Bride

My feet drag me to Lowe of their own accord. They push me up on my toes, and I’m kissing him as intensely as I can, too much pressure too fast, my arms looped tight around his neck like a noose. He doesn’t immediately respond, but it’s confusion more than hesitation. After a beat his hands close around my waist, trapping me between him and the wall, deepening the contact. “Misery.” The words come out jumbled between our lips. His erection brushes against my stomach and we both gasp.

“We shouldn’t,” he says, pulling back.

But when I ask him “Why?” his lips find mine again. The kiss started high, but still manages to escalate. “I know. I know, I think—” My hands travel down, pulling up his shirt and exposing a strip of warm skin. “I want to—” I ca

“Yeah. Yeah, we can.” He’s at once urgent and soothing. “We can.”

There is a couch right behind us, but Lowe flips me around until my front is pressed to the wall, forehead and forearm flush against it. “Slow down,” he commands, mouth sucking on my neck, a large hand splaying over the center of my back. My heart flutters. In the slipperiness of this moment, it’s exactly what I need to hear.

“You’re just so good.” He’s being Were, or Alpha, or Lowe again. Pressing open-mouthed bites into my neck. I moan, and he pushes harder into me. “You need to tell me. This place smells like you and your scent is shooting up my brain and I ca

I press my forehead harder against the wall. “Please, don’t stop.”

He swears softly, sounding ruined. He makes quick work of pulling up my shirt and unfastening my jeans. I arch against him—his mouth, his chest, his cock. One of his large palms comes up to the wall, right beside mine, and I extend my little finger to brush against his thumb. I’m requesting more, and he gets it. But instead of giving it to me, he nuzzles the crook of my throat. “We should slow down.” He laughs, rueful, hot into my skin.

“The opposite.”

“Misery—” he starts.

“I want to have sex.”

A yearning, guttural noise vibrates into my skin. “Misery.”

“It’s fine. It’s going to work out.”

“It’s not.”

“Why?”

“You know why.” His arms cross on my belly and pull me to him, possessive, a little frustrated. “We can’t.” We’re both shaking with . . . This deep, bottomless need inside me, is it desire? Is this why people do impulsive, mindless, hotheaded things?

“I just— It must have happened before. A male Were and a female Vampyre.” Our species have existed for thousands of years, and we didn’t always hate each other. “We could try. I’m not afraid of your. . . ”

He laughs unsteadily against my throat. “You don’t even know what it’s called.”

“What does it matter?”

“Am I wrong?” I let out a bitter hum, and he shushes me with a nip on the valley behind my ear. “You don’t know what you’re asking for, do you?”

“Just tell me, then. Then I’ll know, and—”

“A knot. It’s called a knot.” I savor the word in my head, marveling at how well it fits. “Say it,” Lowe orders. And when I hesitate, he adds, “Please.”

“Knot. A knot.”

His grip tightens. His breath grows shallow. “Shit.”

“W-what?”

“I think I’d like to hear you say it again.”

I do, just because he asked. He clutches my hip as though he likes the encore even more.

“You know what its purpose is?”

I may know nothing about Were biology, but I’m not stupid, or naive. “Yes.”

“Say it.”

This is simultaneously mortifying and the most erotic experience of my entire life. “To keep it inside.”

His hand slides underneath my shirt, gently stroking the underside of my breast. “Keep what inside, sweetheart?”

I close my eyes. My heart beats a pounding, sluggish rhythm into every inch of my skin. “Your come.”

His big body shudders for a moment. Then rewards me with a nibble on the tip of my ear. “You’d be okay with that?”

I nod. He groans.

“I’m not sure I’d be willing to risk hurting you.”

I wish I could see his face. “You can stop. If it hurts, if it doesn’t work.”

“What if I can’t?”

“You will. I know you will.”

“Or I won’t be able to. Because I want it too much.” His fingers move back down, skimming my underwear, knuckles white against the damp blue cotton. He murmurs something about how slick I am, and when the heel of his palm starts massaging my clit in a slow rhythm I sigh in pleasure and relief.

“I—I really want to.”

“Fuck,” he exhales, and then he shifts behind me. His palm fully covers my hand on the wall.

I’m here. Okay. I’ve got you.

“Let me just— I can’t just fuck you like this.” He pulls my jeans around my knees and crowds me tighter into the wall. “Let me get you there.”

I don’t fully understand what he means, until one of his hands grips my hip bone and the other slips inside my panties, stretching the cotton in a way that feels obscene. He parts me with two of his fingers, and lets out a hushed, reverential groan as he stares at himself touching me under the soft fabric. His heartbeat punches into my back, and when his teeth find my throat and start scraping, then nibbling, then biting just hard enough, when his finger circles my clit just right, that’s when I come.

It’s unexpected, too fast. Barely a climb and I’m already dropping down, gasping for air. But it feels like an interrupted, half thing, and I don’t let myself catch my breath. I reach back, frantically grasping to undo his jeans.

“Quiet,” he orders, pi

I force myself to relax. It’s obvious that, on average, the sex his people have and the sex of my people are different flavors. Just as it’s obvious that he and I inhabit some overlapping space. I would expect nothing less.

“This would be easier if you smelled a little less fuckable,” he says raggedly, but I hear the clinking sound of his belt and then I feel it, the head of his cock pressing against the soaked panties that stick to my pussy. I free myself to reach down, stroke his length, and he makes a choked sound. It’s hot and large, but the thing at the base—his knot—hasn’t swelled yet. Last time it inflated when he came. I want to know if that’s the norm, but asking will send Lowe into another spin of concern, and I don’t need him to worry about me.

“Please,” I beg. “Please, put it in.”

He nods against my temple, breath shallow and quick. He hooks my underwear to the side and pushes his cock inside me, the burning stretch deepening until it ca

I inhale abruptly.

He exhales in the same way.

There’s no need for negotiation, no pain, and no struggle. I’m pliant and he’s hard. I’m wet and he’s groaning. We fit. The biological compatibility Lowe told me about, the one between mates . . . I don’t presume to know what that would be like. All I know is that we feel pretty fucking—

“Perfect,” he murmurs, bottoming out, gripping my waist like he’s trying to collect himself. I know why: this feels exquisite in a sharp, cruel way. Vampyres don’t read minds, but I know what he’s thinking: how easy it would be to live in this forever. To just never stop. “Don’t move, or I’ll come.” He licks a stripe up the back of my neck. “Shit, I might come anyway. Just from your scent and your little bent neck.”

I might, too. Very soon. Especially as he moves with experimental, shallow thrusts that hit everywhere inside me. I feel myself tighten in little flutters around him, and he stops. Then he bends over to whisper against my ear: “If you’re about to come, tell me. Because that will make me come, and I need to pull out or I might hurt you. Okay?” He sounds calm, even when his control is about to snap.