He fit his mouth to mine, tongue greedy, and I tasted myself there. A small shame flickered, then folded itself into something richer, deeper; embarrassment burned away by the press of his hips on mine and the question in his hands—always, always waiting for me to allow it.
“Okay?” he asked, voice just air and ache. Instead of answering, I arched into him, let my thighs slide open, invited him in. I’d always been shit at saying what I wanted, but here—buried in the impossible safety of this room, this nest, his arms—there was no one to judge, no one to see me fail at being good. I whimpered again, a needy sound, and this time he answered it with a growl of his own, hands at my waist now, anchoring me.
I wasn’t sure when he’d shed the rest of his clothes, only that suddenly there was skin everywhere, and his hands were everywhere, mapping me again as if I’d been changed in the last minute and he had to catalog every new inch. Maybe I had. Maybe I was being remade right here, by the hour, by each new drag of his mouth on my skin.
He moved slow as he entered me and I almost shattered at the first slow, careful thrust. The friction was blunt and perfect, a fullness that ached. He bottomed out and stilled, breath sawing through his teeth. I held him there with my thighs, greedy, because his weight felt essential, like gravity itself. He reached up, stroked my hair off my forehead with the same hand that could probably splinter a two-by-four, moving like I wassomething fragile and wanted. It made me clutch at his back, drag him down, mash up against the pressure and heat and the impossible needy gap that was never, ever going to close no matter how much he tried to fill it.
He moved slow at first, and I wanted to scream at him, or scratch lines onto his skin so he’d understand the urgency, but Oliver was stubborn about things like this. Methodical. I gritted my teeth and met him stroke for stroke, willing him to lose that fucking patience and just let go. He braced on an elbow, his other hand tracing the sweat-damp line down my body, and when his thumb circled over my hipbone. I lost my grip on the slow burn and bucked up, needing more. I made some sound raw in my throat, didn’t recognize it as mine, but it didn’t matter. He pressed his forehead to mine, all the effort now in his jaw and the way his body tensed, close to breaking.
“Daphne” He moaned my name and I gave a whimper as I felt the beginning of his knot start to form as he gave me a hard thrust it catching at my opening, making me gasp.
“Alpha.” I whimpered, my mind a haze as I just was feeling. I wanted more. Needed more. I feel like I was on fire.
His hips drove harder, the weight of his body forcing a gasp up from the back of my throat. The knot—oh god, I could feel it, thickening, stretching me, dangerous and impossible and right. The burn of it made my eyes squeeze shut. I clung to him, my hands biting into his shoulder blades. Every inch where our skin met was an oven, sweat hot and salty in the hollows of our bodies, hair plastered to his temples and mine.
He was shaking now, barely holding back, but the knot caught and caught again at my entrance, building pressure until my body ached with the need to just—just take it, to be split open and filled. I felt myself panting, the air in my lungs thin and useless.
"Please," I heard myself choke out, my voice unrecognizably small. "I want—don't hold back."
A groan, deep and hoarse, like some animal behind his ribs. He jerked against me, hips slamming in hard and mean and perfect. The knot caught me and I was crying, not from pain but the insane pressure, the awfulness of needing something so bad and finally getting it. There was nothing in the world except this, except him inside me, stretching me, filling the hollow places until I didn't even remember what alone felt like.
He stayed there, body locked, every muscle corded and trembling as if it hurt him not to move. I tried to rock on him, needing more friction, and he whimpered, the sound shocking—almost desperate. The knot was caught, wedged against my opening, and I bore down, furiously greedy, determined to take all of him. The pressure built, another tide, and then—finally—he slipped the rest of the way in. Lightning behind my eyes, all the way to the soles of my feet.
I felt him gasping, his head buried in my neck. I could hear the distant snarl of his breath, the punch of his heartbeat in my ribs. Every inch of me felt stretched, perfectly, awfully, excruciatingly full. His arms braced around me, one by my head, the other anchoring at my waist as if he’d drown if he let go. I could feel the tremor in his muscles, the effort not to crush me, but I didn’t want his restraint. Not now.
He moved once—a hard, involuntary jerk, as if his body were reclaiming me from the inside—and the knot locked in, a final, greedy fullness. I lost my words, gasping, a sound building in my chest and then breaking free. The pulse of it battered me from the inside, knifing down my limbs, a violent clench that dragged at every cell in my body. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move except to arch up into him, dizzy with relief and agony all tangled together.
