, her small breasts trembling with each frantic movement.
His alpha psyche roared, a red wave of pure possession.Mine.Take.Keep.
His hands came up, large and rough, and clamped onto her hips to still her. The action was instinctual, a dominant reasserting control.
Aurora’s eyes snapped open, wide with shock and a dazed, unfocused pleasure.Her movements faltered. She looked down at him, truly seeing he was awake, and a flicker of fear cut through the heat-haze. “I… I’m sorry, I just—”
“Don’t talk,” he growled, his voice thick with sleep and desire.He didn’t move her off. He held her there, locked onto him.“Just… fuck.Stay still a second.”
He needed to breathe. Needed to wrestle the beast back into its cage.This wasn’t the plan. The plan was anonymous.The plan was release and leave.But the plan was ashes. He was inside her, and she was looking at him like he’d hung the moon, even as she feared his displeasure.“You’re so deep,” she whispered, a awe-struck confession. Her inner muscles fluttered around him, a helpless, greedy pulse. “It feels… it feels like you’re everywhere.”
He was.That was the problem. He was everywhere, and she was under his skin, in his lungs, in the tight knot of betrayal he carried in his chest. His thumbs stroked the sharp bone of her hips, a gesture that felt terrifyingly tender.
“You should have woken me,” he said, but the command had no heat.
“I wanted to be good,” she breathed, beginning to move again, a slow, tentative roll of her hips that made his vision blur. “To take care of you, too.”
A harsh laugh escaped him. “This isn’t taking care of me, sweetheart. This is you trying to break me.”
He saw the confusion, then the wounded understanding in her eyes.He couldn’t do this. Couldn’t let her see the cracks.So he took over. In one smooth, powerful motion, he flipped them, pinning her beneath him on the mattress. She gasped, her legs automatically wrapping around his waist, accepting him deeper.“No more thinking,” he ordered, his face inches from hers. “No more trying to be good. Just feel it.”
He began to move, a deep, punishing rhythm that was nothing like the frantic scrambling of before.This was deliberate.Inevitable. Each thrust was a piston stroke, hitting that devastating spot inside her until she was sobbing, her nails digging into the scars on his shoulders. He watched her come apart, his own control fraying with every hiccupping cry she made.He was going to knot her.He knew it. The base of him was swelling, thickening, the promise of it making her clench around him in frantic anticipation. The breeding fever was in her scent, a sweet, siren call that bypassed all reason.He drove into her, once, twice more, his forehead dropping to hers. Their breath mingled, ragged and hot.“Rhys,” she pleaded, a broken sound.“Please. I need it. I need you to—”
“I know,” he cut her off, the words a rough sigh against her lips.He surrendered. Not to her, but to the truth of the moment. His hips snapped forward, a final, searing claim, and the knot locked, swelling to full, impossible size inside her.
Aurora screamed, a sound of pure, shattering release. Her body clamped down on him in wave after endless wave, milking him as he emptied himself into her with a hoarse shout. The feeling was beyond anything—the absolute captivity, the primal satisfaction, the dizzying intimacy of being physically tied to this soft, trusting creature.
As the tremors subsided, they were left gasping, irrevocably joined. The room smelled of sex and sweat and fulfilled need. Rhys, his weight balanced on his elbows, looked down at her tear-streaked face, her blissfully dazed expression, and felt the last of his defenses crumble into dust.
He was ruined.