He helped guide her, steadying her when her thighs shook, urging her down harder when she rose too far.
The restraint he had been fighting all evening finally cracked under the press of her body and the scent of her need.
He thrust up to meet her, harder, deeper, the angle shifting so that he struck that sensitive spot inside her with every upward surge.
The wet sound of their bodies meeting filled the quiet room—soft, rhythmic, unmistakable.
Lena moaned openly now, no longer trying to stay quiet.
The sounds poured from her throat as she braced her hands on his chest, fingers splayed over muscle and heat, and fucked herself down onto him with growing desperation.
She chased the coiling heat that built tighter with every stroke, her breasts shifting under the sweater with the motion, her hair falling around them both like a dark curtain.
Cassian sat up fully, one strong arm banding around her waist to pull her flush against him, the other fisting in her hair so he could yank her head back and claim her mouth again.
The kiss was raw—teeth and tongue and the sharp residual taste of wine.
He bit her lower lip, hard enough to sting, then dragged his mouth down the side of her throat, careful not to break skin yet.
His teeth scraped over the sensitive curve where the neck met the shoulder, the place the bond already marked as his.
Lena’s nails dug into his shoulders hard enough to leave crescent marks, her body arching into the dual assault of his mouth and the thick, relentless thrust of him inside her.
“Please—don’t hold back.”
And he didn’t.
Cassian flipped them without pulling out, rolling her beneath him in one powerful, fluid motion.
Her back hit the mattress with a soft bounce; her legs locked around his hips instinctively, heels digging into the small of his back.
He drove into her in long, punishing strokes, the headboard knocking softly against the wall with every deep thrust.
The change in angle made her cry out—louder, broken, her body arching to take him as deep as he could go.
He filled her completely, the thick head of him pressing against her cervix on the deepest strokes, the stretch bordering on too much and yet not enough.
The bond between them burned white-hot.
Every time he bottomed out, she felt it pulse through her core like a second heartbeat; every time she clenched around him, he felt the answering surge of possession, of rightness, of mine.
His wolf was fully present now—growling low in his chest, claiming, demanding the mark that would make her permanently his.
The animal side of him wanted to bite, to hold, to keep her locked under him until the bond was sealed beyond any undoing.
Cassian’s rhythm turned almost savage.
He hooked one of her legs higher over his arm, opening her wider, spreading her so he could slam into her with the full strength of his body.
The wet slap of skin on skin grew louder, sharper, mixed with the creak of the bed and Lena’s breathless, escalating moans.
Only the heat of her body and the way she took every brutal thrust and begged for more with the clench of her inner walls and the arch of her spine.
She came first, hard and sudden.
Her body seized around him, inner muscles fluttering and then clamping down in rhythmic waves that dragged a broken sob of pleasure from her throat.
The intensity of it rolled through her in long, shuddering pulses, her nails scoring down his back, her head thrown back against the pillows.
The rhythmic clenching pulled him over the edge with her, and Cassian buried himself to the hilt and came with a deep, guttural sound, pulsing hot and deep inside her, flooding her with heat as his mouth found the curve of her neck.
This time he did not hold back the bite.
His canines lengthened and sank into the soft flesh where neck met shoulder, sealing the claim in a sharp, bright flare of pain that only heightened the aftershocks still rolling through her.
The taste of her blood—copper and sweetness—bloomed across his tongue as the mate bond snapped fully into place.
It hit them both like a physical force: a rush of shared sensation, shared pleasure, shared belonging so intense it left them shaking.
Lena cried out again, higher this time, her body arching hard beneath him as the bond locked permanently and became unbreakable.
Her nails raked down his back in long, red lines; her legs tightened around him as if she could pull him even deeper while the last pulses of his climax and hers intertwined.