There's more that I don't say—knot me, bite me, take me, keep me—but I think he hears them. Feels them. I can see it in the way the gold flickers in his eyes, the way he climbs over me slowly. There's no more pausing, no more question of my consent or my enthusiasm or readiness.

The length of him drags along my thigh, slips at the slick heat between my legs. I meet his eyes as the head catches on my entrance, hiss as he pushes just enough to make my body twitch. The stretch is immediate and perfect and not enough. His body cages mine as he lowers his head to kiss me. I can taste myself on his tongue.

Beau moans into my mouth as he shifts his weight forward, pushing forward inch by inch. My nails bite into his shoulders as I try to pull him deeper. To reassure him that I can take him as he sinks deeper. But I realize that he's savoring it, teasing me, moving in tiny fractions as my body holds him tight.

"You call this fucking?" I growl against his mouth, bucking my hips. "All that worrying for—"

Beau laughs, low and rumbling. His teeth scrape my lower lip before he bites it, just enough to make me gasp, to quiet me. In the fragmented moonlight through the window, he's washed in blue and silver. His eyes still burn bright and gold.

Then me moves.

Not careful, not teasing. His hips slam into mine, burying himself in one perfect, devastating thrust that rips a cry from my throat. My hips rise to meet his as I claw across his back. Beau pins me down with his weight, hands catching my wrists and pressing them into the mattress beside me.

He rumbles against my throat. Low and primal. And then he fucks me.

Hard. Deep.

Each thrust slams into me with bruising force, the bed groaning beneath us. The air is knocked from my lungs over and over as I pant, laughing and whimpering and moaning in between. With Beau's crushing pace, the stretch of me around him, I feel like I should ache, hurt, but there's nothing but delicious fire creeping beneath my skin, arcing in my nerves. Without thought, without intent, my body arches and bucks and fights for more. Like it's made to meet his with matched ferocity. I twist under his grip, not to escape but to claw at him, pull at him, drag him deeper.

Beau gives me no mercy, no reprieve. He grinds his hips at the end of each thrust, the weight of his body forcing me into the mattress. Biting and licking across my neck, my jaw, my breasts, he holds fast to my wrists. A rumbling purr echoes from his chest as I start to writhe, as the fierce cadence of his hips sets my blood to burn.

"This what you wanted?" he pants. His voice is raw, fraying into something more animal than man.

I answer in a staccato of broken moans. My thighs start to tremble. For a moment, I think he's going to release my wrists, but he adjusts his grip, taking my hands above my head with just one of his so that he can pull my leg higher, opening my body further to him.

"You feel so fucking good," he murmurs. "Tight. Wet." He pushes deep with those worse, bottoming out. He kisses the inside of my knee when I groan and pant. "I could knot you right here."

But he doesn't stop.

He doesn't slow.

His thrusts stay powerful and deep, dragging against every screaming, sensitive nerve inside me, grinding until I'm nothing but gasps and incoherent sounds. My leg shakes in his grip, held open, held still, while he drives into me.

He kisses my knee again, almost sweetly, as he slams into me hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs. The heat from my impending orgasm is almost unbearable. I'm begging in broken words for release.

"That's right," he forces out, voice reaching as his hips piston faster. "I'm yours."

I sob his name, not even meaning to, but he growls when he hears it. His hand drops from my leg so that he can find my clit with ruthless precision. There's nothing gentle about it. The fire of his touch builds and builds and builds until I'm back on the edge, cursing and whimpering and begging in breathy words that make no sense.

And then I feel it.

His knot.

The base of his cock grows thick and hot, stretching me a little more with each thrust. It slides in and out, just at the entrance, further stimulating all the sparking nerves he's kindling at my clit. The heat. The girth.

"Fuck—Beau—" I cry. My vision flickers with stars.

I break.

My climax rips through me, brutal and endless, as my body clenches around him, milking his cock, his growing knot. Beau slams forward in one final, savage thrust that pushes his knot into me, catching and locking and stretching me it as swells. He rocks his hips in deep little thrusts, dragging it across the spasming muscles and nerves, prolonging this breath-stealing orgasm until my vision starts to go dark at the edges.

And then he bites me.

His teeth sink into my shoulder with a force that makes my muscles seize.

Claiming. Marking. His.

I scream. My wolf howls in victory. Then frustration.

I can barely hear it over my own panting, the roar of my heart in my ears. Beau groans, loud and low, as he comes. Every hot lash of it inside me pulses as I clench around him, still trapped between pleasure and pain.

He lets go of my wrists. His lips move against my bitten neck. He whispers something I don't understand. And then his fingers move back to my clit, drawing little, tight circles as his knot throbs inside of me. I try to protest, to beg for more, to say anything other than sobbing his name, but he forces one tiny, blinding orgasm that leaves me shaking and utterly wrecked.

