The gland on my upper back aches, pulsating sweetly with every word he says. Begging for attention. “The idea of anyone else touching me makes me physically ill. So.” I attempt a smile. He does, too. We might be in agreement about how painful all of this is. “I can hear your heart.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s . . . fast.” Like a drum. A rhythmic nudge against my skin.

“Must be the tea.”

“It was herbal. No caffeine.”

“Then maybe it’s from earlier today. Busy, y’know.”

“I’ve seen you run, and fight, and it’s never been this loud.”

“Serena. If you’re not going to let me bullshit an answer, just stop asking questions.”

I laugh. He doesn’t, but the hungry little thing inside me is starting to blur the world, so I go to him anyway. And we must be some kind of perfect, perpetual motion machine— it’s that easy, the way my body slides against his as I straddle his lap. His hands lift to hover around my waist, then fall back to his side, fisted.

There is a slight strain on my inner thighs as they open around his hips. His torso is longer than mine, and we’re just about eye to eye. Breath to breath. Infinitely close, even if the only place where my skin touches his is our foreheads, leaning together.

“Do you want me to stop?” I murmur.

He says nothing, so I make to move away, but his hand hooks into the soft inner part of my knee.

You know I don’t. Stay.

“Okay.” I settle deeper into him, trying to get some pressure on my clit. I hold on to the back of the couch, right above his shoulders, and gingerly grind against his erection, feeling the rough pinch of the fabric of his jeans.

Instant pleasure sparks up my spine. The friction is so life-changingly good, it rips a breathy whimper out of me. I slowly collapse into him, hiding my flushed face in the crook of his neck, tracing the outline of his gland with my nose.

His response is a silent shudder.

I’m already impatient. Frustrated. Wondering what it would be like, having him inside me. He’s hot and heavy. Massive. Would split me open. Maybe you’d hate it, I tell myself. You don’t even like guys like him.

But, no. It doesn’t matter that the men I used to have sex with would have chopped off their own middle fingers before acting as though they knew what was best for me, and respected my unwillingness to sleep next to someone who wasn’t Misery. There were no orders— just polite requests. But Koen . . . It’s so easy to imagine how he’d act. Methodical and self-assured and bulldozer-like. Formidable. Unstoppable. And I’d relish every second of my time with him, like I always do.

“Whatever you’re thinking about,” he rasps against my ear, “continue.”

“Yeah?”

He nods. “You smell incredible right now.”

“Like . . . how?”

“Like you’d let me keep you here and fuck you for the next six months. Like you need me to.”

I moan and rotate my hips— an unwise impulse. We both exhale. Our brains glitch, and we have to stop for a few seconds, until that bug is fixed. “You can keep me forever,” I mumble into his throat, and his cock twitches under me. “Is this okay? I’m making a mess of you, and— ”

“Do more of it.”

I obey, rolling slowly, savoring every little bump. His blood pounds against my ear. I could lick his gland now, but I’m afraid that I’ll come, and this will end, and I don’t want it to. Not yet.

“Last night,” he says against my cheekbone, “you fell asleep, and I couldn’t stop thinking about your fingers. How they’d been between your legs. How I could have licked them.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. Imagine how difficult this must be for him. “What does . . . celibacy. What does it mean?”

He stares up, cheeks flushed dark. “I’ll get you a dictionary for your birthday.”

“Koen. Where is the line?”

“The line is everywhere, Serena.” A hollow laugh. His hand travels up my spine. Cups my nape. Our lips are closer than ever, but never meet. “My entire life is made of fucking lines. And you’re blowing past all of them.”

It doesn’t feel like it. It feels like I’m the one standing still in a storm. “What about this?” More grinding, and my clit catches against something that has my thighs shaking. “What if I’m doing all the work? What if you’re just my . . . Mine.”

“Stop,” he says.

I do. Inhale deeply. “Want me to move away— ”

“No,” he orders before I’m done talking. “You’re so— I just need a fucking second.” He squeezes his eyes shut. His head falls back. “I cannot come, Serena.”

“Why?”

He takes slow, long breaths. Collects himself.

“Is it because if you don’t come, we can pretend that this is not sexual? That it’s a favor you’re doing for a . . . friend?”

He snorts. Opens his eyes. They are pitch black. “It’s been sexual since the second I saw you, and . . . I have friends, Serena, and you’re not one of them. But yes. It’s easier to forgive myself if we make this about you.”

I bite my lip, ready to protest how unfair this is, but stop, mortified. I don’t want him to have to forgive himself. He doesn’t owe me anything. “I’m sorry. I— ”

He shakes his head. Twists his hand so that it curves around my cheek. “Hush,” he croons into my ear. “You’re all worked up. And wet. Just a handful of days from your first Heat.” His teeth scrape against my jaw. “It’s okay. I know how hard this is. I’m going to take care of you, okay?”

I agree with a mindless nod. The need in my blood is rising. I will die without this.

“I’m going to make you come, however many times you need. And then I’m going elsewhere to make myself come.”

“I can— ”

“No, Serena. You can’t. But I can. I want you to tell me what you need, and I want the privilege of giving it to you. I want you to use me.” A kiss on my collarbone. “If you think there is anything I would like more than seeing my mate through her Heat, you are fucking wrong. If this is all I get, I’m going to make the most of it. Okay?”

I nod again, which gives him a path to my throat. His mouth closes around my gland and it’s so sudden, so shocking, I scream. “Koen,” I gasp, moving my hips again. The pleasure is white-hot. “Feels so good.”

The curve of a smile. “Feels better for me than for you.”

“Impossible.” My breath tumbles out. “I . . . I tried.”

“Hmm?”

“Touching my glands. But it didn’t really— not like when you touch me.”

“Sweetheart.” He nips at it.

I shudder, full-bodied. “It has to be you, Koen. We’re like . . . lock and key? It has to be us.” I rock in his lap, demanding release. Closer and closer, clumsier and clumsier.

“You’re my mate, but I’m not yours. There will be other keys for you.” A flat-tongued, broad lick. When he bites me again, it feels a little more violent. Like he could easily break my skin, and he wants me to know. “And I’ll do my best not to kill them. No promises.”

“I don’t want them.” I sob in pure frustration, pressing harder, all soaked, sticky underwear and hard ridges, marks sucked into tender skin, deep inhales. “I don’t want anyone but— ”

The first orgasm hits me so hard, I dig my nails into his shoulders. Koen drags it even longer, wrings as much out of it as he possibly can without even touching me, just little slides of his hips where I need them the most. I tremble in his arms and let him take me apart as he tells me how beautiful I am, how good, how lost he is.

It ends too soon. It’s not enough.

“Okay?” he asks, and I shake my head.

“I’ll never be okay again.”

“Yeah.” He is hoarse. Desperate but amused. “We’re both fucked.”

Pleasure inches down my spine. I close my fingers around Koen’s palm, which is work-rough and large, and I try to pull it down to my inner thigh. He stops me halfway there. “Why?”

“I can’t, Serena. If I touch you there, it’s over.” His kiss on my cheek is light. “There’s this voice in my head, screaming at me that I should hold you down and knot you and shred your gland until it’ll scar in the shape of my teeth, and I’m trying very hard to muffle it.”