Page 25

I could lie. I could brush it off, say it was a slip of the tongue, or claim that I was speaking not only for myself but for every other woman he’d fucked and then abandoned.

I could push him away, return to Lapine, and do my best to hide my baby’s parentage for as long as I could, but that had always been a stupid plan.

Ethan wasn’t going to stop coming over to Lapine. It was inevitable that he’d find out at some point. I’d been fooling myself if I ever imagined otherwise. With my stomach turning in sick circles, my mouth dry, my legs shaking, I raised my head to meet his gaze. I would not be ashamed.

“I’m pregnant.”

The words detonated like a bomb in the quiet. Just two little words, and my world was imploding. I had never spoken them aloud before, hardly allowed myself to believe they were true.

Ethan could only stare at me, his mouth hanging open, too shocked to speak.

“I’m not asking you for anything,” I continued quickly. I didn’t need to hear him tell me I was stupid for not drinking witch tea after that first time, didn’t need to hear that he’d already told me he didn’t want a family. “I wasn’t even going to—”

Ethan cut me off with a growl. His eyes were blown black as pitch, and he was staring at me with an intensity I’d never seen before.

Was he so angry that he’d hurt me? He looked as if he could shift at any moment, the wolf close to his skin, glaring out at me through his eyes.

My heart was pounding in my chest, and I tensed as he lurched forward—but then his arms were around my waist, his face buried in the crook of my neck.

“Ask me,” he breathed against my skin. His hands were everywhere, stroking my back and kneading my ass and gripping my hips.

“For what?” I gasped. I couldn’t think, couldn’t make sense of what was happening.

“Anything.”

Then his lips were on mine, and his hands were cupping the backs of my thighs, lifting me up so I could wind them around his hips.

I kissed him back, confused and relieved and increasingly aroused as I felt his half-hard dick bump against my ass.

It would have been so easy to simply let him have his way, to lay back in the soft grass and take him hard and deep the way my body was begging for, but I couldn’t take any more uncertainty.

He huffed in dissatisfaction when I pulled out of the kiss, gripping my thighs harder as if to make up for the loss.

“But you didn’t—you said you didn’t want this,” I managed to say.

I was dizzy with desire, my hips rocking against his abs without my permission, and I didn’t know how much longer I could hold out.

In the back of my mind, my wolf was growling her displeasure at the pause, not caring about anything but getting him inside me again.

Ethan looked similarly out of it, his face blank as he processed my words, absently petting and stroking my thighs as if he didn’t know how to do anything else.

“I didn’t want it,” he rasped, his voice heavy with desire. “Not with anyone else. Only you.”

I groaned, and it was my turn to crash our lips together, burying my hands in his thick, dark hair as I licked into his mouth, trying to devour the words he’d just said. He wanted this. He wanted it with me. Only me.

We were impossibly close, skin pressed against skin, but it still wasn’t enough. I rolled my body against his, needing friction against my pebbled nipples and my aching pussy. Whining, my hands dropped from his hair to claw at his shoulders, my wolf hungry and desperate for more.

Ethan was only too happy to oblige, encouraging the grind of my hips against the muscled planes of his stomach, his fingers digging hard into the meat of my ass, and I’d have bruises tomorrow, the marks of his devotion.

It felt so good, but the pleasure only built and built, never spilling over, never peaking the way I was desperate for.

I whimpered into Ethan’s mouth, begging for something, but I didn’t know what.

Whatever it was, Ethan knew. I jolted as his knees hit the ground, and then I was laid back on the soft grass.

He hovered above me, his gaze intent and dark with desire, just as it had been that first night.

In the morning light, he looked gorgeous, the sharp lines of his face softened and shadowed, and I couldn’t believe he was mine. Finally, he was mine.

“I love you,” he whispered, and the joy of it rushed through me, so overwhelming that I had to close my eyes, gripping his forearms where they caged my body.

All the breath had left my lungs, so I kissed him instead of replying, pulling him close again and spreading my legs even further, needing him to fill me up and soothe the ache between my thighs.

My mate didn’t need telling twice. He didn’t need to check I was ready—I’d been ready since he first kissed me—before he lined up and pushed inside, stretching me and filling me the way I needed.

My back arched up off the ground, and Ethan took a straining nipple between his teeth, tugging it just enough to make me moan.

He didn’t linger there long, instead moving up my chest, leaving open-mouthed kisses in his wake.

When he reached the junction of my neck, I presented the soft skin to him on instinct.

I needed his mark, needed the sharp, beautiful burst of pain to bring me over the edge I was teetering on.

Every snap of Ethan’s hips brought me closer, his cock hitting me deep, and his mouth on my neck was a teasing, tantalizing promise.

“Do it,” I demanded.

This time, Ethan didn’t hesitate. His canines sank into the tender flesh of my shoulder, and I screamed my pleasure to the sky as he drove his teeth and his cock deep into me.

My whole body rocked with the force of my orgasm, my legs trembling and my back arching, my nails digging deep into Ethan’s back as I clenched and spasmed around his cock.

