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The answer knocks some of the annoyance out of me.

For me. Of course he changed his own body, restrained his own shape, softened ridges I didn’t even know existed because he wanted my first time taking him to hurt less and be something I could survive and would want again afterward.

The tenderness of it is almost too much, especially with him lying under me, hard and trembling and clearly unprepared for me to be studying him instead of being tucked under blankets like a patient.

I drag my palm slowly down his chest, and his breath catches. The bond opens on instinct, and what comes through startles me. Not only arousal—that’s there, thick and hot and close to breaking—but under it is disbelief.

He’s shocked—actually shocked.

I lower my eyes again, letting my hand follow a branching pattern down his ribs. His body tightens beneath me. He does not move. He barely breathes. I trace over his stomach, then the narrow dip of his hip, then stop just above where the markings turn more intimate.

“Can I?” I ask, and my voice sounds different—softer now, less defensive. Still rough, but not from anger anymore.

Onyx’s hands flex on my thighs. For one breath, I feel the oldness of him. The predator. The guardian. The thing that knows how to take, claim, protect, kill, devour.

Yes, he sends, and the bond floods with a need so intense I feel it roll through my own spent body in an answering pulse.

His cock is hot and heavy in my palm, the textured markings subtle beneath my fingers, ridges like raised veins of bark under skin. I stroke slowly, learning his shape the way he spent all morning learning me.

Onyx looks less controlled with his eyes closed. Less ancient. Less impossible. Still enormous, still marked, still not fully human in ways I’m beginning to crave instead of fear. His throat works, and his hands stay on my thighs, but he doesn’t guide me.

“Look at me,” I say, and his eyes open at once.

The obedience in that immediate response almost wrecks me. Not submission or weakness, but trust. He looks at me because I asked. I swallow hard and tighten my grip so I can hear his breath change.

“You’ve been taking care of me since this started.” I lean down carefully, bracing my free hand on his chest. My body complains at the movement, but I ignore it. His hands slide to my hips at once, supporting without forcing, keeping me from putting weight where I’m tender. “Let me take care of you, Wildheart.”

His pupils widen at the nickname, and the bond goes quiet in the way forests go quiet before something steps into the clearing.

You do not owe me this.

It is such an Onyx thing to say that my chest hurts. I bend closer, my mouth near his, my hand still moving slowly around him. “I know.”

His breathing turns uneven.

You are tired.

“I know.”

Your body aches.

“I know.”

Lucas.

I kiss him before he can keep listing reasons to refuse the pleasure he clearly wants. His mouth opens under mine with a sound that is almost startled, and I use that softness, that broken little second of surprise, to stroke him more firmly. He groans into the kiss, hips lifting again, and this time I let him.

The weight of him in my hand, the strange texture beneath my palm, the pulse of his need through the bond—it all drags something possessive and protective out of me that I don’t know what to do with.

When I pull back, I look down at him, at the creature who has held me together with hands, mouth, teeth, old language, and patience that feels endless until I see how badly he is shaking beneath me.

I kiss him harder as my hand moves faster. Onyx groans against my mouth, and the sound turns less human halfway through. His hips rise into my grip with more force, and I shift my weight, straddling his thighs instead of his hips so I can give him what he needs without grinding soreness into myself.

I look after him the only way my shaky, overused body can.

With my hand. My mouth at his jaw. My lips dragging down his throat. My fingers learning his pace by every twitch of his hips and every growl he tries to bury. He is enormous under me, too much and beautiful with it, his cock heavy in my grip, markings dark against flushed skin.

A thick pulse of precum slides down his shaft, making the glide smoother, and his reaction is so violent he nearly bucks me off.