Primal Instinct

19- RELIEF

Somewhere between waking and sleep, I shifted, seeking friction, chasing a sliver of relief. His breath hitched, his hand clenching on my hip.

"Stop moving." The command was a low, gravelly rasp against my ear, each word strained as if hauled up from the depths of a well.

I shuddered, the sound vibrating through me, a counterpoint to the frantic pulse beating between my legs. I tried to obey, I really did, but the fire under my skin wouldn't let me. It was a living thing, this heat, a supernova trapped in my veins that demanded friction, pressure, him.

I was curled against the solid wall of Trenton's chest, his heavy arm a possessive band around my waist, pinning me to him. The entire room, his sanctum, was saturated with his scent—cedarwood and cold night air, smoke from a distant fire, the wild, clean smell of earth after a storm. It was the only thing that soothed the raw, aching need making me tremble.

I was drowning in him, wrapped in one of his soft cotton shirts that did nothing to shield me from the awareness of every hard muscle at my back. My hips gave another involuntary, tiny roll, seeking the solid ridge of his erection pressed against the cleft of my ass. A desperate sound, half-sob, half-whimper, escaped my lips. His arm tightened instantly, a steel trap.

"Nahiry." This time, my name was a warning shot. A final one. "I am not that strong. This... fragile control I have? It's hanging by a thread. So for both our sakes, stop."

But the thread was already snapping. I could feel the change in him, a tectonic shift. The man, Trenton, was all rigid discipline and clenched jaw. But the beast beneath his skin, the Lycan he called Remus, was rising, its hunger a palpable heat that rivaled my own.

When he spoke again, the cadence was different, the voice lower, layered with a guttural growl. "The little rabbit is scared. But her body knows what it needs. Let her come to us."

My breath hitched. Rabbit. The nickname shouldn't have sent a fresh wave of liquid heat pooling low in my belly, but it did. It spoke to something primal in me, something that recognized the hunter in him and wanted to be caught.

"I can't," I whispered, the confession torn from me. I was burning up from the inside, a fever with only one cure. The bond—that inexplicable, terrifying tether that had snapped into place the moment I'd stumbled into his world—pulled taut, a physical ache in my chest. "Trenton, the pain... I can't take it anymore. Please. Make it stop."

The silence that followed was heavier than any sound. I felt the internal war raging within him in the frantic beat of his heart against my back, in the way his muscles quivered with the effort of holding still.

"If I start," he said, Trenton's voice back, but fractured, raw with a need that mirrored my own, "I won't be able to stop. This... touching you like this... it will seal it for Remus. You'll be his, Nahiry. Truly. There's no going back from that."

It wasn't a threat. It was a grim, devastating truth. And in that moment, hovering on the precipice of agony, the choice was no choice at all. My body had already chosen. My soul, it seemed, had chosen long before I even knew his name.

"Yes," I breathed, the word a surrender and a victory. "Please."

It was all the permission he needed. The last vestige of his restraint shattered.

In one fluid, powerful motion, he rolled me onto my back, looming over me. The dim light caught the gold of his chain, the subtle flash of the grill on his bottom teeth. His eyes, usually so fiercely guarded, were molten gold, pupils slitted. The predator was finally loose.

"Mine," Remus growled, the sound rumbling through the bed.

Trenton didn't answer with words. He answered with his hands. One large, warm palm slid up my inner thigh, pushing the shirt he gave me to wear up to my hips. The calloused skin scraped deliciously against my oversensitive flesh, and I bucked against him, a silent plea.

"Look at me," Trenton commanded, his voice rough but his touch agonizingly slow. "So beautiful." Then he told me my amber eyes were glowing with a faint, desperate pink as they met his.

"What does that mean, is it normal?"

"No, but it means I have some work to do. Now, stop thinking." He finally touched me. A single finger slid through my dripping wetness, and I cried out, my back arching off the mattress. The relief was so immediate, so profound, it was almost a new kind of pain.

"Hmm." he purred into my ear. "Look, at that. So wet for us," he murmured, his gaze locking on mine as he traced my slick folds. "All this... for me."

He was studying me, memorizing every flutter of my eyelids, every gasp that escaped my lips as he explored me. One thick finger circled my clit, and my vision whited out for a second. The pleasure was a sharp, bright counterpoint to the dull throb of the heat, a focused lightning strike against a raging forest fire.

"More," I begged, my hands fisting in the sheets. "Trenton, please."

He gave me what I wanted. He pushed a finger inside me, and my inner muscles clenched around him instantly, greedily. The stretch was exquisite, a perfect fullness that began to quiet the screaming void of my need. He moved his hand with a relentless, knowing rhythm, his thumb painting slow, torturous circles on my clit. It was too much and not enough. The coil of pleasure tightened deep in my core, a storm gathering force.

Then he lowered his head.

His mouth was hot and demanding on my inner thigh, a sharp nip that made me jump, followed by a soothing lick. He was marking me, tasting me, claiming every inch of skin he could reach as he worked his finger in and out of my soaking heat. The dual sensations—the intimate penetration and the possessive bruise of his mouth—shattered what was left of my coherence.

"I can smell it," he said against my thigh, his voice muffled and darkly thrilled. "Your pleasure. It's the sweetest thing I've ever known."

When his mouth found my core, I shattered.

His tongue was a flat, rough stroke against my clit, and I screamed. Hands flying to his head, tangling in his short curls. He didn't just lick; he devoured. He feasted on me as if I were the only sustenance that could keep him alive, his tongue lashing my sensitive nub while his finger crooked inside me, hitting a spot that made me see stars.

The world narrowed to this, the rasp of his stubble against my tender skin, the slick, filthy sounds of his mouth on me, the crushing grip of his hand on my hip holding me still for his consumption. The bond between us wasn't a tether anymore, it was a live wire, pumping pure, undiluted sensation back and forth. I could feel his satisfaction, his primal, possessive joy in my response.

The climax ripped through me without warning. It was a convulsion, a seismic event that locked every muscle in my body. A broken, endless cry was torn from my throat as I came, pulsing around his finger, my hips held firmly in place by his relentless grasp. He didn't let up, drinking down my release, soothing me with his tongue until the waves of pleasure gentled into faint, echoing tremors.

I collapsed back onto the bed, boneless and spent. The fever was gone. The agonizing heat had been replaced by a deep, humming satisfaction. I was floating, anchored only by the weight of his head on my thigh, his soft pants cooling my damp skin.

Trenton slowly pulled away, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes, when they met mine, were a chaotic mix of emotions. Grim resignation warred with a dark, triumphant hunger. He had given me relief, but he'd also bound me to him in the most primal way possible.

The worst of it finally ebbed, leaving me boneless and wrung out, I drifted. My last clear thought was of his lips against the back of my head, a touch so light I almost could've imagined it.

"I can't keep you," he murmured into my hair, words meant more for himself than for me. "But I can't let you go, either."

His heartbeat thundered steady against my spine. The bond purred, content—for now.