It wasn’t just dirt darkening his skin. There were bruises, too. She touched her fingertips to a livid mark on his ribs. “When did this happen?”
“During the fight. You were there, remember?”
She remembered Fleance limping in his hellhound form and protectiveness rose up inside her, hot and fierce. “You’re hurt—”
“But you’re not. That’s what is important.”
“No, it’s not.” She soaped up a cloth and ran it gently over the bruise. Then over his chest, his arms, every part of him that she could reach. There were more bruises hidden under the dirt, and scratches. Most of them were already scabbing over but enough were still unhealed enough to stain the water red as it whirled into the drain.
Sheena looked into his eyes. “If we’re ever in a fight like that again, you have to let me take some hits. I won’t let you put yourself on the front line again.” She pulled him down for a kiss. *Not without me by your side.*
*If we’re in a fight again,* he agreed. *My job is to make sure that doesn’t happen. As your mate and as your pack.*
*Good luck. I don’t think my hellsheep has the same opinion on fighting as you. Or me, for that matter.*
Fleance smiled against her lips. *I’m still a hellhound. If your hellsheep needs to be herded…*
*You wouldn’t dare.*
He stroked her sides, drawing her closer. *You’re not my alpha yet.*
She leaned towards the heat that emanated from his entire body. She was hot, too, her body straining for his touch. Every brush of his hands on her skin, his lips against hers, made her burn more fiercely. Desire was a weight strung between them, pulling them both in.
But she didn’t want to rush. The last time had felt almost brutal with desperation. There’d been no space for her to cherish his body. This man, who was already so much a part of her and yet about whom she still had so much to learn.
She let her hands drift down from his chest, trailing a river of droplets over his stomach. The darkness was still in his eyes, but despite his bruises, he wasn’t badly hurt.
*Is it okay if we take this slowly?*
His eyes burned. *Of course.*
There was no desperation now, just a deep hunger and longing and the promise of a future stretching out far ahead. Sheena pushed Fleance into the corner and pulled his head down to kiss him while her other hand explored the hard line of his collarbone. She trailed her fingertips along his shoulder muscles, amazed all over again that every inch of this gorgeous man was hers.
Fleance moaned as her hand drifted lower. His thighs tensed at her touch, and when he grabbed her and lifted her with her back against the wall the only reason it wasn’t a surprise was because she’d felt the mate bond thrum with intention a split second before. Sheena laughed and kicked her legs half-heartedly.
“Hey. Who’s claiming who, here?”
Fleance kissed her, which wasn’t a reply. She dug her fingertips into the tight muscles at the base of his neck and he groaned and rested his head on her shoulder, still holding her up against the wall.
*I’m yours,* he murmured, his voice a prayer in her head.
She lay a row of kisses down the side of his neck, following the thick band of muscle that was still too tight, too tense. *Only if I’m yours, too,* she breathed back, nibbling gently. He moaned at the scrape of her teeth.
*Yes.*
Sheena’s whole body thrilled. The mate bond lit her from the inside, held her in orbit with Fleance, but this was a different, darker excitement. The mate bond was fate. This was something new. Something they were both choosing with all their hearts.
She wrapped her legs more tightly around him. The line of his cock jutted against her inner thigh. Her skin was wet, slick from the water still pouring over Fleance’s back and shoulders, but she burned wherever Fleance touched her.
He dragged her head up and kissed her again, deep and slow with a moan that rumbled through his lips directly to her core. She wriggled impatiently, realigning herself against the glorious hardness of his cock.
He murmured wordlessly against her lips and bucked his hips. The head of his cock pressed into her, hot and thick and so good her whole body curled with exquisite thrill. If Fleance hadn’t been holding her up she would have slithered deliciously to the floor. With his arms around her, she let herself revel in every second of sensation as he pushed inch by inch into her. Her soul had been reshaped over the last day, twisted into a new form and then taking a new shape for itself, but her human body remembered this feeling; remembered the press of Fleance’s fingertips in her skin as he thrust hilt-deep into her, the soft gasp that arrived in her heart along the mate bond a millisecond before it reached her ears. The wonder in every stroke of his hands across her body. The doubled, tripled rush of feeling, skin to skin, heart to heart, the mate bond amplifying every touch and every touch making the light inside her burn brighter. Not inevitable. Hard-won, and precious, and hers.
She let out an involuntary gasp as he drove into her. Every inch of her body, inside and out, hummed with a building, electric arousal. Fleance kissed her and she bit down on his lip. Not hard enough to draw blood; the roar of desire that spilled out of him was so intense she gasped and released him.
Then she kissed him even harder than before, twisting his hair around her fingers and grinding into him. Her nipples grazed his chest and she cried out as he slid one hand up to cup her breast, a hungry moan on his breath.
“Please,” he groaned, and inside her head: *Please.*
He moved one hand
