Page 87 of The Fanged One

The enormity of it landed in Linnea's chest and stole her voice for a beat. Something that had been torn open in her since Inga, Sunniva, and the tithe closed over.

Linnea crossed the space between them, wrapped her arms around him, and kissed him.

"Of course I choose you," she said against his mouth. "You enormous, tragic, ridiculous god. I told you before that you're the only thing I've ever wanted."

For a heartbeat, Fenris only looked at her like he couldn't believe his ears, before he was kissing her back.

There was no hesitation. It was teeth and tongues and tearing at each other to get closer.

Linnea shoved his shirt off him and dragged her mouth down the silver scars carved into his chest, claiming every mark the world had feared as hers.

Finally, her wolf crowed, wild and delighted. Ours. Bite him!

The rest of their clothes came off in a graceless scramble, until there was nothing left between them but heat and the frantic press of skin on skin. His hand splayed at the back of her head and tilted it to where he wanted it. He set his mouth to her throat, right over the pulse, and the scrape of his teeth there made her moan.

"Say it again," he growled. He moved down to her breast, closed his mouth over her nipple, and pulled a sound out of her she didn't know she could make.

"Mate." She dragged his head back up to her mouth. "You impossible, stubborn thing. Mine. You're mine too."

Whatever leash he had kept on himself snapped at that wondrous word in her mouth. He bore her back into the furs of the bed and came down over her. His hand pressed between her thighs and found her already slick and wanting. He stroked her, unhurried and merciless at once, until her hips lifted off the bed to chase it.

"Say you're going to be all mine. My mate. Forever," he begged against her jaw.

"Shut up and don't stop," she replied, hips lifting.

"Say it." He laughed low and pushed two fingers into her.

Linnea groaned, needing to come so badly it hurt. "Fuck, I'm yours. I accept you as my mate. Just…fuck…"

Fenris licked the side of her jaw, thrust his fingers in deeper, and worked her until the coil deep in her belly drew tight and broke. She came around his hand with his name shattering in her mouth, and he rode her through every wave of it and didn't once let up.

"Again," he ordered against her throat, his fingers still working her through the aftershocks. "I have wanted you wrung out and past speech for all the miserable days since that hall. I'm not going to waste it now."

"Fenris." His name came out of her half-laugh. "I want you in me already. Don't you want to fuck your mate?"

"That was naughty of you. How can I say no now?" he grumbled, eyes narrowing.

"You can't," Linnea said against his lips. "My mate."

Fenris made a sound that was all wolf as he hooked her knee up over his arm, notched the head of his cock against her entrance, and drove home in a single long stroke.

For the length of one breath, neither of them moved. He held there, buried to the root, his face tucked against her neck, breathing her in.

"Gods, there you are. I thought I would never get to have you."

Linnea scraped her nails down his back and pulled him flush against her. The magic in the bond flared bright at the joining, hungry for the last thing it had been denied. Her own power simmered to meet it.

"Stop waiting," she said against his jaw. "Take me. Have me."

His pace turned brutal, and down the bond came everything he had never said, every stroke driving it deeper into her than his cock could reach. She locked her legs around him, dug her fingers into the muscle of his shoulders, and hauled him harder into her.

"Say you are mine again," he demanded, his voice in ruins. "Out loud. I want the words… I want..."

"I'm yours." Linnea put a hand around his throat and dragged him down until his ear was at her mouth. "Which makes you mine, wolf, so you had better plan on sticking around a long time to enjoy it."

"Never letting you out of my sight again." Fenris drove into her harder, a growl breaking loose from his chest, and the gold cord of the bond between them wound tighter with every stroke, hot and straining toward their edge.

Her orgasm was rolling in a second time when he set his open mouth to the join of her neck and shoulder, and his breath went hot and ragged against her skin. Every other time his teeth had grazed and retreated. This time she wanted them to stay.