He drove into me again, rigid and unyielding, and the knot pulled at the ragged edges of my need, everything in me drawing tight around it as he gave a growl, “Such a good Omega. Taking me so well.”
I whimpered as I felt him thrust up into me again, the knot throbbing inside me. “Alpha.” Oliver growled, his teeth scraping the curve of my neck.
“Yes, please, Alpha,” I cried out, arching into him. He was already biting down. No warning—he just clamped his mouth over the vulnerable arch of my neck and bit, the pressure white-hot and so real it seared through the haze. The sting shot through me, pure and perfect, and I arched against him, grinding the knot deeper until I could feel every frantic beat of his pulse hammering through his teeth. For a second I hated him for it, then I loved him so much I thought I’d die. Blood, salt, Oliver, the wild edge of being claimed—I lost track of myself, of anything but the animal urgency of his mouth on my skin.
He rode it out, holding me like I might vanish. Then when he let me go, I brought my mouth to him, biting down as hard as I let myself go. The skin at his shoulder gave just enough under my teeth to let me sink in—not too deep but deep enough that he hissed and gripped me tighter. I held on, jaw clenched, trying to pour everything I couldn’t say into the pressure of muscle and bone and skin. My thighs shook with aftershocks, the knot still thick and hot and pulsing, and for a fucked-up second I felt like I was going to laugh, or maybe cry, or maybe both.
Oliver let out a ragged noise—half moan, half growl—and went slack against me, his bloody mouth resting in the crook of my neck. The weight of him, the pant of his breath on my collarbone. For a while neither of us moved. The nest cradled us, sweat and tangled limbs and all, like it had been built for this. I was warm and comfortable as I felt the mark on my neck pulse before I fell asleep.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Daphne
Iwoke to fire.
Not the gentle warmth of before, this was an inferno, blazing through my veins, turning my blood to molten lava. The nest was damp with sweat, mine and Oliver's mingled together, and his scent still clung to my skin like a second layer, but it wasn't enough. The mark on my neck throbbed with each heartbeat, a dull pulse of satisfaction that radiated down my spine, but the rest of me was screaming for more. The emptiness between my thighs had returned with a vengeance, a hollow ache that made me want to claw at my own skin.
Oliver was gone. I didn't remember him leaving, only the vague sensation of lips on my forehead, murmured words I couldn't parse through the fog of exhausted sleep. The nest felt too big without him, too empty, too cold despite the heat radiating from my feverish skin. I curled into myself, pressing my thighs together, whimpering at the ache that only intensified with the pressure.
The door opened. Garrett filled the frame, all dark eyes and coiled tension, his massive shoulders nearly brushing thedoorframe on either side. He was shirtless already, and the sight of him made my mouth go dry, made slick gush between my thighs in a Pavlovian response I couldn't have controlled if I'd tried.
Broad chest covered in dark hair that caught the low light, muscles carved from years of hard labor, hauling lumber, swinging hammers, building things with those big, calloused hands. A scar ran along his left ribs, silvery and old, and another bisected his right shoulder, souvenirs from a life lived hard and physical. His stomach was ridged with muscle, not the sculpted kind you got from a gym but the functional kind that came from real work, and a trail of dark hair disappeared into the waistband of his jeans, drawing my eye down to where the denim strained over an unmistakable bulge.
He looked like something carved from the earth itself, solid and immovable and impossibly real.
"Daphne." My name in his mouth was gravel and smoke, rough enough to scrape against my already raw nerves. His nostrils flared, drinking in the scent of the room—of me, of heat, of the desperate need pouring off my skin in waves. I watched his pupils dilate, swallowing the dark brown of his irises until only a thin ring remained. "Christ. I could smell you from downstairs. Nearly put my fist through the wall waiting."
"Then stop waiting," I gasped, reaching for him with trembling hands. "Garrett, please—it hurts?—"
He crossed the room in two strides, and then he was in the nest with me, his weight making the mattress dip dramatically, his heat rolling off him like a furnace. The scent of him—cedar and woodsmoke and something darker, muskier, pure alpha arousal, wrapped around me and made my head spin. Up close, I could see the strain in his jaw, the way the muscle jumped beneath his beard, the way his hands shook as they hovered overmy body, not quite touching. He was holding himself back by a thread, and I wanted to snap it.
