Page 57 of Mate

He’s faintly terrifying. He pushes against me, but instead of slipping inside, he goes nowhere. I cant my hips to help, but nothing happens. A mewling sound rolls out of me. “Is it— ” Normal? Am I fucking this up?

“It’s not you,” he reassures, leaning on his side, along my body.

“Never been easy.” He braces himself on his forearm.

“I hoped it would help, that you’re almost in Heat, but .

. .” His hand spreads against my belly and slides down.

He sinks a single finger inside me, and it’s so much bigger than one of mine.

When his progress stops, he gently works me open.

Licks my gland, a broad swipe on my neck, and maybe half an inch gives.

A single step on the staircase to Machu Picchu.

“It hurts,” I sigh.

“Does it?” He kisses my cheek. “Are you too full? Or too empty?”

“I want more.” I try to take it, too, thrusting my pelvis upward. Koen stops me so easily, it’s embarrassing.

“Hey,” he says, soothing. “I want to fuck you really, really bad. You know that, right?”

I nod.

“Good. I can’t rush this, killer, because if you become sore or hurt or God fucking forbid, torn, you’re not going to get a couple of days to recover.

Once your Heat starts in earnest, you’re going to want me inside you, whether it’s painful or not.

So I’m going to move slowly. And I need you to do what I say. Okay?”

Another, more subdued nod. A “My good girl” brushed against my jaw helps his finger sink deep enough that he can slowly, relentlessly work another one inside, tucked next to the first. I clench around him hard enough to make him grunt.

The stretch burns so nicely, I cannot help but squirm.

My fingernails dig into his arm, his wrist, searching for purchase, a counterpoint.

My hips won’t stay still, my entire body twitches, I still need more , but I’m being good. I’m doing what he says.

“Yeah, you are.” His laugh is rough and shaky.

Another loving, soft kiss, this time on the corner of my mouth.

“You were born for this. A little more, huh?” Reality fuzzes over.

Sweat drips from his body onto mine. I shake head to toe, contracting around fingers that are too thick and not thick enough.

I’m on the edge, and the finish line keeps moving farther and farther, and—

“Can’t come like this, either, sweetheart?

It’s okay, almost there. Take them a little deeper, and we can try again.

” A few low encouragements— yes , good , look at you , just a little more — and then he’s on top of me again, biting my lower lip as he eases inside.

This time, the first couple of inches slip right in.

“Yes,” I say, drawing up the knee he’s not pinning to the mattress. “Yes, yes, yes .”

He winces and smiles at the same time, and there is something youthful about it, something that looks fresh on Koen’s face. “See, we’re getting there.” Teeth close around my earlobe. “You just need to be patient. Don’t you?”

Yes.

“I thought so.” He wraps his hand around my throat, thumb and index finger on either side of my jaw. He doesn’t press, but it’s a warning, a reminder of who’s in charge. I wonder what’s wrong with me, that I experience so much gratitude for it, tears stream down my face.

We are not Human.

We really aren’t. I am not. I’ve never felt it so much as right now, with Koen licking the tears off my temple. “Quiet,” he whispers against my ear. “Don’t make me come too soon. Let me get you used to it.”

I still my lower body, obedient. Or not. When I tip my head to the side and scrape my teeth around the gland on his throat—

“Fucking hell.” His control vanishes. Our eyes meet.

His hold on my neck moves upward, fingers splayed open, pressing on my chin.

Index and middle dip in my mouth, slide over my tongue, the grip tight enough to stop me from moving my head again.

Then his cock drives deeper inside me, sustained, unrelenting, long and fat and far too much.

I beg for more of it around his fingers, even as every sinking inch has me pushing my palms against his shoulders to shove him away.

My heels twist against the sheets. I try to make room that doesn’t exist.

“Breathe,” he tells me. “Just breathe, Serena.”

I’m trying , I can’t bring myself to say.

I want everything. Nothing. No— everything.

I babble things that make no sense, clawing into the muscles of his upper arms, holding on to the large expanse of his upper back until the sweat makes my palms slip.

All throughout, Koen does exactly what I need.

We’re past words and gestures. Past the ability to lie.

We’re Weres, and we communicate through scents.

He understands what I want: to be broken in. “It’s okay, Serena. Almost all in. Easy.” A little more. A little more. There’s no room, but he’ll make it. One tweak of my nipple, one kiss to my gland, one flick on my clit at a time.

“I think I like this,” he says, strained. Hazy eyed.

“You t- think?” The words muffle against his fingers. My internal muscles are overextended. “T- that’s flattering.”

His laughter is a choked huff. “I meant— having you this way. Exposed. Pinned.” His hand slips to cup my head.

He kisses my lips, gentle. “In a matter of days, you’re going to leave, and I’ll spend the rest of my life as your fucking servant.