It felt like it lasted for hours, and I twitched and shuddered all the way through the comedown as Ethan licked the wound he’d left on my shoulder, his thrusts gentling but never letting up, keeping me strung out and wanting despite the wrecking power of my climax.

It must have taken all his willpower because Ethan’s skin was shining with sweat, his brow furrowed, and his muscles tense from holding back as his knot formed, the bulb of it hitting my oversensitive clit with every thrust.

Then it occurred to me that I could feel his need, could feel every ounce of the restraint it took not to keep fucking me hard into the ground.

I could feel adoration rolling off him in waves, and when he met my eyes, I could have cried from the intensity of it.

This was what being mated was supposed to feel like.

It was so perfect, so right, and I leaned up to press a long, lush kiss to his lips.

Maybe I was head over heels in love with him, and maybe he’d just given me the best orgasm of my life, and maybe we were going to spend the rest of our lives together, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to mess with him just a little bit.

Ethan melted under my mouth, going soft and pliant for just long enough that I could switch our positions.

He landed, eyes wide and shocked, on his back, his cock still buried deep inside me.

Snatching his wrists, I slammed them down next to his head, lifting my hips so that only the tip of him was still inside me.

I couldn’t help smiling at the bewildered look on his face, affection rushing through me.

His expression softened, and I realized that he’d felt my emotion just as I had felt his.

“Mine,” I said, low and rough.

He could have bucked me off, could have had me on my back again in seconds and taken what he wanted—what we both wanted—but he didn’t. He lay beneath me, his hips twitching and his wrists pinned, and he smiled.

“Yours,” he promised.

For a moment, everything stilled. There had been no hesitation in Ethan’s voice, and I could feel nothing but certainty through the bond.

For the last two weeks, it had felt like I was falling, as if I were hurtling through space with no parachute, utterly powerless to do anything but brace for impact.

Suddenly, there was ground beneath my feet, firm and welcoming.

I let go of Ethan’s wrists as I sat up, not dropping his gaze as I sank back down onto him, inch by inch.

I was so sensitive, and he was no less affected, his newly freed hands flying to my hips, helping to guide me down onto his knot.

Bracing my hands on his strong chest, I ground my pussy onto his knot, feeling myself stretch to accommodate him.

I’d done this before—I should be used to the overwhelming, undoing pleasure-pain of it, but I feared and prayed that I never would be.

With every roll of my hips, Ethan’s knot pressed in a little deeper, and we breathed hard in tandem.

“You’re incredible,” he breathed, finally dropping eye contact to watch himself slowly disappear inside me. Stretched as I was around his knot, all coherent thought had fled my mind, and I couldn’t offer him anything in reply beyond,

“Fuck, fuck, Ethan. You’re so—fuck.”

“Just like that, beautiful,” he said. “You take me so well.”

That was the final straw. With a drawn-out whine, I slumped forward onto his chest, my legs giving out as Ethan cradled me in his arms and flipped us over one last time.

He whispered praises and platitudes in my ear as the last of his knot slipped inside me, and we moaned in unison.

I was so full, so overwhelmed with the sensation that when he started moving, the base of his knot tugging against my opening as it swelled even further inside me, locking us together, that I could do nothing but take it, my mouth slack and open as little whimpers escaped me with every rock of Ethan’s hips.

Even stuffed full with his cock, I was so wet that I could feel slickness dribbling out of me around his knot as he hit those points deep inside me I’d never known existed before him.

Breathless, I clung to Ethan as we approached the peak together, our shared pleasure climbing higher and higher through the feedback loop of the bond, until I felt him explode inside me, and I toppled over the edge after him.

My orgasm wracked through me with no regard for how exhausted and wrung out I already was, and it was my turn to sink my teeth into the muscle of Ethan’s shoulder, marking him in return.

The taste of blood burst in my mouth, and Ethan’s pleased growl rumbled through my body as I held him tight between my teeth, waiting for the rolling waves of pleasure to abate.

Only when I was boneless and satisfied did I release him, pulling back to examine my work.

The wound I’d made was deep; it would scar up nicely, and then everyone would know Ethan Cain belonged to me.

My wolf purred with satisfaction, curling up inside me, ready for sleep.

I could have followed her when Ethan gently rolled us over so that I was splayed out over his chest, his knot still inside me and my pussy still twitching around him, but I wanted to savor every moment of this. I wanted to commit all of it to memory so I could be certain it was real.

Ethan’s fingers were combing through my hair, and the thump of his heart beneath my ear was steady, still a little elevated, and the silence felt so precious that I didn’t want to break it.

If the world would let us, I would have been happy to lie like this forever, tangled with my mate in the morning sun, full and satisfied.

Pushing myself up as far as my shaking arms would allow, I looked down at Ethan, brushing a thumb along the proud arch of his cheekbone.

He caught my hand as I did so, holding it in place so he could turn his head and press a kiss to my palm.

A wave of love rushed over me, and tears sprang to my eyes: this was real.

Ethan loved me, and he wanted me, and it was real.