Page 52 of The CEO Alpha’s Substitute Mate

I line myself up and push in slowly. The heat of her nearly undoes me. She is tight enough that every inch costs effort, and the way her body yields only gradually forces a low sound from my chest. I bury myself to the hilt and stay there, forehead against hers, breathing hard, giving her time.

“Look at me,” I command.

Her eyes open, and I begin to move. I draw back almost all the way, then drive forward in a long, controlled thrust that seats me deeply again. The wet sound of it fills the quiet room. She gasps, a short, sharp intake of breath that turns into a soft moan when I repeat the motion. Again. And again. Each stroke is deliberate, hips rolling so that I grind against her at the end of every thrust. Her hands find my shoulders and dig in. The sounds she makes grow louder with every push of my body into hers: a broken little cry when I go deep, a shaky exhale when I pull back, a longer moan when I change the angle and drag over the place that makes her thighs tremble.

I keep the pace steady and hard. The bedframe answers each thrust with a low creak. Her head tips back against the pillow, mouth open, and the flush on her cheeks darkens. I watch every flicker across her face as I drive into her, listening to the way her voice catches and softens and then rises again.

When the next tremor starts in her legs, I pull out. She makes a sound of protest. I turn her onto her hands and knees in one motion, then settle behind her. One hand fists in her hair and pulls her head back until her spine arches. The other grips her hip hard enough to hold her still.

I push into her from behind in a single deep thrust. The angle is sharper. She cries out, the sound higher than before. I draw back and drive forward again, harder this time, the wet slap of skin meeting skin loud in the room. Every thrust forces a new sound from her throat: short, desperate, rising with each impact. I keep my fist in her hair, holding her head back so she cannot drop forward, and set a relentless rhythm. Deep. Hard. Steady. Her arms shake. Her breath breaks into gasps and moans that spill out of her without control.

“Callum—”

“I know.” My voice is rough against the back of her neck. “Give it to me.”

She shatters with a broken cry, clenching hard around me. The force of it pulls me over the edge with her. I drive deep one last time and spill inside her, every muscle locked, her name the only word left in my mouth.

I am still hard.

I ease out of her only long enough to turn her onto her side. One of her legs I lift and settle over my hip, opening her. I push back into her in a single smooth stroke. She gasps, the sound startled and soft, her body still fluttering around me from the last climax.

My hand finds her jaw and turns her face toward me. I lean in, bite the lobe of her ear just hard enough to make her shiver, and whisper against it.

“I hope you have no plans of sleeping tonight.”

Her broken moan is the only answer I need.

Chapter 10

Callum

When I come to, there’s a small body burrowed into mine, soft hair strewn on my arm as a head rests on my shoulder. The scent is unmistakable. Ariela makes a sound of protest as I adjust my position and the sheet falls off her shoulder.

Her chest is covered with marks, as is her neck. There are four marks along the top of the shoulder where the skin is thinnest, a set of finger marks laid into her hip when I lift the sheet to check, and one at the base of her throat that went purple overnight. Bites run down her spine, none of them deep enough to break skin. Keeping my teeth off her throat was the only part of it I managed.

There has been one woman in my life, and she has been dead for ten years. I never once left a single mark on Elena that lasted past the hour because she was pack and she healed. Nothing about last night was careful.

I don’t feel any regret as I look at her pale skin holding the proof of my claim. Tracing the marks along her shoulder, I feel a wave of possessive satisfaction. They’ll fade inside three days. Every person in this house with a nose will know who she smells like. My wolf rolls around inside my chest, more pleased with himself than I have ever known him to be. My seed is inside her, and while the scent of my touch can be washed away, the traces of myself I left inside will not be so easily removed.

Her breathing shortens against my ribs. I shut my eyes and let my head go slack on the pillow because I want to hear what she does when she believes nobody is watching.

She groans. The sound is all pain, drawn out, and it turns into a hiss when she tries to move her hip. She doesn’t move again for a few seconds.

“Oh, shit.” It comes out on almost no air. “Oh, shit. Oh, shit, oh shit.”

She starts to peel herself off me. I let my arm tighten across her back, dead weight, an unconscious man holding on, and she gets nowhere at all.

“I can’t believe I did this. He is going to kill me.”

She works at my forearm with both hands, gives up, then goes still. A second later, her breath catches, and I know she’s discovered the marks on her body.

“Are you a dog, Callum Vance?” Her voice goes up two full steps. “You haven’t left a single part of me unmarked. You should have just pissed on me.”

I open my eyes. “Now why would I do that? That’s unhygienic.”

She turns her head fast enough that her hair slaps my face. The look she gives me is one of aggrieved dismay.

“You’re awake?”