[A/N: ~ a few explicit bits ahead 😘🤐]

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That afternoon, Ambrose helps me move my things out of my room and into his.

I've only called the little space my own for a few weeks, but it already feels like home, and I don't like the thought of someone else sitting in 'my' comfortable chair by the window, or sleeping in 'my' bed.

Ambrose's bed, on the other hand, looms in my mind like some leviathan, waiting to rise from the deep and swallow me whole.

I've slept in it once already—slept with Ambrose once already (a fact it seems he treats as common knowledge)—but that had happened almost unexpectedly, and I hadn't had a whole day to work my nerves into an anxious tangle beforehand. Now, the thought that he might want—might expect—something like that again, has me jumping out of my skin every time he speaks.

He notices, of course, and after the fourth time I drop something at the sound of his voice, he makes me face the issue head on.

"Now see here, little wolf," he says, forcing me to stop collecting the pile of books that I'd just dropped and helping me to my feet. "You're wound up tighter 'n a spring again, and I can guess why, but you needn't fear. Mate or not, I won't force anything on you that you don't want."

We're standing in the hall, halfway between his room and mine, near the top of the wide flight of stairs. It's late afternoon by this time. Slanting light filters in from the windows below and golden motes of dust float in the air.

"Or even that you do want, but won't admit," he adds as I straighten my glasses and attempt to conceal the nervous tremble in my hands. "I know I've been a bit forward so far—a bit impatient, maybe—but I've no wish to cause distress. If you'd rather, I'll make do with the couch."

"N-no," I stammer, "I d-don't want you to sleep on the c-couch. I j-just—" I stop myself and swallow. "I just have a hard time trusting... this." I gesture between us, and he frowns.

"You don't trust that I love you?" he asks, a hint of sadness in his voice. "Because I am in love with you, little wolf. I haven't said it yet, but I'm saying it now, and I'll keep saying it until you believe me, if that's what it takes."

My face heats and my heart brightens at his words, but I shake my head. "It's not... It's not that I don't trust you," I say slowly. "It's my own feelings that I don't... that I can't trust, yet."

His frown deepens at the corners of his mouth. "I know you don't want to talk of the past, Noah, but tell me something," he says. "Not everything, just something. Help me understand."

I stare up at him a moment as I realize that, for the all the secrets he may have, at this point I know more about him than he knows about me.

"Alright," I say. "Not now, though. Let's finish this first."

He nods, looking a bit surprised that I've agreed, and we move the last of my few belongings in companionable silence.

~ ☾ ~

That evening, we take Dougal for a walk by the lake. He's excited to be back on his favorite trail, where I haven't taken him since the night when I had the feeling of being watched and had my close call with a car. In the deepening gloom beneath the trees I get an inkling of the same feeling again, but with Ambrose at my side, I feel safe and secure, and find I enjoy being out in the air almost as much as Dougal does.

We reach the lake's far end before I decide how, exactly, to tell Ambrose what he needs to know. I halt at a spot where the path is very near the shore, and stare up at the purple-gold sky, lit with the last reflected light of the vanished sun, and take a deep breath of cool, water-scented air.

"Before I came here," I begin, "I was with someone else, for a time, and he, um... well, he was my 'first.'"

My throat starts to constrict, and I pause to clear it, but thankfully Ambrose doesn't interrupt.

"I mean I dated a bit, in college," I say, continuing my awkward ramble, "or I tried, at least, because it's what one does, but I never...um...got very far with 'things,' you know. Eventually I figured I was just fated to be alone—and I was fine with that, because there's nothing wrong with being alone, you know—and then... Well, then I met Thom."

I watch a pair of bats swoop low over the water, hunting bugs. Nearby, Dougal noses along the shoreline, tail wagging as he pokes about in the grass. He disturbs something that slips into the water and vanishes with a splash, his surprised bark echoing sharp across the lake.

He runs back to us, excited with his accomplishment, and I kneel to pet him, distracting myself from my own words.

