Bride (Ali Hazelwood) by Ali Hazelwood

            My feet drag me to Lowe of their own accord. They push me up on my toes, and I’m kissing him as intensely as I can, too much pressure too fast, my arms looped tight around his neck like a noose. He doesn’t immediately respond, but it’s confusion more than hesitation. After a beat his hands close around my waist, trapping me between him and the wall, deepening the contact. “Misery.” The words come out jumbled between our lips. His erection brushes against my stomach and we both gasp.

            “We shouldn’t,” he says, pulling back.

            But when I ask him “Why?” his lips find mine again. The kiss started high, but still manages to escalate. “I know. I know, I think—” My hands travel down, pulling up his shirt and exposing a strip of warm skin. “I want to—” I cannot say it out loud, because I don’t know what I need. It has to do with the truth, and him admitting it, but it’s a confused, painful thorn tangled in my head. “Can we—”

            “Yeah. Yeah, we can.” He’s at once urgent and soothing. “We can.”

            There is a couch right behind us, but Lowe flips me around until my front is pressed to the wall, forehead and forearm flush against it. “Slow down,” he commands, mouth sucking on my neck, a large hand splaying over the center of my back. My heart flutters. In the slipperiness of this moment, it’s exactly what I need to hear.

            “You’re just so good.” He’s being Were, or Alpha, or Lowe again. Pressing open-mouthed bites into my neck. I moan, and he pushes harder into me. “You need to tell me. This place smells like you and your scent is shooting up my brain and I cannot think about anything but fucking you. So if you want me to stop, I need you to tell me.”

            I press my forehead harder against the wall. “Please, don’t stop.”

            He swears softly, sounding ruined. He makes quick work of pulling up my shirt and unfastening my jeans. I arch against him—his mouth, his chest, his cock. One of his large palms comes up to the wall, right beside mine, and I extend my little finger to brush against his thumb. I’m requesting more, and he gets it. But instead of giving it to me, he nuzzles the crook of my throat. “We should slow down.” He laughs, rueful, hot into my skin.

            “The opposite.”

            “Misery—” he starts.

            “I want to have sex.”

            A yearning, guttural noise vibrates into my skin. “Misery.”

            “It’s fine. It’s going to work out.”

            “It’s not.”

            “Why?”

            “You know why.” His arms cross on my belly and pull me to him, possessive, a little frustrated. “We can’t.” We’re both shaking with . . . This deep, bottomless need inside me, is it desire? Is this why people do impulsive, mindless, hotheaded things?

            “I just— It must have happened before. A male Were and a female Vampyre.” Our species have existed for thousands of years, and we didn’t always hate each other. “We could try. I’m not afraid of your. . . ”

            He laughs unsteadily against my throat. “You don’t even know what it’s called.”

            “What does it matter?”

            “Am I wrong?” I let out a bitter hum, and he shushes me with a nip on the valley behind my ear. “You don’t know what you’re asking for, do you?”

            “Just tell me, then. Then I’ll know, and—”

            “A knot. It’s called a knot.” I savor the word in my head, marveling at how well it fits. “Say it,” Lowe orders. And when I hesitate, he adds, “Please.”

            “Knot. A knot.”

            His grip tightens. His breath grows shallow. “Shit.”

            “W-what?”

            “I think I’d like to hear you say it again.”

            I do, just because he asked. He clutches my hip as though he likes the encore even more.

            “You know what its purpose is?”