Page 114 of Slashed Bonds

Lazy.

Completely upside down even though he’s flat on the floor, because he tips his chin and looks up at me from under those pale lashes like the hardwood is a goddamn throne he personally selected. Freckles dust the bridge of his nose. A faint red mark blooms under his jaw where my fingers dug in moments ago—the skin already whispering the promise of a bruise.

“You’re going to make me ask.”

“I’m going to make you mean it.” He drags his tongue over the cut on his lip—my doing—and doesn’t even flinch. “You walked in here jealous of a mouth, Killian. So use one. Or get out and let me nap. I was having a real good dream about a certain fluttering Monarch that turns me on.”

Monarch.

The one I’m jealous over as if she’s come to claim my territory.

Which technically…she has…and is obviously winning.

Something hot and reckless coils low in my chest.

I hate that he still knows how to aim it. Four years together and he can still find the exact weak spot in the glass—the one board that’ll sing when he hits it just right.

I drop to my knees.

Not graceful—I don’t do graceful.

One knee, then the other, the unvarnished hardwood biting into bone. My hand finds his throat again because it’s the only language my hands still trust—not crushing, just firm enough that his pulse hammers against my palm like it’s curious, like it’s asking what’s next.

“You think you’re funny.”

“I think you’re hard.” His gaze flicks downward, lingering. That grin tilts sharper, almost tender. “You’ve been hard since you stood in my doorway. Since I told you what she did with her tongue. Don’t lie to me on my own floor. I’m not Cash—I don’t need a manual to read you.”

He’s right. That’s the whole damn problem.

Motherfucker…

My scent has already deepened—vetiver and pine turning sharp, clove threading through black tea, smoke seeping past the control I usually keep tight because I stopped caring when I turned that lock.

His scent answers like it always does: frozen juniper first, then blackcurrant cutting through, mint so cold it stings, and under it all—white musk warming, heat climbing through frost. It’s the tell he gets when he’s decided something is his and he’s done negotiating.

The air in the room curdles with the mingled scents of two Alphas—vetiver and pine sharpening to a knife’s edge, clashing against frozen juniper and blackcurrant.

No Omega to temper it, no buffer between us.

I taste it thick on the back of my tongue, metallic-sweet like bitten winter fruit and woodsmoke. My cock aches against the seam of my pants, a hard, insistent throb of protest.

Nikolai’s hand rises slowly, deliberately.

Not to push mine away from his throat, but to press my fingers deeper into his flesh. His pulse hammers against my palm like a trapped thing trying to get out.

He hums—low, satisfied—and the vibration travels down my arm and settles hot between my legs.

“There he is,” he says, voice rough at the edges. “My unhinged boy. Take your hand off my neck and put it where it belongs, or I’ll do it for you. You’ll hate how much you like it.”

“Try me.”

He does.

In one fluid motion he’s off the floor—impossibly fast for someone who was sprawled out and napping moments ago. Goalie reflexes. The kind that doesn’t look like speed until you’re the one being moved.

His grip locks around my wrist, twisting just shy of pain, and he walks me backward until the edge of the desk bites into the backs of my thighs.

A pen rolls off and clatters; the tablet screen flickers. I could break his hold—I’m bigger, I’ve shattered men with more warning—but I don’t.