Chapter 2: His Hands All Over Me

Wren's POV.

My mother's voice saved us both, and I hated her for it even as I thanked every star in the sky that she'd walked in when she did. The moment she disappeared down the hall with her folder, I shoved past Dante and bolted for the stairs, taking them two at a time like the house itself was on fire behind me.

I slammed my door and pressed my back against it, chest heaving, and I could still feel the ghost of his thumb tracing my jaw like it had branded me there. Three years of pretending I didn't notice him, and all it took was one cornered moment in the kitchen to burn that pretending straight to the ground.

I told myself to breathe. I told myself this was Dante, my stepbrother, the boy who was supposed to inherit an entire pack and marry someone worthy of standing beside an Alpha, not the lowly Omega girl who happened to share his last name by marriage.

None of it helped. His voice kept looping in my head, low and rough, asking if I'd thought about it too, and don't lie to me Wren, I've seen the way you look at me. My whole body still felt lit up from the inside, like every nerve had been waiting years for permission to want something it shouldn't.

I sat on the edge of my bed and told myself I would not do this. And then I did it anyway.

I let myself remember the exact weight of his hand caging me against the refrigerator, the exact hunger in his eyes when he said my name like it cost him something, and I stopped fighting the ache that had been building in me since the night I first heard him say it through a door.

My fingers slipped under the waistband of my sleep shorts before I could stop them. I closed my eyes and pictured the way his broad shoulders had blocked out the kitchen light, the heat of his body pressed so close I could feel every hard line of him.

Warmth bloomed low in my belly as I touched myself the way I imagined he might, slow at first, then deeper, chasing the memory of his rough voice and the dark promise in his stare. My breathing turned ragged.

My thighs trembled. I bit my lip hard to keep quiet as the tension coiled tighter and tighter until it snapped, leaving me soft and shaking and still aching for the real thing.

Even after it was over I still felt him everywhere.

Which is exactly when someone knocked on my door.

I froze, my heart slamming so hard I was sure it could be heard through the wall. There was only one person in this house who would knock like that, low and deliberate, like he already knew I wouldn't say no.

I opened the door anyway.

Dante stood there with his jaw tight and his eyes dark, and before I could say a single word he was inside my room, the door shut behind him, and his hand had already found my waist and pulled me flush against him like he'd been aching to do it for years.

"I told myself to stay away from you," he said, voice rough against my hair, his warm breath ghosting over my ear until I shivered.

"Every night for three years, I lay in that room down the hall telling myself you were off-limits. My sister. My father's stepdaughter. A line I had no right to cross, no matter how many times I caught myself thinking about you." His grip on my waist tightened, like he was fighting the urge to pull me even closer.

"I told myself all of that, Wren, and none of it mattered the second that door opened. It's not working now. I don't think it ever will again.”

I should have pushed him away. I should have reminded him about his father, about the pack, about every reason this was wrong. Instead I felt my hands curling into his shirt, holding on instead of letting go. My fingers dug into the hard muscle of his chest as if I could anchor him there forever.

"I need you to stop me," he murmured, pulling back just far enough to look at me, and there was something almost desperate in his eyes, like he was handing me the one thing that could save them both.

"Tell me to leave, Wren. Tell me you don't want this, and I'll walk out that door and we never speak of it again."

I could have ended everything right there with three small words. I have never regretted anything the way I regret what I said instead.

"I want you too."

Whatever control Dante had been holding onto broke completely the second the words left my mouth. He kissed me like he'd been starving for it; deep and claiming, tongue sliding against mine with a hunger that made my knees weak. I met him with the same need, three years of stolen glances and midnight kitchens finally spilling over into something neither of us could take back.

His hands were everywhere at once. One tangled in my hair, tilting my head so he could kiss me harder. The other gripped my hip hard enough that I knew there would be marks later.

He walked me backward until the backs of my knees hit the bed, then followed me down, covering my body with his much larger one.

"You're mine tonight," he growled against my mouth, warm breath mixing with mine. "Say it."

"I'm yours," I whispered, already breathless.

He kissed a path down my throat, teeth grazing the sensitive skin just hard enough to make me gasp. His fingers dug into my thighs as he pushed them apart and settled between them.

I could feel how hard he was through his jeans, pressing right against the place that still throbbed from my own touch earlier.

Clothes came off in a rush of hurried hands and impatient mouths. His shirt first, my fingers dragging over the warm planes of his chest and the ridges of his stomach.

Then mine. He stared at me for a long second when my top hit the floor, eyes dark and possessive, like he was memorizing every inch.

