Chapter 1: I've Been Waiting All Day

His mouth was already on my neck when the door clicked shut behind us.

I didn't care who might still be awake in the pack house. The storage room was far enough from the main hall, and the thick stone walls ate sound the way they always had.

Jörgen's hand slid under my shirt, his huge palm rough against my stomach, and I sucked in a breath that tasted like dust and his skin.

"I've been waiting all day," he muttered against my throat.

I tipped my head back. The stone was cold through my clothes. He pressed closer, thigh between mine, and I felt how hard he already was. My fingers found the front of his pants and worked the buttons open without looking. He made a low sound when I got my hand around him.

"Maria."

That was all. Just my name, rough and quiet.

I stroked him once, slow, and watched his jaw flex. His eyes were dark in the thin light coming through the high window. He looked at me like he always did when we managed to steal time like this. Like the rest of the pack and all their rules could burn.

He pushed my skirt up. Cool air hit my bare thighs. I wasn't wearing anything underneath. He noticed. His breath left him in a short laugh that wasn't really a laugh.

"You planned this."

"I've been planning this since breakfast."

He kissed me hard enough to make my back hit the wall. One hand stayed under my shirt, thumb brushing the underside of my breast. The other dragged my hips forward until I was fully against him. I could feel the heat of him through the thin fabric still between us. I rolled my hips once, just to feel it, and his fingers dug into my waist.

"Turn around."

I did. The stone scraped my palms when I braced against it. He dragged my skirt higher, bunching it at my hips, and then his hand was between my legs from behind. Two fingers slid through the wetness there and I bit down on a sound. He didn't tease long. He never did when we only had minutes.

The blunt head of him pressed against me. I pushed back. He sank in slow at first, like he was making sure I felt every inch, and the stretch pulled a broken noise out of my throat. His forehead dropped to my shoulder.

"Fuck."

I reached back and gripped his thigh. "Don't stop."

He didn't. The first real thrust drove me forward into the wall. I turned my face into my own arm to keep quiet. His hand came around and covered my mouth anyway.

I tasted salt on his palm. He set a rhythm that was almost too much, almost not enough, and every time he bottomed out I felt it in my teeth.

The storage room smelled like old grain and cold stone and sex. My legs started to shake. He noticed. His free hand slid down my stomach and found the place that made my vision spark.

He rubbed in tight circles while he fucked me and I came hard enough that my knees tried to give. He held me up with an arm around my waist and kept going through it, chasing his own finish with short, hard thrusts that punched quiet sounds out of both of us.

When he came he bit my shoulder through the fabric of my shirt. Not hard enough to mark. Just enough that I felt the claim of it. His hips stuttered. Heat spilled inside me. For a few seconds neither of us moved.

His breathing slowed against my neck.

"You're mine," he said, voice low. "You know that."

I nodded. My throat was too tight for words. I meant it. I had meant it for months.

He pulled out carefully. I felt the loss of him and the mess he left behind. He turned me around and kissed me softer than the sex had been. His forehead rested against mine for a second.

"Tomorrow," he said. "After the council meeting. Same place."

"I'll be here."

He fixed my skirt. I fixed his pants. We checked each other for obvious signs and then he cracked the door, listened, and slipped out first. I waited the usual count of thirty before I followed.

The corridor was empty. My legs still felt unsteady. I could still feel him between my thighs with every step.

I went back to my room with the taste of his skin in my mouth and the certainty that this was real sitting warm under my ribs.

Three days later I would walk into the same wing looking for him and find out exactly how wrong I had been.

But that night I slept with his claim still echoing in my head and no idea the world was about to end.