Page 52 of Warded By His Wolf

“I stopped waiting to be sure,” I said. “About the visions. About what I saw.”

“I know.”

“I’m not waiting anymore about this either.”

His hands came to my waist, unhurried, and shaking very slightly with what it cost him to stay unhurried.

“Ivy—”

“I know what’s outside,” I said. “I know he’s out there calculating. I know it isn’t finished.” I put my hands on his shoulders. “I’m choosing this anyway. In daylight. Before whatever happens next.”

He pulled me down into his lap in one smooth motion, and then his mouth was on mine.

The kiss wasn’t gentle. It was the accumulated weight of every almost, the kitchen at three a.m., the porch in the cold, the bond humming between us like a live wire. His hands slid up my back, and I felt his wolf rise in the way his grip tightened, in the low sound he made against my lips.

We didn’t stay in the kitchen. He lifted me without breaking the kiss and carried me down the hall to the bedroom that had become ours without ceremony, and by the time he set me on the bed my cardigan was gone and his shirt was half-open.

“Tell me to stop,” he said against my throat, “and I will.”

“Don’t stop.”

He pulled back far enough to look at me, really look, his eyes shifting red-gold as the wolf came forward. “I need you to know this isn’t the bond asking. The bond knew in three seconds. I’ve been catching up since your doorway.”

“I know.” I reached for the last buttons of his shirt. “I chose you before I understood the bond. Before I had language for the heat. Before any of it had a name.”

Something broke in his expression, not composure. Control. The careful distance dissolving into something rawer.

He kissed me again, deeper, and his hands found the hem of my shirt. I lifted my arms and let him take it, and his mouth traced down my neck to the mark, the silver curve that still glowed faintly whenever his attention landed on it.

“I can feel you,” I breathed. “Through the bond. Everything you⁠⁠⁠—”

“I know.” His teeth grazed the mark and I gasped. “I can feel you too. Do you know what it’s been, feeling you and not⁠⁠⁠—”

I pulled him up and kissed the sentence away. I didn’t need him to finish it. I already knew.

His hands moved down my body like he was memorizing me all over again (every place that made my breath catch) and when his fingers found the button of my jeans I lifted my hips for him, and then I was reaching for his belt with hands that weren’t quite steady.

“Ivy.” My name, rough and low.

“I’m here.” His belt came open under my fingers. “I’m not going anywhere.”

He braced above me on his forearms, his eyes burning red-gold and holding there. “If this is too fast⁠⁠⁠—”

“We claimed each other on a kitchen table five nights ago.” I wrapped my legs around his waist. “This isn’t fast. It’s overdue.”

He laughed (actually laughed, a short, wrecked sound I’d never heard from him) and then he pushed into me slowly, and neither of us was quiet, and his forehead dropped to my shoulder while he gave me a moment to take him.

“God. Ivy⁠⁠⁠—”

I rolled my hips and he cursed, control slipping further, and when he started to move it wasn’t gentle. Not rough, intense. Focused. The way he did everything that mattered.

His palm found the mark as his hips drove into mine, and the bond flared, not just sensation. Emotion. His need layered over mine. His relief, finally, at being here.

“Maddox—” I arched into him, and his rhythm faltered.

“Say it again.”

“Maddox.“