Page 20 of Never Tamed (Bad Wolves #3)

Ren

I want to stay mad at Torin. The fissures of anger spread inside of me, but the frayed edges of red ringing my vision are gone. The man cooked for me. The uptight, stubborn, billionaire and king of capitalism…ruined a grilled cheese sandwich. For me.

He tried to, anyway. He tried his best, and now we’re both soaked to the bone. Laughter bubbles up, and once my mouth falls open, there’s no stopping it. Throwing his head back, Torin laughs just as hard. It’s the most free I’ve ever seen him.

“Only you would practically burn this place down,” I somehow manage to get out. Tears and dirty sprinkler water sting my eyes. “You’re going to flood the entire place!”

Our laughter dies down slightly when he turns me in his arms. But those blue eyes stay narrowed with amusement this time, not with anger.

I’m not used to him looking at me this way. I shiver, the shudder running along my spine, pooling low in my abdomen.

Torin’s always pissed about something or aggravated. Frustrated. Stubborn and cold. But now, he’s unsure of himself. I feel his emotions through the bond I always suspected existed and only now know for certain.

It’s been challenging to feel him but not to make space inside of me. I think I’ve always had room for him, though.

Now, he’s staring at me with strands of golden hair slicked to his face and scruff outlining the hard line of his jaw. Instead of a normal suit, he’s wearing a loose fitting button down shirt left undone at the top and rolled up to his elbows. He looks younger than I’ve ever seen him before.

“You sure did make a mess of things,” I say with a chuckle.

“I did.”

The way he says it, I know he doesn’t just mean now. He means overall—with keeping back his feelings, with still trying to marry Catarina.

“But I’m going to make it right,” he says. “Starting now.” Then he grabs my face and kisses me.

His lips press softly to mine at first but the tentative brush becomes a full on demand in a heartbeat. His tongue glosses over the seam of my lips and I open for him automatically. This is a different possession than our night in his office.

He made me crawl to him.

Now, he worries I’ll bring him to his knees, and he’ll like it so much, he’ll stay there.

I anticipated making him grovel today. As our tongues tangle and he kisses the breath right out of my lungs, I wonder if it’s sustainable in the face of so much fucking lust I could drown in it.

His hands keep me pinned as he cups my face and tastes me at his leisure. The hold forces me to stay still while he makes every part of my body fill with heat. I come alive with every heartbeat shared and every molecule of air he steals.

He breaks the kiss to whisper, “I haven’t laughed like that in years.”

His callouses brush against my chilled skin and replace the cold with heat. My core goes molten. Instead of pushing closer, instead of molding my chest to his, I stay rooted in place.

Torin has always been the kind of man to take control. He thrives on it, needs it like water and air and light, and I’m not sure who he is without it. A part of me wants to find out. Another part is not ready to be taken along on the ride of my life.

Whenever I’m with him, he sets me on fire. It’s completely different from the others. They each awaken a different aspect of myself so that when we’re together, I’m finally whole. I’m home.

With the water still shooting from the sprinklers above, Torin devours me, covering my mouth with his so fully I’m not sure where I leave off and he begins.

His stubble grinds against my skin and leaves me raw. “I love you. So fucking much.”

I cover his hands with mine, clinging to him.

Not sure where we go from here although my body has certain, extremely detailed ideas on what I’d like.

My skin tingles and tightens, a flush traveling through me, until I’m practically begging for him to do something.

To make a move rather than let me dissolve bit by bit in his hands.

Torin drags me closer by my face before maneuvering me back a step. My thighs hit the table hard enough to rattle the dishes.

“Fuck it,” he groans. “I’ve gone this far.”

Not far enough. I’m starving for him. For his hands on me. I need to feel him everywhere and Torin accommodates without me having to say a word. His lips brush mine before he nips a line along my jaw and skims those large hands along my shoulder to pry up the edge of my soaked shirt.

I’m surprised the heat doesn’t dry us. His stubble grazes my skin in the most agonizing and delicious way—

Torin pushes me harder against the table and lifts me by my ass. In the same move, he sweeps an arm out. Plates and cutlery scatter.

The clang of metal against the wood floor, his growl, makes my core molten. He drives me forward and my spine slams against the table until the air pushes out of my lungs.