"Thom was a lot older, and a lot more experienced," I go on. "And he... Well, it just sort of happened, I guess. I thought that's how it was supposed to be, you know? I thought what I felt for him was love, and that it was what he wanted from me, so I... But, anyway, I was wrong."

Stopping again, I stand as Dougal runs off among the reeds once more, and take my glasses off to clean them with the little cloth I always keep in my pocket. Thom used to laugh at me for it, I remember. For being so 'fastidious,' he'd say, 'like a little mouse.' I'd thought he'd found it endearing at the time. Now I realized it was just another thing he'd despised.

"The way you felt about him, this 'Thom' fellow," Ambrose asks, interrupting my memory, "is it the same as how you feel about me?"

I turn to him in surprise. "No—not at all. There was no passion with Thom. I see that now, but at the time I didn't know any better. I didn't know it could be like this: like...fire."

My face heats and I start to look away again, but Ambrose takes hold of my shoulders and keeps me from turning.

"I understand, Noah," he says. "At least, I begin to. You thought you had something with this fellow, and then—whatever it was that he did, whatever it was that happened—you learned otherwise. You learned it wasn't real, and now you're afraid this isn't real, between us, and you don't trust yourself to know the difference. Is that about it?"

"Partly," I agree, and bite my lip, unable to meet his eyes. "But it's not so much that I don't trust it's real; it's more that I'm afraid it's real; because as much as Thom hurt me, I know it could have been a lot worse."

I stop and look up at him, and know every measure of my pain is there for him to see in my eyes.

"I could have loved him," I whisper, "and I think it would have killed me if I had."

His brows pinch, but rather than speak, he pulls me into his arms.

"Well now, there's the real difference," he says against my ear. "He didn't love you, and you didn't love him. On the other hand, as sudden as it's come, and as much as you may find it hard to believe, little wolf, I love you very much. And I won't put words in your mouth but..."

"Yeah," I say, and blink hard against the tears threatening my dignity. "I guess as much as it scares me, I know it's true. My heart's made its choice, and I... I love you, too, Ambrose Thorne."

~ ☾ ~

Later, in his room—in his wide, soft bed—he lets me set the pace, and I set it slow. The first time, I'd given in to the strength of his lust, to the overwhelming and unfamiliar feeling of being so wanted. This time, my mind and heart are ready for him: ready to make him mine, and ready to be claimed.

In other words, the first time we'd fucked; this time we make love.

It seems natural that I be the one to receive him, and though he offered with surprising willingness to let me have him instead, I prefer it this way.

With a pillow beneath my hips, he gazes down at me with an expression of open admiration and a slight smile on his lips, his chest rising and falling with his quickening breath. "You're beautiful, my little wolf—every bit of you—and I'll die a happy man if I can call you mine."

"Go on then," I say, a little breathless already from his kisses and his gentle touch; from the heat of his mouth and hands, "take me."

He enters me with surprising ease, sliding slow and deep, and I realize that, like my heart, my body knows its mate, and is ready for him. He shuts his eyes, biting back a groan, and I feel him thicken and stiffen even more as he begins to thrust his hips, taking his pleasure and giving me mine.

He moves steady and sure, long hair gleaming dark over his shoulders like bronze in the dim light, and his skin shining with a sheen of sweat, as does mine. I feel like shadow to his moonlight, fuel to his fire—each in love with the other's borderlines—and soon I'm moving with him, meeting his passion with my own.

Then our careful dance unravels as he loses himself in the build of pleasure. His hand tightens as it slides over my aching shaft, and at last he pushes deep, swells within me, and with an almost soundless cry, finds release. Something in that sudden spill of heat, and in the ragged edges of his voice are all I need to crest the final wave, and light bursts behind my eyes as I join him at that height of ecstasy.

Then it is a gentle fall from the other side: more kisses, and soft whispers of devotion, a steady warmth burning in my core—my own secret fire lit at last—a feeling of quiet happiness, and no more fear; and finally, sleep.