Mate (Bride, #2)

by Ali Hazelwood

“I get it. You don’t have to…Is there anyone else who could help me with…” It’s a stupid question, and the second I articulate it, I realize that the simple idea of someone else touching me makes me want to tear the flesh off my bones. But going by Koen’s deep, guttural, displeased grunt, he doesn’t know that. “You’re not going to—fuck it.” He carries me to bed, sits on the edge of the mattress, and pulls me down between his spread legs, facing away from him. Almost in his lap. When I try to grind backward, chasing his erection, he stops me with a hold that immobilizes my arms at my sides. It’s a little like a straitjacket, made of thick muscles and scent. Exactly what I need. I got you, it tells me. I no longer have to control myself, because he’s doing that for me. I have permission to beg and thrash in his arms. “That,” he growls in my ear, “is not the kind of stunt you pull with an Alpha. Not when you’re on the brink of a Heat.”