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“Nothing,” I said and felt the tension, the fear, drain from Lars. We couldn’t make him disappear, but we had to make sure he didn’t talk and blow our cover. “I’ll leave that for Rune.” The demon went wild, fighting and flailing against my hold.

“Don’t like that idea, do you, fucker?” I said, then realized the demon had peed himself.

Guess not.

Sutton

As we walked out of the asylum, Jagger curled his fingers around the back of my neck in a possessive hold. We’d just filled Rune in on what we found and handed over Lars. Rune was going to extract information from him, his words, and make sure he kept his mouth shut.

Jagger’s thumb swiped over my sensitive skin, and the broken, distrustful part of me urged me to pull away, that enjoying the way it felt to have his hands on me made me weak and pathetic—the other part of me, the one that constantly longed for Jagger’s touch, purred like a contented kitten and wanted to beg him to keep petting me.

He was quiet as we walked away from Rune’s domain, but that hold he had on me was doing all the communicating for him.

Jagger felt overly possessive whenever we were around the powerful demon, in the extreme, and as we turned onto another street, one that was quiet, empty, he stopped me with a growl, and spun me to face him.

My heart pounded as he backed me into a short alleyway. One of his arms hooked around my waist in an unforgiving hold, the other hand was at the side of my throat and his thumb slid along my jaw over and over.

“What are you doing?” I stared into his eyes. They looked black in the shadows, and my already pounding heart went wild when he pressed his massive body more firmly against mine. “Jagger?” He was trembling against me, gods, vibrating, a rumbling sound coming from him constantly now.

He dipped his head and pressed his nose to the spot between my neck and shoulder and breathed deeply, and his arm spasmed around me.

“Jagger?” I said again.

“Sunshine,” he said low. “I have to do this, okay?” He groaned. “I just…I need a minute.”

“Okay,” I rasped and realized he needed reassurance, and that it felt so incredibly good to give it to him, to give him what he needed.

He growled softly as he rubbed his scent on me, his jaw scraping softly, his warm lips brushing my throat as that low, constant rumble vibrated from him and through me.

“You were in danger tonight, more than once,” he finally said.

“The beast needs to be soothed, and scent tells an animal like me everything we need to know. Breathing you in now, taking in your scent without fear or pain, is what I need. Feeling your heart beating against me, your warmth soak into me, is what I need.”

Gods, this male was breaking me down more with every moment I spent with him. “You need soothing?” I whispered in the darkness, cocooned in his arms.

“Yeah, baby, I just need to hold you for a little while. Will you let me do that?”

Knowing how much hounds craved touch and how much they loved hugs, I could never deny him that, I didn’t want to.

“Yes, of course.” Another giant piece of my armor fell away.

“Is there anything else I can do to help?” I asked, because he was being so vulnerable with me, in a way I never thought he ever would, or was capable of, and I wanted to give him more.

“Can you touch my skin?” he asked roughly. “I need your hands on my skin, sunshine.”

Heat flushed through me as I nodded and slid my hands up under his shirt, my palms meeting smooth, hot flesh. “Better?” Now I was having trouble breathing right.

The vibration in his chest increased as he shuffled closer, wrapping his arms around me more firmly, his hands moving over my back. “I can’t get enough of you in my lungs,” he groaned.

“I like your scent too,” I said, because I was surrounded by it, by him, and it was making me lightheaded.

He made a contented sound as he fisted my hair lightly and pressed his nose to it, breathing deeply again. That sound, gods, it had my blood heating and my nipples tightening. He shifted his hips just a fraction, and I felt how hard he was. So impossibly hard.

“Ignore it,” he said roughly.

“Ignore the massive hard-on digging into my belly?” I said breathlessly.

“Not expecting anything more than this. So yeah, ignore it. Just having you with me, letting me hold you like this is enough. Not trying to pressure you into anything. I just need you close.”

This male was destroying me one word at a time, and before I let myself think too much about what I was going to do, I reached between us and undid his jeans.

“Sunshine?” he rasped against my throat.

“Let me soothe you,” I whispered. “Let me touch you.” I shoved his jeans down a little so I could free his cock, and I moaned when the hard, hot, thick length filled my palm.

“Fuck,” Jagger said, voice guttural.

“Back against the wall, Charming.” I pushed his shoulder, and he did as I asked, turning and pressing his back to the brick wall. Yeah, he did what I said because he wanted me to keep touching him, but I was starting to think Jagger would do almost anything for me, anything I asked.

He was too thick for just one hand, so I took him in both and stroked him more firmly. “Good?”

His eyes were on me, glowing in the darkness, and he hooked me around the back of the neck and thrust his hips forward, into my grip. “Fucking perfect.” He kissed me then, deep and hard, as he continued to thrust into my tight grip. Always taking over, always the one who needed to be in control.

“You’re a control freak,” I said against his lips.

“Yeah, but for you…for you I could surrender.”

“Just not now?”

He fisted my hair tighter. “No, not now. I feel too fucking volatile right now.” He groaned. “Squeeze tighter, baby. Fuck, that’s it.”

“You’re so beautiful like this,” I rasped, the words falling from my lips before I knew they were coming.

“Nothing more beautiful than you coming for me, sunshine, nothing.”

His breathing grew more ragged, and there was no more talking while he fucked into my grip. He pressed his forehead to mine, panting hard. I was trapped in his glowing stare, unable to look away.

“Please,” he choked out, breaking the silence.

That one word, the sound of his voice so raw and desperate, more of that vulnerability, it reached inside me and gripped me tight.

“Please, sunshine,” he said again.

I felt it, everything behind his plea, and though I didn’t know how to voice the response he wanted from me, I felt that too. I couldn’t say it, admit it, to him, or myself, just yet, but another giant piece of my armor fell away, revealing the truth as it shattered to unrepairable dust.

I was his.

His cock grew thicker, impossibly so. He took my mouth in a brutal kiss, and groaning against my lips, he came, shaking and growling for me.

No matter what happened between us from here on out—I belonged to Jagger.

And he belonged to me.