Page 16 of Bullied Pretend Mate (Silverville Firefighter Wolves #3)

I am no stranger to my wolf’s urges and cravings. I’ve been privy to them my entire life. My wolf is the reason I fell into a well as a kid. It’s the reason I couldn’t leave a stone untouched. The reason Maeve was constantly pulling me out of trouble.

When I followed the wolf’s advice, I usually ended up in some fucked-up situation. Trapped, or facing down a guy much bigger than me. Three times, I ended up with something broken or sprained from climbing higher than I should have gone.

My wolf has been the reason for the coolest moments in my life, and also the moments I wish I could rewrite. The reason for my recklessness.

The reason I pulled Maeve into that alcove and kissed her like I’d been wanting to my entire fucking life. The reason I let myself go for a few precious seconds, shocked to my core when she kissed me right back.

Maeve was always the realistic one. I thought she might want someone a lot more serious than me. Someone is going somewhere a lot cooler than Silverville. Someone with plans to leave town after school, unlike me.

So I’ve followed my wolf into scenarios and felt the pacing and cravings of that animal inside me more times than I can count.

But this, right now—this is more pressure than I have ever felt from the wolf in my entire life.

He’s clawing at the confines inside me, pressing against the line between me and him so hard that I don’t realize I’m growling until the sound fills the space around me. The pressure is so great that I feel the faint, dull tingling that comes before a shift.

My wants are combined—a wolf’s sense of ownership, claiming, wanting to take Maeve as hard and fast as I can. And my human desires to do a good job, to worship at her feet, to bring her as much pleasure as I can manage. For her to run her hands through my hair and tell me that I’ve done a good job.

In a way, I suppose I’ve been waiting for Maeve’s praise my entire life.

Now, I slot my hips between her legs and grind against her, forcing myself to take this slower than the wolf wants to. Allowing myself to feel each shivering layer of desire.

Because there’s a voice somewhere in the back of my mind telling me that I might not be able to get her like this again. That this might be my only chance to open Maeve up like this, get to see every part of her.

And I’m not going to waste it.

I want to bite her again when I’m buried inside her. Before, when we did it standing in the middle of that room, it felt so unmoored. Like something was really missing. And now I know what it is.

You’re meant to be connected when you give a bite like that.

I’m not usually an inquisitive kind of guy, but questions have been buzzing through me since our first mating mark—would it be more potent if we did it the right way?

Does how long you maintain the bite affect how strong it is?

Where is the line you cross between keeping it temporary and making it permanent?

Likely, we learned about it in school. Maeve probably knows the answer.

But it’s not like I’m going to ask her about it now.

With a hunger I’ve never felt before, I trail my lips over her body. I linger on her wrist, bury my nose in the pulse point there, breathing in her scent and catching only the slightest hint of my own there. It should be more. It should be stronger—I want it to be an equal mix of me and her.

Enough of me that no other alpha would labor under the delusion that she wasn’t taken. I want every person who walks past her to smell my claiming. To know that I stand behind her.

I bite her wrist gently, wanting to swallow her gasp at the feeling of my teeth there. I kiss the palm of her hand, then the top of her shoulder, and when my lips hit the spot where I bit before, she lets out a low, needy whine.

Part of me feels like I could do this forever. Tasting and touching her skin, which is warm and still damp from her shower. Breathing in the light, sweet scent of her.

When I kiss her, I lap at her tongue with my own. I swallow her gasps and grind my hips into hers, paying close attention to everything she does with her body.

And when she reaches down between us, her fingers reach for a waistband—either to touch me or herself, I’m not sure—I grab her wrists and pin them above her head.

She lets out a desperate, frustrated sob, a twisted sound of wanting and pleasure, and it makes my cock twitch eagerly, seeming to say she wants this, so why not do it ?

Because I want Maeve to be shaking and needy, I want her dripping for me.

At the thought of her slick—of her being wet for me already—I can’t hold myself back. Letting go of her hands, I slide down her body, hooking my thumbs in the waistband of her pajama shorts and underwear, stripping them off in one clean move.

When she’s bare, I force her legs as open as I can get them and waste no time diving into her, lapping at her with my tongue, sucking on her clit.

“ Felix ,” she gasps, her hips rolling against me, desperate for my touch.

I respond by slipping a finger into her, nearly blacking out at the tightness of her pussy around me, how it pulses, tightening with each curl of my knuckles.

“Oh—fuck—”

When she comes, I taste and feel it. I swallow the sensation of her, the tenor of her wanting, the potent, cloying effect of her lust for me.

Her legs are still shaking when I rise up, pushing my sweatpants down and letting my cock spring free. It’s heavy and thick, pulsing with the imminent need to be inside her.

“Oh,” she says, surprising me by reaching down and wrapping her hand around it, her eyes closing, her perfect, pouty lips in a little circle. I thrust into her hand, watching her eyelids flutter, and I know that someday soon, I’m going to ask her to put my cock in her mouth.

But not today. Not right now.

Right now, there is only a single thing on my mind.

I run my hands along the insides of her thighs, which are sweat-slicked and smooth, and force her legs as open as I can get them.

From this perspective, I can see her ample breasts bouncing with every move I make, her eyes on me intently, the dark look in them almost enough to make me come on the spot.

“Have you…?” I start, then clear my throat, finding it hard to form words. “Have you ever been with—?”

“No,” she breathes, her eyes flicking down to my cock, which seems to be straining toward her, as eager as I am. Her hand is still on it, stroking gently, the touch so light, it’s almost maddening. “But I want to.”

I close my eyes at the sound of that. She wants to.

“Okay,” I say, nodding, feeling my throat bob. “So, you know about the knot?”

“Felix,” she says, my name almost coming out as a whine, a little laugh right on the tail end of it. “ Please . I took sex ed. I’m losing my mind here—”

Me too.

I drive forward, but stop myself, notching in her entrance and watching her face, seeing the want there spread out over her features. Her eyes darken, her lips part, and her gaze focuses on that spot where our bodies are about to meet.

This is the moment I’ve been waiting for. From the time I was old enough to realize this was possible, since I went through puberty and realized just how close you could get to another person, I wanted this with Maeve.

And now I’m getting it.

I’m getting her, with her hair spread out over the pillow. The scent of her wrapped around me. The promise that I’m going to get to bury my teeth in her skin, that she’s going to want me just as much as I want her.

It’s impossible to be with her, because I want everything at once. I want my hands on her, pinching her nipples, holding her wrists down. I want the taste of her in my mouth, but also the walls of her pussy clenching around my cock. I want her bent over the bed.

I want her in every single way I can have her, but right now, I can only have her like this.

Being with Maeve makes me wish I were omnipotent, that I could be in multiple places at once. That I could hit every button and find the highest point of her pleasure.

“Felix,” Maeve breathes, lifting her hips toward me, pleading in her voice. “ Please .”

It’s the sweetest word I’ve ever heard, and it’s all I need to drive forward and take her, my entire world crumbling apart when I’m fully seated inside her, finding the closeness I have always craved, and feeling truly and impossibly at home.