Bride (Ali Hazelwood) by Ali Hazelwood

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            It’s still the middle of the night when I wake up. I’m lying face down on the bed, my cheek buried in a pillow, feeling limp and wrung out, as though a lifetime’s worth of sensation has been crammed into and then squeezed out of my body.

            It’s surprisingly lovely.

            Lowe is next to me, propped on one elbow, touching me all over in a way that seems half distracted, half compulsive. Traveling the dip that joins my shoulder blades. Following the round contours of my ass. Combing his fingers through my hair and tracing the tip of my ear. Cupping right between my legs, uncaring, or maybe excited by the slick mess he left there, eager to push his spend back inside me.

            I let my eyelids flutter open and observe him observing every curve and angle and slope of my body, entranced by the entranced look in his eyes. He is focused, lost in the simple touch, and several minutes pass before he glances up at my face and finds me awake. His smile is at once reserved and hesitant and proud and luminous.

            I want him—I want this with him—so much, so forcefully, it’s equal parts terrifying and soaring.

            “Hi.”

            I smile back. With fangs. “How long did it take for it to . . . ?”

            “About thirty minutes.” He leans over to trail open-mouthed kisses across the line of my shoulder. His hand curves around my ass as he murmurs into my ear, “You did so good, Misery. It can’t have been easy, but you took me so well. Like you were made for it.”

            Blood rushes to my cheeks. I shift, savoring the rich soreness within my body. “Considering how busy you are with Ana and your pack, we might have to schedule sex.”

            It’s meant as a joke, but he nods solemnly. “Pencil me into your calendar.”

            “What about early Sunday mornings? Before ten a.m. though, or I’m going to crash on you.”

            “Fuck that. Save two hours, every day.”

            I laugh and stare at the green flush that lingers on his sharp cheekbones, marveling. Mine, I think, happy, covetous, greedy. It’s a new feeling, belonging. Owning.

            “Did I hurt you?” he asks softly, and I laugh once more.

            “Do I look like I hurt?”

            He hesitates. “It lasted a long time, and it worked . . . maybe it worked a little too well for me. I nearly blacked out for a while there, and I doubt I was at my most observant.”

            “No, I do not hurt, Lowe.” I hold his eyes and ask evenly, “What about you?”

            His look is withering, and I feel like laughing again. He and I. Together. The greatest thing of all time that never should have happened.

            “Serena might come looking for me,” I say. “I don’t want her recently traumatized self to stumble upon an interspecies sex moment and get even more traumatized, so—”

            “She’s half Were and half Human,” Lowe says. I watch him curiously until he continues to make his point. “Unless a whole lot of hybrids pop out of the woodwork, she’s only ever going to have interspecies relationships.”

            “Oh.” I try to think through the implications of it, but I have to give up. My brain is mushy, mellow with remainders of pleasure, and a loud sort of quiet, and the scent of Lowe’s blood. “Either way, I should shower.”

            “No,” he commands brusquely, in his Alpha voice. His muscles coil, like he’s getting ready for a fight. Then he must realize the ridiculousness of his reaction, because he scrunches his eyes shut, throat working.

            I tilt my head. “You used to be okay with me taking baths.”

            “It’s different. There is a lot going on.” He points at his head, but then looks down at his body. A lot going on inside me, he means. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to let you out of my sight for a couple of days. Or weeks.” He sounds unapologetic and remorseful—a combination I did not think was possible. “And right now, you smell like me. Like you wouldn’t believe it, Misery. You smell like me from the inside, and every damn cell is screaming at me that making you that way is the best thing I’ve ever done in my life, maybe the only good thing, and I can’t let you—”