Bride (Ali Hazelwood) by Ali Hazelwood

            “Lowe.” I shift up to my elbows and lean forward to kiss him on the mouth, stopping the torrent of words. “Will you come take a shower with me?” I pull back and smile. “That way, you can replace the scent right away, and you don’t need to let me out of your sight?”

            The tension instantly leaves his body. His eyes soften. “That, I can do.”

            He carries me to his bathroom, and the warm jet of water soothes me as much as his hands following every drop’s journey on my body. I close my eyes, tip my head back, and let him touch me in that compelled, absorbed manner that appears to be his new normal. He seems to have accepted this—us—effortlessly, unconditionally, but I cannot help but wonder.

            “Lowe?”

            “Mmm?”

            “Since I’m your mate, and since I don’t really plan to, you know, let go of you . . . you’ll never be able to do this with a Were,” I say without opening my eyes. “You’ll never get the hardware experience.”

            His soapy palms lather my skin, lingering too long on my breasts. “Any idea of doing any of this with a Were died the night I met you.” I hear the dismissal in his words. What he adds is a murmur, more for himself than for me. “There wouldn’t be anyone else, anyway. Even if you didn’t want me, I couldn’t.”

            “But the fact remains that I have way more limitations than you. Is it going to be weird, that we’re never going to go for a run in wolf form together? That we’ll never take a walk in the sun? Have a meal together? We’ll even have to figure out a sleep schedule that fits for both of us.”

            His thumb and forefinger close around my chin and raise it, gentle but determined, until I’m forced to meet his eyes. “No,” he simply says. It’s a more potent reassurance than any long speech or vehement denial. Then he pushes a strand of hair behind my ears, and leans forward to suck at one of those spots on my neck that seem to be his magnetic north. He hums and softly begins to scrape over it with his teeth.

            “You can go ahead, then,” I tell him.

            He nips softly. “Mmm?”

            “Bite me, if you want.” I feel his broad chest stiffen against mine. “Like all the mate scars I’ve seen.”

            A deep, resonating rumble rises from his chest. For a brief moment, his grip tightens on my waist almost painfully. Then he lets go, looking as though he’s made of steel and restraint. “No.”

            “If you think I’ll change my mind—”

            “I don’t. But not now.”

            “Not now.”

            “There are rituals. Customs. Things that mean something to us. To me,” he adds. “I want to see you in those obscene ceremonial marks again. I want to put them on you. Alone, this time—I don’t fucking need anyone around to see you like that and get any ideas. And when I finally bite you, it won’t be on your neck.” He lets out a rueful laugh. “Nothing as dignified for us, Misery.”

            Oh. “Where?”

            His palm rounds my throat. Cups my nape. The pad of his thumb traces down my spine, just one or two vertebrae. “Here. I think I’ll bite you here.” He says it like it’s a secret, filthy plan he’s been working on for a while, and then lets out a rueful, frustrated sound. “You’ll wear your hair up, and people will see it, and they will know that I took my beautiful Vampyre bride the way wolves do, and that she loved it. And you will be good for me and let me, won’t you?”

            I would let you right this moment, I think, but don’t bother saying it. I know Lowe by now, and the things he’s accustomed to denying himself.

            “I look forward to that.” His pupils widen as though I just promised him riches beyond all comprehension. He deserves the world. He deserves everything he’s ever wished for. “In the meantime, would you like me to bite you?”

            He swears softly when my mouth reaches for one of the glands at the base of his throat, and then whispers “Fuck, yes,” when my teeth pierce into it. I run my thumb over the gland on the other side, feeling his shudders and hearing the echoes of please and more and take all you need. Lowe was hard before, but now I can taste his impatience in the copper of his blood, and when he slides his fingers deep inside me, when his breath becomes erratic and he orders me to come, come right now so he can fuck me again, I can only let my pleasure roll through my body in subsuming waves. After, he picks me up and presses me against the tiled wall. I wrap my legs around his hips and welcome him between my thighs.