"Beautiful," he rasped. "So fucking beautiful, and you're mine."

He cupped my breasts, thumbs brushing over my nipples until they tightened into aching peaks. Then his mouth was on me; hot and wet, sucking and licking until I was squirming beneath him, fingers digging into the strong muscles of his back hard enough to leave crescents in his skin.

When he finally tugged my shorts and panties down, the cool air made me shiver. He spread my thighs wider with rough hands and looked at me like he wanted to devour me whole.

His warm breath ghosted over my most sensitive place a second before his tongue did.

I cried out, hips jerking. He held me down easily, one big hand splayed across my stomach, the other gripping my thigh so hard I felt the claim of it.

He licked me slow and deep at first, then faster, sucking on the swollen bud until I was shaking and gasping his name. The tension built fast… too fast… and when it broke, I came hard against his mouth, thighs clamping around his head while my fingers dug into his hair and the sheets alike.

He didn't give me time to recover. He rose over me again, kissing me so I could taste myself on his tongue, and I felt the thick head of him press against my entrance.

He was so much bigger than my fingers had been. The stretch burned as he pushed in slowly, inch by careful inch, eyes locked on mine the whole time.

"Fuck… Wren," he groaned, voice low and unsteady. "You're so tight. So perfect."

I clung to him, nails digging into the warm skin of his shoulders as he filled me completely. There was a sharp sting when he pushed past the last resistance, and he went still, forehead pressed to mine, warm breaths mingling.

"Okay?" he asked, voice rough with restraint.

I nodded, eyes stinging a little, but the pain was already fading into something deeper and better. "Don't stop."

He started to move… slow at first, giving me time to adjust, then deeper, harder. Every thrust dragged against places inside me I didn't know could feel this good.

His hands gripped my hips possessively, holding me exactly where he wanted me while he claimed me over and over. The room filled with the sounds of skin against skin, our shared breathing, the soft broken noises I couldn't hold back.

"Look at me," he ordered, and I did. His eyes were nearly black with want. "You're mine. No one else gets this. No one else ever will."

The words sent another wave of heat through me. I wrapped my legs around his waist and pulled him deeper, meeting every hard thrust.

My fingers dug into the flexing muscles of his back, holding on like he might disappear if I let go. His warm breath fanned across my cheek, then my neck, as he kissed and bit and marked me while he took me.

The pleasure built again, tighter and hotter than before. He reached between us and rubbed tight circles over that sensitive spot, and I shattered with a cry, clenching around him so hard he groaned my name like it hurt.

A few more deep, possessive thrusts and he followed, burying himself to the hilt as he came inside me with a low, broken sound.

The world outside that room stopped mattering. His family, my mother, the pack waiting for him to become someone respectable; none of it existed anymore, not with his body still pressed so close and his heart pounding against mine.

I will not pretend I remember every detail of what happened after that door closed. I remember his voice in my ear, rough and unsteady in a way I had never heard from him before.

I remember how careful he suddenly became after the first hard claim, like some part of him understood this mattered more than either of us was saying out loud.

I remember thinking, somewhere in the haze of it, that I had wanted this exact thing for three long years and never once believed I would get it.

It was only after, when the room had gone quiet and my heartbeat was finally slowing, that Dante went still beside me. I followed his gaze to the sheets, and my stomach dropped.

He saw it at the same moment I did. The proof of what he'd just taken, small and unmistakable against the white fabric, told him something I hadn't found the nerve to say out loud beforehand.

"You were a virgin." It wasn't a question. His voice had gone hollow, all the heat from a moment ago drained clean out of it.

I opened my mouth to tell him it didn't matter, that I'd wanted it to be him and only him, but the look on his face stopped me cold. Something behind his eyes was collapsing in real time, guilt crashing down over whatever had driven him to my door in the first place.

"This shouldn't have happened." He was already pulling away from me, already reaching for his clothes with hands that weren't quite steady. "You're my sister. My father's wife's daughter. I just..." He stopped, dragging a hand down his face like he could wipe away what he'd done. "This was a mistake. I never should have come in here."

“I am really sorry, Wren.” he let out abruptly.

"Dante..."

"I have to go." He wouldn't look at me anymore, and that was somehow worse than anything he could have said. He was dressed and at the door before I could find any words that might have stopped him, and then he was gone, leaving me alone with the ache in my chest and the proof on my sheets that whatever we had just done, there was no taking it back.

I lay there a long time after the door clicked shut, waiting for him to come back and tell me he didn't mean it, that leaving like that was the mistake and not the hours before it. He never did.