Whatever you ask me for, you’ll have. But here you are. Defenseless. Mine for a short time.”

He almost pulls out. Pushes in again. My moan meets the air rushing out of him.

He repeats the same motion, wild eyed, lips curving in a dumbfounded, incredulous smile.

I feel him rearranging my cunt, my soul, my entire damn life, and lose control of my body.

My head falls back. My thighs tremble. His thrusts are slow. Shallow. Redefining.

“’S good,” I say, meaning that it’s the best thing I’ve ever felt in my life, bar none.

“It’s good,” he agrees, looking like he means the exact same thing.

Another stroke. Another one, slow, like he wants to make each last as long as possible. He luxuriates. Indulges in every second of friction. “Serena,” he breathes out against my cheekbone. “I think this might be it, for me.”

His arms slide under my back before I can ask him what he means. Gather me up in a viselike embrace. The drag of our skins. Wet noises. A terrible, all-consuming heat. His eyes, never leaving mine. It all whirls together and winds down to the place where Koen is fucking me.

“I’m going to come,” I gasp, and convulse around him before I’m even done announcing it, pawing desperately at his shoulder. He stays still while I do, waits it out crammed inside, pressing against all those spots.

When I’m done, he kisses my cheek, tells me how beautiful I am, and orders, ruthless, “Again.”

I want to laugh at him, but he makes me come in less than a minute with slow rolls of his hips and watches every second of me falling apart.

“Serena,” he says, except there’s no sound other than the whimpers in my throat. “Again.”

“I can’t,” I tell him, but I’m so wrong, and his pace is measured, a patient, unforgiving rhythm, and this time my release is so intense, I forget to breathe.

“Absurd,” he says, and I know he’s going to ask me for more.

It occurs to me how terrifying it must be, for an Alpha whose existence is predicated upon control, the unraveling that comes with pleasure like this.

I wonder if he knows. I wonder if anyone has seen him this vulnerable in the past two decades.

I reach up to cradle his face in my hands. Kiss his hot lips. Say, “Koen. Next time, I’d like for you to come, too.”

He can’t say no to me. The steady, controlled movements become frantic, pounding, the thick of his cock filling me over and over, words of adoration and filth murmured in my ear. Another orgasm crashes into me. His cock gets even bigger and fuller, and—

My breath catches in my throat. “What— Koen?”

He kisses me, deep. Lovely. He’s not really moving anymore, just grinding inside me, trying to find a perfect spot, and the feeling of fullness becomes unbearable. I feel a tinge of alarm. Stop , I should say. Stop. It’s not normal. It’s too much. But it’s not. And Koen knows it.

“Take it.” He shoves deeper. “Be good and take my knot.”

“I— I don’t— ”

“You do . You were made for it. How could I ever think of fucking anyone else, when you take it so well?”

His cock starts jerking, and he holds me tighter, groaning against my gland something about his “perfect mate” and her “perfect, tight cunt” that almost sounds like poetry, and his orgasm lasts for . . . for minutes, I think. “That’s it,” he grits out. “That’s where my come goes.”

It’s perfect. I comb a hand through his hair and wrap my arms around him, feeling his heavy breaths reverberate through me, the sounds of his pleasure. Being filled up, witnessing him let go, it’s all so good, another orgasm crashes into me, so violent that everything goes blurry around the edges.

I stay there, spasming, holding tight, for a long time.

So long, I startle when he says, “I’m crushing you.” He rolls me on top of him, my breasts flattened against his ribs, and he’s still inside, still as hard as when we started. In fact . . .

I squirm. Shimmy my hips. Tug at whatever is happening down there, whatever is making it so that we can’t quite separate yet. It’s like he’s lodged inside me. Locked.

I test the connection, finding that it holds strong. The rational part of me says that I should be panicking, but my hindbrain is in charge at the moment, and it’s profoundly okay with what’s going on.

Instincts , Layla said. And one of them is to squeeze my internal muscles to make sure that there is no give.

“Fuck,” Koen swears, and he’s coming again, a short burst that has him driving his hips up into me, and he mumbles into me that “there’s no need,” that he’s “already fucking gone” over me, that I’m “so good,” it’s going to “destroy” him.

So I do it again, just to watch the way the pleasure transforms his face, the tendons of his strong neck in relief as he arches back, his muscles tensing and releasing.

And once more, because he’s losing his mind , and I love it.

I could continue. Instead, I ask, “Koen?”

He’s too out of breath to reply, but he presses a kiss of acknowledgment against the crown of my hair.

“Please, don’t take this as a complaint.”

His hand was tracing my spine, but stops. “Did I hurt you?”

“Nothing like that. But I think I’m going to need a Were anatomy lesson before we . . . Actually, I think I’m gonna need it right now.”

His chin dips. He studies me to figure out whether I’m joking.

“Well,” he says at last. “Fuck.”