He’s right. Fuck it.

I don’t need it.

I only need him and the way I come alive when he looks at me. The bite of pleasure and pain together clenches my core.

“Ren.” My name is a whispered prayer dragged from the bottom of his throat.

Different, so different from the first time when he made me crawl to him. The power dynamics skewed entirely in his favor then.

Or maybe not.

He drags his teeth along the line of my neck and bites down on my collar bone to mark me. Maybe the power has always been mine, I just didn’t realize it. Because I’m the only one who has been able to disrupt him, to rock his neat and tidy little world. It’s been me all alone.

It just took him longer than I thought to recognize it.

He claws my wet shirt and rips it off me. The fabric tears easily and his growl deepens before he covers my body with his. He overpowers me in the best way, his scent filling my nostrils and obliterating the stench of burned cheese.

He cooked.

This powerful beast tried to make a meal for the two of us.

He steals my lips again and our tongues tangle together. His hands thread through my hair, pulling, before he grabs my wrists and stretches both arms above me.

Seeing Torin undone, breathing heavily, at my mercy even though I’m the one beneath him, is everything I want.

“I’m going to knot you this time. And you’re going to look at me,” he demands.

He smiles and a hint of sharp teeth flash in the dim dining room.

The others will be here for dinner shortly.

My smile is equally wicked. “Then we better hurry.” It’s almost dinner time.

He tears at my pants to get them down to my ankles, and I fumble with the waistband of his. This moment is ours. I arch my knees to give him access as he free his cock, his eyes lowering to my core.

His breathing is shallower now and my mouth goes dry.

How many times have I dreamed about him looking at me this way?

I never get a chance to tell him. Still partly clothed, he grabs my legs to pull me to the edge of the table. His cock in hand, and he strokes the already hard shaft.

“I can’t be easy with you. I can’t be soft,” he growls.

I shake my head. “I don’t want you to.”

Air leaves my lung in a gust when he covers my body with his again, blocking out the rest of the room. The heat flowing off him obliterates every last thought in my head, all the ideas I had about making him pay.

He notches his cock to my entrance and rubs it over me, coating himself in my desire. His eyes meet mine and my jaw drops when he plunges home. His length fills me, hard and unyielding as he buries himself to the hilt.

The hair on my arm rises in goosebumps and electricity chars my veins. His eyes are a richer blue than I’ve seen before.

Torin pulls free and then thrusts inside, the motion rocking me and the table beneath me.

The dishes that hadn’t scattered clink together and his smile is wicked, vicious, all sharp teeth.

He pumps inside me, increasing the tempo, and I grip his shoulders for purchase. The sensation is too much. The way he fills me, the way every part of me comes alive at his touch, it’s nothing short of miraculous.

“Oh, god.”

I tilt my head to the side as my lashes flutter closed. Then gasp when he pinches my chin.

“Look at me.”

He slams home, working his hips in devastating circles. The lash of pain where he grips me is nothing to the pleasure of being filled and he slides his hand down to my neck and stays there.

“Look at me and say my name.” His demand is a guttural grunt.

“Yes, Sir,” I reply breathlessly.

He squeezes slightly until the pressure makes it just a little harder to breathe. “Cheeky.”

The punishing thrusts stroke my pleasure higher and Torin reaches his other hand between our bodies to flick my clit.

“So fucking good,” he says.

I expect him to ruin me. I brace for it, for the way I crumble beneath his hands. But the kiss feels stolen when he closes the space between us. His hand on my neck eases, and he pauses between my thighs.

He maintains the pressure on my clit until my skin goes tight and my heart throbs like a prayer.

This isn’t like the first time. This is…sweeter. More tender. Everything our first intimate moment hadn’t been.

Torin kisses me slowly and thoroughly. For all his warnings that he wasn’t going to go easy, he’d made himself a liar. It’s equally potent to see him undone this way.

The dishes he didn’t scatter before crash to the ground with the circling of his hips. My heart becomes the beat of his thrusts. The connection between us strengthens before going steady.

It’s this unbreakable thing, a shining light in the dark, and he’s never mattered more to me than he does right now.

