Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77952 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77952 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
She turns her face toward me, dazed and flushed, eyes soft and liquid. “Like what?”
“Like… you’re sewn into me now. Like I could spend the rest of my life buried inside you and never want more than this.” I kiss her again, slower this time. “I thought I understood what it meant to have a mate. But this… It’s so much more than I imagined.”
A tremor runs through her, her fingers brushing over the back of my neck, anchoring me there.
“I never imagined it could be like this, either,” she whispers. “I didn’t know I could feel this much and not fall apart.”
“You don’t have to hold anything back with us,” I tell her. “Not ever.”
She closes her eyes, and when she opens them again, there’s something else glowing there. Wonder. “I love you.”
My heart pauses then restarts in a wilder rhythm, as love swells inside me, ready to spill out. “I love you, too, Scarlet.”
She turns to Nixon, reaching to cup his cheek. “I love you, Nixon. And you, Finn. I love you all so much.”
In our minds, Nixon rumbles, Mate, you can speak this way now.
She laughs, then closes her eyes. I love you.
We love you, too, mate, we all rumble, creating a hum of emotion and happiness that connects us.
Finn kisses her shoulder, his own arousal thick in the air. She turns her head toward him, dazed but smiling, as if she's already building to what’s next.
“I need you.”
Finn moves with quiet reverence, shedding his pants as my knot releases her. He guides himself between her thighs, which are slick with both Nixon and me, and she welcomes him like he was always meant to fit there.
He enters her slowly, and a soft cry escapes her lips. “Oh… Finn…”
He doesn’t rush. His rhythm is slow and sensual, hands cradling her like she’s spun glass. She moans again, and it’s as though my lungs are breathing her in. Her pleasure isn’t hers anymore. It belongs to all of us.
The bond floods open fully, and I swear I can taste her emotions. All her fear, her wonder, her love spill into my chest.
And the corner of emptiness I’ve lived with my whole life?
It’s gone.
Scarlet comes again, her cries fractured and raw, and Finn follows her, whispering her name over and over like an incantation. The moment he spills inside her, the final piece of the bond slides into place, locking the four of us in a tangle of blood-deep connection.
When he pulls back, she’s boneless between us, radiant and glowing.
Ours.
Her eyes snap open. They’re hazel but flickering with gold. Wolf gold. And fuck, the sight of it nearly undoes me.
We lay with her, our bodies pressed around her like a shield. Her skin is damp, and face is relaxed, oozing contentment.
“Am I still human?” she murmurs sleepily.
“Of course,” I snort, curling my hand around hers. “But you’re something else now, too. Stronger. Tethered to us. Claimed by us. You’re the center of our world.”
And as I press a kiss to her shoulder, I know she was always the missing piece.
And now she’s home.
32
SCARLET
I’m lying in the same room, surrounded by Nixon, Reed, and Finn, but the rustling of the forest is louder and the sense of small animals burrowing through the undergrowth suddenly brighter and clearer in my mind. The scent of tree sap and rotting leaf matter is so strong, even though we’re inside, but over that, the scent of the men around me is a vibration against my heartstrings.
They claimed me. Now I belong to them.
It’s there in the marrow of my bones, in the marks that throb either side of my throat and at my nape, in the possessiveness I now feel about them as mine, and the deep connection that is a rope of steel between us.
It’s so much more than I could have understood before. The claim has changed me. It’s so strange to feel stronger, wiser… and connected to them in mind and body.
I turn to touch Nixon’s strong jaw. I press my forehead to his, and his sleeping thoughts whisper through my mind. Mate. Claim. Ours. Contentment. These are the words and emotions that spill through from my alpha. Words mirrored in my own mind. He stirs, throwing a heavy arm across my middle, anchoring me to the bed. Pushing my hand beneath his wrist, I turn to find Finn and Reed beside me. Finn is closest, lying on his back with one arm stretched above his head. Reed is by his side, turned toward me.
I touch Finn first, my fingers trailing over the undulations of his abs, drinking up his beauty, and allowing the feral intensity of my desire for him to swamp me. I thought I knew what desire was, but the intense sense of ownership and the burning, aching, craving hunger is all new. I’m sore between my thighs, but the sight of his half-hard cock is enough to make me growl in my mind. His eyelids flicker, and he slowly turns his head toward me, smiling. Mate, he whispers. You don’t need to yearn. Take what’s yours.