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The bed rattled under us, the headboard knocking the wall in rough, rhythmic bursts. His breath hit my throat in ragged, desperate pants. I took him in, every tremor, every tightening muscle, every sound he made when I pushed him right to the edge.

Fuck. He was a beautiful man inside and out.

My back burned like someone had pressed hot coals to my skin, every scrape of his nails leaving a fresh streak of fire across my nerves. Marks rose, and welts bloomed under his claws. The bite of it fed something wild in me, a delicious agony that sharpened my senses and blurred the line between pain and hunger.

God, I lived for this.

The hurt.

The heat.

The proof of him on my body.

“Fuck, yes,” I groaned against his lips, my breath trembling. “Love how you take it. You’re so damn tight for me. I’m close, Stas… so close. You want it? You want my cum filling your tight pussy?”

“Yes—” he choked out, his voice breaking into ragged, desperate fragments. “More… please… need—oh god, Yuriy… you feel so good⁠—”

I locked both hands on his hips and dragged him into me, each drive deeper, harder, timed to the way his body braced for it like he knew what was coming and wanted it anyway. Then I shifted my angle, just a fraction, and he shattered, his head tipping back, mouth falling open, eyes rolling like the pleasure hit him too fast for him to hold it.

“Yuriy!”

I drove into him harder, faster, pushing the rhythm until the mattress protested beneath us. Stas met every movement with equal force, his body tightening, bracing, yielding in all the ways that stripped my control thread by thread. The way he writhed beneath me, the raw, broken sounds he spilled into the air, shredded what little restraint I had left. The coil inside me wound to a snapping point.

He shuddered under me, a deep, guttural groan tearing from his chest as pleasure ripped through him. His breath hitched, then broke as he came, the heat of it slicking our bodies where we were pressed together.

“Oh god, Yuriy…”

He whispered my name like it was sacred, and his eyes met mine with a wild, satisfied hunger that nearly undid me. I caught his mouth in a kiss and thrust deeper, a torn groan ripping from my throat as release crashed over me. I held him tight, driving my hips with frantic, stabbing thrusts, lost in the overwhelming pull of him, his heat, his voice, the way he held on like he’d never let me go.

And in that breathless, trembling finish, a terrifying truth hit me⁠—

All I wanted was to stay buried inside him.

To crawl inside the safety of his body and never leave.

A deep, bone-level satisfaction rolled through me. I’d done exactly what I meant to do. To breed him. Claim him. I’d broken through walls he’d thrown up and taken him apart piece by piece, leaving my mark all over him. By all logic, I should’ve gotten up, straightened myself out, and walked away with a smirk and a story about the night I’d fucked Stanislav Zhukovsky into the mattress like a back alley whore and made him beg.

But I didn’t move.

I couldn’t.

For a long minute, there was only breath, harsh, tangled, shared. The room still trembled with what we’d done, the scent of sweat and skin hanging heavily in the air. Every muscle in my body screamed to move, but I couldn’t make myself leave him. Not when Stas’s hand found the back of my neck, fingers sliding into my hair. The touch was possessive, but more than that. It was grounding. He pulled me down until our foreheads met, until we were breathing the same shallow rhythm.

Neither of us spoke.

His heartbeat thumped under my palm, fast but slowing, a stuttering echo against my chest. It was the only sound that mattered. I traced my thumb along his jaw, and he turned his face to catch it in a kiss, small, but without the shyness of earlier, as though he’d come to a sort of conclusion that left him more comfortable in this new skin of his—the skin of a man who’d found pleasure in the arms of his decade-old rival. A man who no longer second-guessed himself about wanting me.

When he looked at me again, something in his eyes shifted. The haze of lust hadn’t cleared. It had hardened, and it made my pulse trip.

Ownership.

Nothing about Stas had ever scared me, but that look did. We were both supposed to walk away from this when it ended without a backward glance. What happened between us in Kansas City couldn’t continue in Chicago when we were back around our kind.

But in that quiet, post-coital stillness, I realized I wasn’t the only one who’d claimed something tonight.

My chest tightened, heartbeat hammering against his. The air between us felt charged again, but not from sex. From the promise of something that could kill us both. I’d always assumed I’d be able to walk away first, smug and untouched. Now, looking into his eyes, I knew it wouldn’t be that easy.

I broke first.