Chapter 55: Customer Loyalty Program

"It’s fine." She rolls her hips again, deliberate this time, savoring the slow drag of him inside her, the stretch that no longer stings but simply fills. "You can move. A little. Slow, like we said."

He doesn’t need telling twice. His hips lift beneath her in a careful, measured thrust, so restrained it’s almost painful to watch, every muscle in his body straining with the effort of holding back, and Dove meets him halfway, matching his rhythm, finding a pace that lets the ache bleed fully into pleasure.

"Good," she breathes, and his whole body responds to the word like it’s a physical touch, a full-body shiver running through him.

"Dove." Her name again, that same reverence in it, like he can’t say anything else, like every other word has been burned out of him. His hand slides from her hip up along her spine, pulling her down until her chest presses flush to his, until she can feel his heartbeat slamming against her own ribs, and he catches her mouth in a kiss that’s nothing like the hungry desperate ones from before—slow, searching, almost unbearably tender.

She kisses him back, rolling her hips in the same unhurried rhythm, letting the burn settle into something warm and insistent low in her belly, building again despite the ache, maybe because of it, because every drag of him inside her feels like being claimed and claiming him right back in the same breath.

"Is it still?" he starts against her lips, breaking the kiss just enough to check.

"Good," she says, before he can even finish the question. "So good. Don’t stop."

He doesn’t. His thrusts stay slow, controlled, but there’s nothing holding him back now except his own fear of hurting her, and when she rocks down harder, taking more, taking everything, that fear starts to crumble too, replaced by something hungrier, something that matches the want coiling tight in her own core.

"Faster," she gasps against his mouth. "I can take it. I want it faster."

A low growl rumbles in his chest, something primal breaking free of its cage, and his grip on her hips tightens just slightly, guiding now instead of just resting, helping her ride him harder, faster, the slick drag of him inside her building into something that makes her vision blur white at the edges.

"Thorne!" Her nails dig into his chest, the sting of them making him hiss, hips snapping up to meet her with more force now, more certainty, the careful restraint finally giving way to something raw and real.

"I’ve got you," he grits out, voice wrecked, one hand sliding between them to find her clit, pressing exactly where she needs him, circling in rhythm with every thrust. "I’ve got you, I promise, I’ve got you..."

The dual sensation—him inside her, filling her completely, and his thumb working her clit with that same devastating focus from before—sends her spiraling fast, the ache long forgotten, drowned under a tide of pleasure that builds and builds until she’s shaking apart around him, crying out into the cold mall air loud enough to startle a flock of pigeons somewhere in the broken rafters above.

Thorne follows her over almost immediately, a broken sound tearing from his throat that might be her name, might be nothing at all, his whole body going rigid beneath her as he spills deep inside her, hips stuttering through the aftershocks.

For a long moment neither of them moves. The only sound is their breathing, ragged, mingling in clouds of fog between them, and the distant creak of the dead building settling around their small warm pocket of blankets.

Thorne’s hand finds her cheek again, thumb brushing gently along her cheekbone, and when she finally lifts her head to look at him, his gold eyes are soft in a way she’s never seen before, stripped bare of every wall he’s ever built.

"Okay?" he asks, voice hoarse, barely more than a whisper.

"Okay," she confirms, and means it completely.

Dove slept badly at first. Once she woke with the sound of the gate bolt still in her head, and his hand found hers beneath the blanket. He did not tell her it was over. He told her which room they were in, and that the door was latched, and she found her way back to sleep by listening to him breathe.

Day Twenty-Two brought gray light beneath the staff-room door. Thorne made breakfast from his supplies while Dove washed with pool water behind a blanket screen, seated whenever her mind entered the space. He stayed on the other side of the screen, close enough to answer when she asked whether the wind had changed.

Her skin felt warm and clean afterward. She brushed her tail, dressed, and emerged to find him saving the softer piece of bread for her without making an announcement about it.

"You’re making this annoyingly difficult," she told him.

"The bread?"

"Being sensible about you. Keep up."

He went still when she sat beside him. Dove took his hand and told him about Sprout’s first-bond reward before she let herself do anything else. There would be a thousand Favor Coins, she said, and a small daily bonus afterward. She could not bear finding out later that he thought she had hidden a price tag inside the promise.

He looked at her for a long moment. "Do you want the reward, or me?"

"I want coffee, a safe room, and you doing that thing with your arm around me. I’m aware this is becoming a complicated order. The coins didn’t make me kiss you."

She added that he could refuse, and she would still share her breakfast. His mouth softened at that. He asked whether the system could make the choice for either of them, and she said no, clearly enough that Sprout confirmed it without being invited into the conversation.

He already knew how Sprout supplied her stock and counted reactions. This was the new part: a reward attached to choosing a mate. She watched him consider it, wishing the system had found a less embarrassing way to become useful.

"If it offers you something for making me angry, tell me first," he said. "I’d like a share of the coffee."

She nodded, then placed her hand against his chest beneath his open shirt. He covered it with his own. They said each other’s names and chose the bond aloud, using plain words she understood and meant.

The mark formed over his heart, dark against his skin. Dove touched its edge, then looked up because he had made a sound she had never heard from him before.

He drew her against him carefully, almost too carefully. She put both arms around his neck and told him he was allowed to hug her properly. The breath left him in a laugh, and suddenly she was on his lap again with his face against her hair.

"You know I’m going to steal all your blankets now," she said into his shoulder. "I want you prepared for the woman you married."

"Dove," he murmured, sounding so pleased with her name that she forgot the next joke.

Sprout waited until she asked before displaying the reward. She claimed the thousand Favor, raising that purse from forty-seven to one thousand forty-seven. Normal coins remained eight. She closed the balances before Sprout could spoil the way he was looking at her.