Before I can even process his words, he’s moving. He slides underneath my body, his lips and hands leaving a trail of fire over my stomach, my hips. And then he’s there, his head between my thighs, right at the juncture where Rett is still buried deep inside me.
My eyes go wide. “Tristan?—”
“Shh,” he murmurs, his hot breath caressing my most sensitive skin. “Just relax. Trust me.”
And then his mouth is on me.
It’s an explosion of sensation. Rett, thick and hard, filling me from the inside. Tristan, his tongue a hot, slick, and impossibly clever torment from the outside. He licks me, bathes me in slickness, his tongue working in a perfect, maddening rhythm against my clit while Rett is still a heavy, pulsing presence inside.
“That’s it, cariño,” Diego whispers in my ear, his hand squeezing mine. “Let go for us. We’ve got you.”
The combination is too much. My body dissolves into pure, pliant need. I’m not just wet; I’m dripping, my own slickness mingling with Tristan’s saliva, creating a path for Rett.
“Now, Rett,” Tristan murmurs against my skin, and I feel him pull back slightly, giving Rett the space he needs.
Rett pulls back before pressing forward, just an inch, his knot pressing insistently against my entrance. It’s a stretching, borderline-painful pressure. I gasp, my nails digging into the sheets.
“Easy, Zoe,” Rett’s voice is a low, strained growl. “Breathe with me. Open for me.”
He works his way in slowly. An agonizingly slow rotation ofhis hips. I can feel my body stretching, accommodating him in a way I never thought possible.
“You’re doing so good,” Dane’s voice is a low rumble from beside my head, his hand a steady, grounding weight on my shoulder. “You can take him. You can take all of him.”
With a final, deep, shuddering breath, I surrender completely, my muscles relaxing, opening. And with one last, powerful, all-consuming thrust, Rett’s knot slips past that tight ring of muscle, seating him fully, deeply, inside me.
The sensation is unlike anything I have ever experienced. A fullness so complete, so absolute, it’s a kind of pain that is indistinguishable from pleasure. It brings tears to my eyes.
Rett stills for a moment, letting me adjust, his breath coming in harsh pants. Then, with a low, animalistic growl, he begins to move again. Shallow, grinding movements, his knot locked deep inside me, rubbing against a part of me, a nerve deep inside, that has never been touched before.
The pleasure builds again. Impossibly. A fourth peak approaches with a speed that takes my breath away.
“Ours,” Rett growls.
The combined weight of their claim pushes me over the edge into a fourth, shattering orgasm. I come with a cry that might be their names, or might just be a wordless sound of pure pleasure.
Rett follows me over, his body tensing, a low, guttural groan torn from his throat as he finds his release deep inside me. I feel the hot pulse of it, the rhythmic throb of his cock as he fills me, claims me, marks me from the inside out.
I collapse forward onto the bed, Rett still knotted inside me, his weight a comforting pressure on my back. The others move with us, arranging themselves around us, their bodies a protective, loving cage. Diego curls against my left side, his arm draped over my waist. Tristan settles on my right, his hand finding mine, fingers intertwining. Dane positions himself at the head of the bed, his large hand stroking my hair in a gesture of such tender care it makes my heart ache.
We lie there, a tangle of limbs and bodies, breathing hard, basking in the afterglow as Rett shifts to the side and curls his body around mine. The bond hums between us, a living, breathing thing, connecting us in ways I’m only just beginning to understand.
“The static,” Diego murmurs after a long moment. “It’s gone.”
Rett shifts slightly, careful not to pull on the knot that still ties us together. “You did this,” he says, his lips brushing against my shoulder. “You fixed us.”
His eyes, now a clear, bright blue without the shadow of pain that’s been there for so long, hold mine for a long moment. Then, with a tenderness that makes my heart swell, he leans down and presses a soft kiss to my lips.
“Our beta,” he murmurs. “Our mate. Our everything.”
EPILOGUE 1
Dane
The room is dark except for the spill of city light, a low tide of gold that barely brightens the room. And the air is warm. Human-warm. Zoe-warm. The kind that smells like skin and laughter and cherry blossom shampoo.
Zoe sleeps half on her stomach, cheek turned to me, hair fanned across the pillow. Her breaths are even. Small. Soundless. Heavier now that her body has finally surrendered to the kind of exhaustion that isn’t fear, or fever, or fight. Just fullness. The good kind.
Rett is curved around her hips from behind, chest pressed along her spine, one arm locked under her ribs. He’s still inside her. Knotty and thick and stubborn, the way he always is when he won’t let go of something. Of us. Of her. His breathing is low and rough against the nape of her neck. I can feel the steady pulse of him through the mattress. Through her. Like a second heartbeat. Slow. Satisfied.