Torin absorbs my moans and every keening wail he swallows has his hips pistoning harder.

He plunges inside of me and I’m not sure where he leaves off and I begin. There’s only this bond between us and the delicious friction of skin on skin.

The hand on my neck disappears and he grabs my knee, lifting my leg over his shoulder to go deeper.

I’m fracturing and coming together as something different.

“I’m going to come,” he grunts, breaking the kiss. “I’m going to knot.”

He demands eye contact. Demands everything out of me.

And looking at him, staring into the depths of him he’s never let me see before, my own climax shatters me.

My muscles seize and stars dance in front of my eyes.

The pressure inside my core increases as Torin’s cock swells.

The knot bulges at his base and he growls, the swelling keeping us trapped together as he empties himself. Filling me with heat.

And through the knotting, I look at him, feeling him everywhere. Inside me and out. Our bodies are locked in the most primal way, his knot ensuring his seed penetrates every part.

Then he’s kissing me mindless again.

He lifts me into his arms to cradle me against his chest. Time means nothing to us. The dinner is forgotten, the broken water line, the burned meal, everything.

Finally, his cock deflates and he lifts me off of him before setting me on my feet with his cum dripping along the inside of my thigh. I’m jelly-legged.

At some point, during the fuck-fest, the sprinklers stopped. The strobe lights still flash, though, illuminating the boyish grin on his face. He pushes a hand through his hair.

“I like my scent inside of you. It marks you as mine.” He clears his throat. “I’ve never knotted a woman before.”

That pulls me up short.

“Never?”

“Why would I want to get someone pregnant? My seed, the alpha seed—” he starts.

I hold up a hand. “Please, no. You’re going to ruin my afterglow.”

My thighs throb, my core used in the most amazing way. And this man is looking at me like he’s seeing me for the first time. Or maybe he’s seeing himself in my eyes for the first time, all the things I’d thought he could be.

He hauls me onto the tips of my toes to meet him for a kiss.

“I love it when you fight back,” he mutters, nipping my lip. “Ms. Wexler.”

I shiver. “I love it when you fuck me this way, Sir.”

It’s the first time we’ve ever used the L word even adjacent to our feelings. The possibilities of future use hang in the air between us.

Torin clears his throat again, his nerves prickling my mind down the bond. “I made something for you.”

My brows draw down. “You mean, besides the grilled cheese?”

The scowl is much more at home on his features. “I mean that I made something for you.”

He says it like I need to pay better attention and his tone draws a laugh out of me. He reaches for his pants and pulls them into place, buttoning them around his hips. Then from the front pocket, he pulls out a silver chain.

“Put it on.”

There is nothing soft about him anymore, but he’s not quite back to the person he used to be before our mate bond. There are pieces of that man still here, a flintiness when I look in his eyes. I’m not sure how to act or who to be when he’s not inside me.

Sex is easier. I can’t say it’s easy because nothing about the connection between me and these wolves is easy.

But I feel more confident when I’ve lost myself.

I straighten and another rush of warmth trickles down my leg. “What is it?”

His brows draw down. “Put it on.”

Then, like he caught himself, his eyes widen.

I hold up a finger. “If you start using manners with me, I’ll really be thrown for a loop. Keep the please silent. I know what you mean.”

And because it’s Torin, because he isn’t the type of man to do what he’s told, his grin goes wide and wicked. “Please, Ren.”

The metal is warm from being in his pocket.

“I made it because I want the world to know you’re mine.” When I stare at the necklace, he helps me loop it around my neck. “I’m fine sharing you but this shows the others. I have a claim.”

Okay, it’s cute. Loving.

And I feel really cared for. Maybe it will be easier than I thought to lean into this new wave of our relationship.

Then again…Andras is still out there. He’s got the other omegas—if they’re even still alive—and he’s gunning for us. He’ll destroy everything I care about so now isn’t the time to be loving and cared for and soft. Now is the time to get shit done and kick some ass along the way.

Torin grabs me by the back of the neck and pulls me forward, pressing his mouth to mine and stealing the breath from my lungs.

Mine . The word echoes through me, sent along the bond.

Mine , I send right back.

Poor Andras doesn’t stand a chance.