He rose with her easily, one arm beneath her knees, the other cradling her back. She felt small in his hold, weightless, pressed to the solid wall of him. The tremble in her limbs, the deep coil of need in her belly, only worsened with every step he took away from the bed.
Softness met her back—pelts, linens, warmth that wasn’t his. He set her down, and his hands brushed her arms, her waist, her hairline. A sound caught in her throat as she reached for him again.
But he didn’t rush. He knelt beside her and cupped her cheek, brushing his thumb over her lower lip as though memorizing the shape of it.
His hands found the ties of her gown. She should have warned him about the scars, the ugliness, the body that had never felt like enough. But the Heat was a living thing, overriding sense and shame. He worked the fabric loose, watching her face as she was bared to him. When the garments fell away, he simply looked at her. Then, he bent and his mouth found her collarbone, her shoulder, her breasts—the places she’d thought no one would ever want to touch.
“You’ve never—” he began.
She shook her head.
Hunger flickered in his gaze, but the restraint was still there.
“I won’t hurt you,” he said. His voice lowered into a growl. He kissed her again, but this time it wasn’t gentle. Tongues clashed, teeth scraped. She moaned into his mouth, too far gone to be shy, her nails raking down his chest. He groaned, low and dangerous, and peeled his shirt over his head—revealing a body honed for war, all brute strength and raw edges. Scarred muscles. A dusting of hair trailed down his abdomen. When he discarded his breeches, her breath hitched.
Her hands looked absurdly small as they skimmed over his chest, over the ridges of his stomach. He caught her staring, and for a breath, something like hesitation flickered across his face.
Her hips shifted instinctively, a silent plea.
He grunted. “Hold on.”
She whimpered as Alexander knelt by her feet, half in shadow. He touched her knee first—a large, callused hand, warm from the fire. Then slowly, reverently, he spread her thighs apart.
JingYi flinched, instinct urging her to squeeze her thighs together. But Alexander didn’t hesitate or leer. He just leaned in, wedging his broad shoulders between her legs, all the while trailing his mouth along the inside of her thigh like he meant to learn her by heart.
Her hand shot out, clutching his shoulder. “Wait?—”
He glanced up, but he didn’t stop. And then he kissed her there, lower now, at the heart of her. A consuming kiss that made her cry out, half-wild.
He used his mouth like a vow. Lush and deliberate kisses, tasting her with a groan that vibrated straight through her bones. His tongue stroked over her most sensitive flesh, coaxing, circling, teasing. Her legs trembled. Her hips lifted. Her fingers tangled in his hair, trying to both pull him closer and push him away.
No one had ever touched her like this.Not like this.
When he finally drew back, slick with her scent, pupils blown wide, he rose above her. Gently, he pressed her thighs even wider and guided the head of him to her entrance. She gasped, lost in the wave of Heat. He was so much larger than she’d imagined, but her body knew what to do before her mind could catch up. Her hips shifted, tilted, seeking him, craving the unbearable fullness she knew he could give her.
The first stretch of himburned. He eased forward, inch by inch, his eyes never leaving hers—reading every flutter of her lashes, every caught breath. She clung to his shoulders, making sounds she’d never known lived inside her. He bent and kissedher, slow and deep, as if they had all the time the world ever made.
When he stilled deep inside her, the world went quiet. Not silence—completeness. The lonely hum she’d carried her whole life vanished. There was only his breath against her throat, the weight of him above her, the impossible fullness of being known all the way through.
He pulled his hips back, the thick head of him notching at her entrance. His eyes met hers. Her breath caught.
One hard thrust, and her world cracked.
JingYi cried out, legs trembling, arms locked around his shoulders. He was stretching her open, burrowing deep. Her breath stuttered, body fighting to adjust. Fluttering, pulsing around him, but she couldn’t stop clinging. Alexander let out a low growl, his forehead falling to hers, hips grinding forward another inch, and shetookhim.
“Gods,” he gritted. “You—” A hitch in his breath, and he shuddered.
She gasped, her hips tilting involuntarily, body flushed and slick and needing more.More. Her nerves were lightning. Her thoughts were gone. Only instinct remained—pure, aching Omega instinct that wanted to be filled, to be claimed.
He canted his hips and slammed in again, harder.
The rhythm he set was brutal, like he couldn’t stop himself, like not being inside her would kill him. The slap of skin, the slick sound of her body taking him again and again—it was obscene. Primal. She could barely catch her breath, couldn’t think beyond the fire building inside her, the way his hands locked around her hips and dragged her down to meet every thrust.
Her first release with him inside her came hard and fast, a cry wrenching from her throat as her body clamped down on him. But he never stopped. He pumped her through it, eyes locked onhers, wild and blown and dark. Not a single word from him, but everything was there in the way he took her, owned her, buried himself so deep she felt him behind her navel.
The power behind his thrusts made the entire Nest groan, the suspended ravens swaying and rattling. JingYi cried out when he nudged a spot high inside her, fingers scrambling for purchase against the sheets, against his arms, anything to ground her.
He growled against her throat, hips snapping forward again and again, the slick slap of flesh echoing in the dim-lit room. She whimpered his name without meaning to, and it only seemed to spur him further—his rhythm faltering, growing rougher, hungrier, until he was panting through gritted teeth.