"You didn't deserve to die, Hope. You were beautiful and brave, fighting to stay alive. Me, I'm just a hunter. A killer. I'm only alive because I deal in death. I didn't have to know your true nature. I knew in an instant that if I weighed my life against yours, it was no contest."
The inside of the truck went quiet. Hope didn't move, barely even breathed.
Maddox desperately wanted to glance over at her, just to get some idea of her reaction—shock, disappointment, disgust, whatever it might be—but for the first time since he was a child, he didn't have the guts.
If he'd shown Hope his vulnerability only to have her reject him, he didn't think he could take it.
Fortunately, Hope didn't make him wait long to know how she felt. Rising up her knees on the seat next to him, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek.
And not some chaste kiss of gratitude, either. Her mouth was hot and hungry against his skin, her touch demanding.
Maddox's cock hardened in an instant.
Screw waiting to get to his land.
He pulled the steering wheel hard to the right, the truck veering across the shoulder into the brush. He cut the engine and pulled the brake the second the wheels left the pavement.
Maddox didn't give a shit who might drive by, who might catch a glimpse of their bodies locked together.
This was natural. This was right. This was how things were supposed to be.
Maddox reached for Hope and pulled his omega on top of him.
* * *
He felt like hot brimstone and sweet heaven all at the same time.
Maddox's huge, rigid cock grinding against the soft place between Hope's legs filled her blood with fire even as it swept all the fear and tension from her body.
Hope didn't know how she'd ever lived without his touch. Being with him was so all-consuming that she couldn't imagine a world without him in it. He was everything she needed.
She swept her tongue over his lower lip, teasing his mouth. Maddox reacted by cupping the back of her head and crushing her against him. His kiss was fiery and brutal—a claim on her very soul.
His kiss made it clear that she was his. Not his property or possession, but a living, breathing part of him, just as he was part of her.
This alpha who didn't care about creature comforts or the warmth of human connection had risked his own life to save hers. He'd chained himself to a tree, denying his instincts and enduring unimaginable pain, just to keep her alive.
He'd bathed her. Fed her. Pleasured her body beyond all imagining because they were bound together, not just physically but spiritually.
Their worlds were expanding because of each other. Hope had seen and felt more in the weeks at Maddox's side than in all the years that had come before. And he was pushing himself far past his comfort zone, all because of her.
Hope knew his life would be a lot less complicated without her—and yet that hadn't stopped him from bringing her closer. From taking her in.
Maddox's soul wasn't like any other Hope had come across. He was honest—sometimes painfully so. He was true. Sure, he was a bit of an outcast even among other alphas, but Hope understood what that was like.
She'd been that black sheep in her parent's church. The one everyone shook their head at. The one they walked away from.
Hope would never walk away from Maddox.
She twisted her fingers in the fabric of his shirt, desperate to pull it from his chest. Desperate to feel the heat of his bare skin on hers.
He pushed her hand away, tore off his shirt, and tossed it out the window, then did the same with hers. It was just as well. She never wanted to see the stained and ruined clothes again.
Her pants followed shortly after.
For a brief second, Hope regretted losing the only real clothes she'd had here in the Boundarylands. She hoped Mia could get that shipment in sooner rather than later.
But in the next second, all reason was swept away by Maddox's kiss. Hope's thighs tightened around Maddox as her slick poured from her onto his cock.
The cock she needed more than life itself.
But he didn't give it to her. Instead, he teased her with his fingers, plunging one thick finger and then another deep inside her pussy.
She cried out in pleasure as he found the tender spot deep in her inner walls. Tension coiled tight inside her belly, but still, she longed for the shock of his huge shaft breeching her.
"Maddox," she pleaded. She didn't have the words to say what she wanted—what she needed. She could only call his name.
But she should have known that Maddox didn't need to hear her words to understand what she wanted.
"Oh, I'm going to take you," he growled against her ear. "Just as hard and just as fast as always. But this time, it's going to be different."
A thrill ran up Hope's spine at the word different. Electric tingles of anticipation spread all the way out to her fingers and toes.
He tilted her head up with his free hand, forcing Hope to meet his gaze.
"Do you trust me?" he asked.
What kind of question was that? Of course, she trusted him. With her life.
With her soul.
"Say it," he demanded.
"I trust you," she said.
Maddox growled in approval.
Fingers still relentlessly lighting up her G-spot, he shifted her hips forward. His cock slid behind her easily, dripping with her slick.
"Then prove it," he said.
Instinctually, he lifted herself up, readying herself. But instead of the tip of his cock sliding against the opening of her pussy, it pressed against her puckered hole.
Oh God.
This was what he wanted.
Her pussy gushed at the thought of his cock, swollen and massive, in her ass. Slick flowed down between her cheeks, readying her body.
But was it even possible?
An omega's pussy was made for an alpha. But her ass? She
