I don’t stop. Keep hitting that spot with every thrust, keep building her up, keep watching her face as the pleasure crests higher and higher.
My knot is starting to swell. I can feel it, the base of my cock thickening, catching at her rim with every stroke. The pressure is intense. The urge to just slam home and lock us together is almost overwhelming.
But I wait.
I bring her to the edge one more time. Hold her there. Watch her tremble and gasp and claw at me, desperate for release.
“Come.” The word is rough. Commanding. The only thing I’ve said since “Let me.”
She shatters.
This orgasm is different from the first, bigger and louder. She screams, actually screams, and I feel her pussy clamp down on me like a vice. That’s my signal.
I thrust hard, forcing my knot past her rim. The stretch makes her cry out again, but it’s pleasure not pain, and then we’re locked together. My knot swells to full size, sealing us, and I come so hard my vision whites out.
I pulse inside her, filling her with my release, feeling her pussy milk me and pull every drop deeper. My teeth ache with the urge to bite.
Claim her. Bond her. Mark her. Make her mine.
The instinct is overwhelming. Her neck is right there, soft skin, thundering pulse, that spot where her scent is strongest. I could do it. Could sink my teeth in and make her ours forever.
My jaw clenches so hard I taste blood from biting my own cheek.
No.
She asked us not to. She looked at us with those dark, trusting eyes and asked us to help her without bonding her. I will not betray that trust. Not now. Not ever.
I bury my face in her hair instead, breathing her in, letting the urge pass one agonizing second at a time.
“Elijah?” Her voice is drowsy. Concerned. “You’re shaking.”
Am I? I hadn’t noticed. The adrenaline of fighting my instincts is coursing through me, making my muscles tremble.
“I’m okay.” Three words. More than I usually give.
“Was that...” She trails off. Tries again. “Did I do something wrong?”
I pull back just enough to look at her. She’s watching me with those eyes, those beautiful dark eyes, and there’s uncertainty there. Vulnerability. She thinks she did something wrong.
I cup her face. Force myself to speak. “You’re perfect.”
Two words, but I pour everything into them. Every feeling I can’t articulate, every emotion I’ve been holding back, every thought I’ve had while watching her over the past hours.
She searches my face. Whatever she finds there must satisfy her, because she relaxes and smiles. It’s small and tired and still heat-dazed, but it’s real.
“You don’t talk much,” she murmurs.
“No.”
“I like that.” Her eyes are closing. “It’s restful.”
Restful. No one has ever called me that before. I’ve been called intimidating. Intense. Off-putting. But never restful.
She falls asleep before my knot goes down. Just like that. One moment awake, the next completely out. Her body knows what it needs, and right now it needs rest.
I hold her and wait. Watch her breathe. Study the way candlelight plays across her skin. Memorize every detail, every freckle, every tiny imperfection that makes her perfect.
This is what I do. I observe. I remember. I build things with my hands because my words always fail me.
