Page 27 of Rose's Untamed Bear

I felt the words settle between us, heavy as a vow. I touched his face, traced the line of his jaw, the old scar at his temple. It was impossible, how gentle he looked in the firelight. How fiercely I wanted him.

“More than ever,” I said, and I meant it with every bone, every nerve, in my body, so much so, I could have wept from the certainty. He hesitated, just a flicker, his breath caught as though he feared he might shatter me, but then I reached for him, pulled him down, and kissed away every remnant of doubt. My legs seemed to know on their own what they needed to do, as they slid around his waist, my ankles locked to hold him close, and the desperate, wild thing inside me found its answer in him.

I could feel the pounding of his heart, frantic and urgent, beneath the thin skin of his chest as we fit together, not beast and maiden but equals, shivering with the same hunger and hope. I angled my hips so he could guide his cock inside me. His groan was so ragged and reverent it nearly shattered me, as if he, too, could scarcely believe this was real. He moved slowly, so slowly I nearly screamed with impatience. There was nothing bashful or clumsy between us, only a careful, trembling anticipation that made the air vibrate. I could see he wanted to rush, to take, to claim—but he held himself back for my sake. He was goodness, he was golden restraint, and the knowledge of it just stoked the need further, until I ached for him even as he touched the smallest, most secret part of me. He circled my entrance with his cock, painting me with his heat, and it was almost too much, not enough, both at once. I could have begged, I nearly did, but then he pressed forward, careful, measured, and I gasped at the stretch. There was pain—sharp, brief, gone almost before I could mourn it—and then there was only the fullness, the rightness, of him inside me.

But he saw the flicker of discomfort on my face and stopped at once, breathing my name like a prayer. “Too much?”

Stunned from the rush of sensations, I could only shake my head, “More,” I finally panted. “I want all of you. Don’t stop, Derrick.”

He obeyed then, moving slow, letting me get used to the shape and heat of him. Every rock of his hips drove the ache deeper but also brought pleasure threading through it, until the pain was only another flavor of this wild, shattering love. Our bodies found their rhythm—clumsy at first, then perfect, as if some old, old memory was guiding us.

He buried his face in my shoulder as he moved, his breath hot against my ear. “I never thought I’d have this,” he whispered. “Not with you. Not with anyone.”

“Don’t you dare let go,” I whispered back, and he laughed, broken and happy.

He moved faster, then, chasing his own hunger, and I clung to him as the pleasure built again, dizzy and burning and right. Somewhere in the dark behind my eyelids, I was flying, or falling, or both at once. He kissed my mouth, my cheek, the hollow of my throat, murmuring my name like a spell.

I hardly recognized the second build, the gathering of heat, the trembling everywhere—not a gasp or a spark this time, but an entire rising tide. It crested in my belly, shivered down to my toes, back up my arms, through every inch of me that he’d touched and claimed for himself. The pleasure came slow, like a storm cloud rolling in over summer heat, but when it hit, I clung to him, and my nails raked his shoulders as I cried out his name, “Derrick!”

I felt him tense at the sound of it. He shuddered, braced himself over me, and his rhythm faltered. “You’re mine,” he groaned, thewords were a low, wild growl against my throat. The notion of belonging—of being claimed—should have frightened me, would have, once. Instead, they set something loose inside me. I ached for them, for him, for the strange, dizzying pleasure that kept building until it carried me right to the edge of breaking. It floated me all the way through the brink of something... I sensed would be incredible.

He slammed into me, once, twice, a last savage thrust, and then stilled with a ragged cry of my name. Heat poured into me, hot and shocking, making me gasp as though I could feel it everywhere at once. I didn’t understand what he had done, only that his release seemed to pull mine with it, wrenching another wave of bliss from me until I was trembling, clutching at his shoulders, lost with him in the storm.

We hung there for what could have been years—sweat tangling our skin, the scent of our joining curling up with the smoke of the fire. My body trembled with aftershocks, and his trembled with a different kind of awe, a stillness so complete it felt sacred.

At last, he softened, dropping his forehead to my shoulder and just breathing me in. I stroked his hair, his back, every inch of him I could reach, desperate to keep us knotted together, even as his spent cock finally slipped free and left me hollow in a new, aching way.

He rolled to his side and cradled me against his chest. My head fit perfectly beneath his chin, and for a long, lazy moment, we didn’t speak. The fire cast shadows over us, slow and gentle. The world outside could have fallen to darkness or ice, and I would not have cared.

I thought I’d feel shy, or somehow changed. Instead, I felt an anchor in my chest, like the only thing keeping me on this earth was the press of his heartbeat under my ear.

When he spoke, it was a whisper. “Do you know what you’ve done to me?”

I shook my head, pressing a kiss to the hollow above his heart.

“You’ve saved me, Rose,” he said. “You’ve given me back something I thought lost forever.”

I wanted to laugh, or cry, or maybe both. “You’re a fool. I didn’t save you—I ruined you. You’re ruined for everyone else now.”

He snorted, and the sound shook through us both. “Is that a promise?”

I grinned, a little wicked. “It’s a threat. But I mean it in the kindest possible way.”

He dragged me on top of him then, flattening me against his chest, and I could feel the new hardness already stirring between us. “Let me ruin you, too,” he said, his voice half-challenge, half-prayer.

“Already done,” I whispered, and I kissed him again, tasting salt and smoke and something like forever.

We had no way of knowing what time it was, how long we lingered in that enchanted vault. The world outside could have been day or night, spring or winter, and we wouldn’t have cared. We only rose when necessity forced us, when the fire needed feeding, or when our bodies demanded a relief. Otherwise, there was only us.

Being with her like this, able to touch her, to kiss her, to hold her whenever I wished, was a gift from the gods I would never squander. She was everything. My Rose.

And yet guilt gnawed at me. She had given me her first experience here, in the cold shadows of a cave rather than in the softness and safety she deserved. I told myself again and again that I should have waited, should have been stronger. She deserved silk sheets and sunlight, not stone walls, dirt, and thesmell of smoke. Worse still, I knew her body needed time to rest, to heal from the intensity of what we had shared, but I had been greedy for her.

So I insisted we remain until she was ready, until she could rise without weariness clouding her eyes.

Eventually, the food ran out. Naturally, Rose refused to let me hunt alone. Together, we caught enough game to dry and pack, enough to see us through the two days it would take to reach my father’s castle.

“We should leave tomorrow morning,” I suggested as we worked side by side.