Page 23 of Broken Arranged Mate (Badlands Wolves #4)

Hands cupping Ash’s ass, I turn and carry her to the shower. I can’t stand whatever is blocking her scent from me.

Up until the wedding, I thought that I might be able to resist this pull. That was before I saw her in that fucking dress, before I realized how difficult it is to stay away from your mate.

My mate—my wife .

And I want her.

Ash arches up against my cock, which is harder than I’ve ever felt in my life, straining against these ridiculous pants.

At some point, Ash had run her hands over my shoulders, pushing the emerald green jacket from my shoulders, undoing the vest and pushing it away, working a few of the buttons open on my white shirt to leave me half bare-chested like Fabio.

But now, I need the clothes off.

Setting her down on her feet, I notice she’s unsteady, reaching out for the wall behind her as I unbutton my pants, throw them to the other side of the bathroom.

“Oh,” she says, eyes skipping down when my cock finally springs free, and I can’t wait anymore—with the taste of her on my lips and the sight of her there, her bare breasts, her skin glowing in the light from the moon outside—I need to take her.

Ash cranks the water, and the spigot turns on—one of the few renovations I’d completed before we moved in. Excellent foresight on my behalf, having the rain shower installed, because now I hold her, positioning her against me and sliding in with an ease that makes me fucking dizzy.

“Oren,” my name is the only thing on her lips as I push inside her to the hilt.

This is what I’ve been missing. In the years since we met during that blood moon, I’ve been with other women. But none who feel like this, who fit me perfectly. When I’m inside Ash, it feels like coming home.

After sliding into her so quickly, I force myself to slow down, to take it easy, but she grips my shoulders, gasping my name once more.

“Are you okay?” I stall, and she lets out a groan that reverberates through my body, something that nearly turns into a whine at the end.

“Oren,” she adjusts her hips, and it’s my turn to groan. “I want you to fuck me.”

I know what she’s talking about—that first time, on the mesa, my wolf was fully in control. I’d fucked her like the world was ending, and after, I’d wondered if I was too rough.

Apparently not. Apparently, she liked it.

And apparently, she wants it again.

So I give it to her, pressing her back against the shower and driving up into her, letting the wolf take full control of me, until our bodies smack together crudely.

She cries out loudly. Quite frankly, I wouldn’t care if any other shifter heard this, because they would know then that she belongs to me.

We’re in the middle of nowhere, so far outside of town that she could scream at full volume and it would still be private.

And still, I reach up and clamp one hand over her mouth, watching her eyes widen, feeling her clench around my cock, clearly liking it. I hold her like that, loving the way her tongue darts out to touch the palm of my hand.

She’s mine. Mine .

When she comes, it’s hard and fast, a single tightening around my cock that sends blazes of lightning through my vision.

Each time I thrust into her, moving against that friction, I hear the word in my head like a chant to the gods— mine, mine, mine.

At the very end of her orgasm, I feel my cock starting to grow, the knot forming at the end of it, pulsing with the need to release. I drop my hand from her mouth and bury my nose in the crook of her neck, breathing deeply until I catch the current of her scent.

Then I come, the knot releasing a large amount at first, then moving into the slow, consistent pulses that always follow after.

Ash is liquid in my arms, hers wrapped around my neck, her hair wet against my chest. I gather her in my arms and move her into the other room, stepping over her wedding dress and lowering us down, together, onto the bed.

She never takes her arms off of me, and with me stuck inside her, I end up slightly propped at the head, her draped over me.

In moments, she falls asleep, apparently as at home with my body as I am with hers.

***

We wake up once in the middle of the night, already moving together, me pushed into her from behind, spooning as I thrust long and slow, one hand reaching around her body to find her clit. It doesn’t take much to make her come again.

“I was dreaming about you,” she whispers into my ear, which pushes me right over the edge, and once again, we fall asleep while my knot empties inside her.

Hours later, I wake up and realize she’s not in bed with me. I bolt up, heart already pounding, but her scent is fully back now, and I follow it to the kitchen, where she sits at the table, her hands shaking around a mug of tea.

I don’t have much experience with omegas and their heat—my sister is an omega, but would rather die than share any of that information with me. When her heat started coming on, our mother would take her out of the house, for obvious reasons, so I never saw the way that it affected her.

“Hey,” Ash says, looking up when she sees me.

She’s gorgeous, cheeks pink, hair mussed from fucking and sleeping together, and the only thing I want to do is gather her up in my arms and carry her back to the bed.

Though I don’t know much about an omega’s heat, I do know that it generally involves them wanting to have a lot of sex. Right now, though, Ash doesn’t seem turned on.

She seems sad.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, and the moment the words are out of my mouth, she bursts into tears. Panic rises in my chest—I’ve never been good with crying women—but I move to her, taking the chair next to hers and pulling her to my chest. “Hey, hey—are you okay?”

A new worry slices through me, and I push her back, holding her by her shoulders and examining her. “Did I hurt you?”

“No, no,” she half-sobs, half-laughs, using the side of her thumb to wipe tears from her cheeks. “Sorry—I just—my heat makes me like this. I know it’s a huge bummer.”

“What are you crying about?”

She pauses, like she’s not sure if she wants to tell me, then sucks in a deep breath and looks out the window, where the scrubby desert lies.

I watch her, resisting the urge to reach out and touch her.

The last thing I want right now is to make her feel worse, or to make her feel like the only thing I care about is having sex with her.

Even though that is the only thing I should care about.

“It’s stupid,” she says, shaking her head like she’s frustrated with herself. “But I…I’m just having this feeling of not belonging. Like I’m here now, and it’s not really my home. None of my friends are here, and I just—”

Ash lifts a hand to the window, touching the glass, then glances back at me, “When I look out the window, it’s like…fake. Like everything out there doesn’t even feel real to me.”

I stare at her for a long moment, wondering how it is that what she’s feeling right now could so closely mirror the way I feel about my own home. My father warped this place until it no longer felt like it belonged to me—no longer felt like it belonged to anyone .

“Come on,” I say, standing, moving toward my jacket at the door.

“Come on?” she asks, and I distantly remember that omegas don’t usually leave their house during a heat, but I’ll honestly welcome the opportunity to fuck up any shifter who dares to look at her right now.

Besides, where we’re going, there won’t be anybody else. I’m sure of it.

“Yeah,” I shrug, then bite my tongue, realizing I might be asking too much. “Can you still shift?”

She lets out a watery laugh. “Yeah, of course I can still shift.”

“Do you…not want to leave?”

“I’m just not used to it.”

“I’ll protect you,” I say, and she doesn’t even hesitate, already standing up from the table, something like hope moving into her expression.

“I know.”

Ten minutes later, we’re slipping out the back door of the house and shifting, and Ash lets out a little hybrid whoop-laugh that makes my heart sing, the sound of our paws hitting the dirt and sand echoing through the vast land.

From what other alphas have told me about an omega’s heat, it’s this experience of being trapped inside, not leaving until the waves of pressure subside for them. But I should have known better.

I should have known that together, Ash and I would make something entirely new for ourselves.