What the hell am I doing? Am I out of my mind? I can’t make Koen touch me. I don’t want to make anyone touch me.

Except, and I know this with bone-deep certainty, I need someone to touch me.

“I get it. You don’t have to . . . Is there anyone else who could help me with . . .”

It’s a stupid question, and the second I articulate it, I realize that the simple idea of someone else touching me makes me want to tear the flesh off my bones. But going by Koen’s deep, guttural, displeased grunt, he doesn’t know that.

“You’re not going to— fuck it.” He carries me to bed, sits on the edge of the mattress, and pulls me down between his spread legs, facing away from him. Almost in his lap. When I try to grind backward, chasing his erection, he stops me with a hold that immobilizes my arms at my sides. It’s a little like a straitjacket, made of thick muscles and scent. Exactly what I need. I got you, it tells me. I no longer have to control myself, because he’s doing that for me. I have permission to beg and thrash in his arms.

“That,” he growls in my ear, “is not the kind of stunt you pull with an Alpha. Not when you’re on the brink of a Heat.”

“I’m sorry.” I’m on the verge of tears. The guilt is like a thousand needles in my chest. “I wouldn’t. It’s just— ”

“I know.” He kisses the ball of my shoulder, just a brush of his lips. “I’m going to help you. But you need to do as I say. Okay?”

My nod is frenzied. “As long as you touch me. As long as you— ”

He nips the spot he just kissed. A hint of teeth. Warning. “Not how it works, killer. You do what I say, no conditions.”

Sure. Okay. I’m too desperate to put up a fight. There’s nothing inside me— nothing but the need to come. I don’t feel embarrassed when he asks, “When you touch yourself, what do you do?”

“I don’t— not in months.” I had more pressing issues, even though I can’t remember what they were. How was anything ever more deserving of my attention than this? “I’m sorry, I— ”

“Hush. It’s okay.” He licks a spot on the hollow of my throat, sending a live current down my spine. “I said I’m going to help you, didn’t I?”

The help I need involves him bending me over and fucking me into the mattress, so I let out a whiny whimper when he takes my hand, braids our fingers together, and moves them to my lower stomach, where the elastic of my panties sticks to skin.

It feels wrong, that they’re the only thing I’m still wearing, especially when Koen seems hell-bent on not touching me anywhere else.

And then my stomach drops. Because I realize that he’s not going to touch me there, either.

“You’re going to use your fingers,” he instructs slowly, letting go of my hand. His lips are hot against the arch of my ear. “And you’re going to make yourself come.”

“What? But I— ”

His teeth close around the fleshy part of my neck, just this side of too hard.

I yelp. Squirm against his chest. Moan in frustration. Plead wordlessly.

“Tell me, killer.” He nuzzles me. “What makes you think that this is a negotiation?”

“Please, use your fingers. Why don’t you want to— ”

“You need to shut the fuck up about what you think I want. This is a mess, and you’re not in any condition to make any asks. You promised to do what I say.” A kiss on my cheek. “Is this who you are? Someone who breaks her promises?”

I shake my head, feverish, panting.

“Good girl. Fingers,” he orders. “Now.”

I shove my hand down my underwear with no grace. “Oh my God.” It’s just . . . so much. Way too much. “Why am I so wet?”

“It’s normal,” he says. “You’re going to need it.”

“F- for what?”

He exhales against my shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. Just touch yourself.”

I rub myself clumsily, slipping through my folds. I’ve done this enough times in my life, it should be easy. But it’s like there’s a balloon swelling inside me, and it won’t pop. My hips buck impatiently, and I circle, I rock, I grind, and . . . I nearly burst into tears.

“Slowly,” Koen orders roughly. “Can you go slower?”

I can. God, I can. And it’s already so much better. His scent is suddenly pleased with me, and I revel in it. Let my head fall back against his shoulder.

“Do you need something inside you? To come?”

I shake my head. Not usually. Right now, though, I want it.

“Okay.” He inhales deep, like I smell as good to him as he does to me. “You’re doing so good, killer.”

“Yeah?” I whimper.

“Yeah, baby.” His laughter is soft. Wound up. “I’m trying to come up with a list of things I wouldn’t do just to be allowed to eat your cunt right now, and I can’t think of a single item.”

“Why don’t you, then?” I whine.

“’Cause you’ve never asked me to before. And no, now doesn’t count. Open your legs wider. A little more. Yeah.” The last word is exhaled. A little choked. Like he’s savoring. Adding a file to his visual library. “I have no right to it, but fuck, I just want to see enough to imagine what’s happening.” His tongue runs a broad stroke across a spot on the side of my throat, and a fraction of a second later I’m on the verge of coming.

“W- why does that feel so good?”

“What?”

“When you touch me— there.”

“Where?” He briefly lets go of me. Moves my hair over my shoulder again, baring my back. “Here?” This time, he scrapes his teeth against the skin between my shoulder blades, and my head shatters into a thousand pieces.

I arch like a sail, breathless, speechless. Nod frantically as my fingers speed up under the cotton of my soaked panties, and—

“I didn’t say you could go faster,” he chides with a brief tap of his fingers over the fabric.

I grit my teeth and stop. Resume with slow circles that are somehow too much and not enough. My entire body is glowing.

“These are your glands, Serena. Did no one show you?”

“No.”

“Might be for the best. I’d have to stop what I’m doing and go kill them.” Another graze of his teeth. All my muscles clench, and I’m afraid I’ll pass out. “There are five places in your skin where your scent is stronger and your hormones are thickest.”

“Five?”

“The inside of your wrists.” He brings my left hand to his mouth and nips the area at the base of my palm, making me shudder. “Each side of your throat.” He sucks on the right for far longer than would be necessary for a simple demonstration. By the end, I’m trembling so bad, my fingers can barely stay on my clit. “And then there’s the back of your neck.” Another slow, savoring lick. My eyes roll back in my head.

“’S good,” I slur. “This one’s . . . good.”

The chuff of his laughter makes me even shakier. “This one is special. It’s where I would bite you, Serena. High up, where clothes couldn’t hide it. And then I’d lick my bite every day to remind you.” He sucks on it, and the pleasure is so intense, I have to twist away, overwhelmed. “If you knew the things I think about every time your neck is bare, you’d walk around in a fucking cape.”

“I do— I want to know. Tell me.”

“That would be unwise, killer. In fact, you shouldn’t let me near it at all. Near you.” One last kiss. He covers my back with the curtain of my hair and taps again at my hand— a silent order to continue touching myself.

I’m instantly on the verge of coming. I think I’ll slip over, but something pulls me back.

“What about— ah— what about me?”

“Hmm?”

“Where would I bite you, to show that you’re mine?”

Koen goes still at the question. And then, after processing it for entirely too long, he lets out a soft, explosive curse against my collarbone. “I hate it,” he breathes out.

“What?”

“How perfect you are. I spent the last twenty years hoping that if there was a mate for me out there, I’d never come across them. And then I found you, and, Serena . . . there isn’t one thing I would change about you. Or one single thing I regret about knowing you.”