I'm still panting, sweat-drenched and boneless, when I realize Beau hasn't moved. Can't move. We're still locked together, his knot thick and throbbing inside of me. His weight pins me, though he's supporting most of it on his arms. I'm perfectly crushed and warm. Every little fluttering aftershock seems to draw him a little deeper, to hold him a little tighter.

Beau shifts slightly. The feeling of the tension of his knot pulling makes me moan weakly. I don't think my body has any orgasms left at this point. Everything feels raw and trembling and delirious. My legs quiver from overstimulation. I'm so far past ruined I'm not sure where I begin anymore. I guess Beau wasn't kidding about halfway.

He lowers his head to the curve of my shoulder, where his bite stings hot and raw, and licks it. Slowly. Repeatedly.

I twitch.

"Are you licking me again?" I ask, voice hoarse, half-laughing. When I try to escape it, he holds me down, huffing in wolfish amusement, and continues.

"Gross," I mumble, but I involuntarily clench around his knot at each swipe of his tongue. It threatens to spark a fire in the ashes of my pleasure.

Beau moans into my neck, and I feel another languid spurt of heat flood into me.

"You like it," he murmurs.

Unfortunately, I really fucking do. I bite back another needy whimper as he licks again. My neck aches where he bit me. The skin feels raw and hot and swollen. It hurts, but weirdly, it's a nice sort of hurt. And with each sweeping press of Beau's tongue, it hurts less and less. My body is humming, too full and taut and sensitive... and somehow ready to beg again for release.

I shift a little, trying to ease the pressure. His knot shifts too. My breath catches.

"It is always like this?" I ask quietly. I try to keep my voice even, my body still, as his attention at my neck threatens to send me back into delirium. "This intense?"

"No," he says in between licks. "More intense during heat."

I blink. Heat. The memories of sweating and pacing and feeling overstimulating to the point of insanity flood my mind. The thought of his hands and mouth and cock against that burning of my body makes my core clench with pleasure.

His mouth quirks at he corner as he raises his head. "I wanted this," he says, softer. "For your heat. Fucking you until you couldn't raise a finger."

I feel like that should annoy me. It doesn't. My chest aches in this weird, sore way. He brushes his thumb across my cheek, slow and warm. But there's something behind his gray eyes. There's satisfaction, sure, but something more as he stares at the bite.

Something somber.

"What?" I ask, watching him closely.

Beau sighs.

"You didn't shift," he says quietly. "Didn't make your half of the bond mark."

"Oh."

It slips out before I can stop it. Small. Useless. But what am I supposed to say? I can't meet his gaze. I want to run, but we're fucking stuck. So I try to swallow the stupid lump forming in my throat. My wolf had howled, hadn't she? She's known what to do, but something was wrong with me. I couldn't let her through.

"I'm sorry," I whisper.

Beau immediately lifts his hand to my chin, guiding my face back to his. "Don't." His voice is gentle, firm. "Don't you dare apologize."

I want to cry. It's an annoying thing that sometimes happens after a good orgasm. The flood of emotions I can't seem to contain. My throat is tight. The bitter heat of tears pricks at the corners of my eyes. Beau kisses me before they can fall.

For all the roughness and filthiness that just happened between us, this kiss is sweet and slow.

"You gave me everything," he says. "Took everything I gave you. You let me mark you, let me knot you, let me have you. You think I care about an incomplete bond?"

I don't know what to say to that. I thought the bond is supposed to be mutual. How can he not care that I somehow don't have the hardware to fully connect with a fate-given partner?

Beau studies my face for a long moment. "I've never heard of this happening," he admits. "A one-sided mark. I don't know what it means, but I know this—"

He shifts his hips, slow and deep, making his knot rock back and forth. Even though the partial bond between us, I can feel the hot surge of affection and desire. My breath stutters.

"I wouldn't change a fucking thing," he says, kissing the bite mark. "You're mine."

I cry out as he thrusts again, the knot pressing where I'm still so sensitive. His fingers disappear between us, back to my thigh where his touch his featherlight. He licks my shoulder again, slowly. Reverently.

"I want to spend every day of your next heat like this," he murmurs, breath hot on my skin. "Fucking you in your nest. Until you stop thinking so much. Until you forget everything."

He rocks his hips again, his jaw taut, and my body shudders in response.

"You like that idea?" He asks. His voice is low and thick, almost drowsy. "Me fucking you stupid?"

All I can manage is whimper. The pressure is building again, growing as his knot pulses inside me, his hips grinding into me. When his fingers find my clit, my hips jerk.

"Beau," I whisper. My body grows taut, pulled it its limit, afraid that it'll snap.

But Beau seems to know exactly how sensitive I am, exactly how to touch. He kisses my bitten shoulder and circles his fingers, slick and slow.

"That's right," he murmurs, dragging his tongue against my skin. "I have you."

He strokes me lazily, coaxing my body to respond as he continues to lick and suck at the sensitive skin at my shoulder. To kiss me deep and slow. My toes are curl. My nerves flare back to life like they hadn't just burned to cinders.

"Give me one more."