"I love you." He whispered the words against my lips like a prayer, like a promise, his voice breaking on each syllable. "I love you so much, Aster. I've never loved anything the way I love you."
"I love you too." I kissed him again, soft and sweet, savoring the connection between us, the way his bond pulsed warm against my heart. "My sunshine. My Kol."
We lay together as his knot slowly softened, his hands tracing idle patterns on my skin, his lips pressing kisses to every part of me he could reach. When he finally slipped free, I felt the loss like a physical ache, the emptiness where he'd been, but underneath it, the bond remained — warm and golden and eternal.
"One more." Kol murmured, pressing a kiss to my forehead as he reluctantly rolled off me, reaching for his discarded clothes, his movements slow and languid with satisfaction. "Sawyer's been out there this whole time. I think he might actually combust if he has to wait any longer."
As if summoned by his name, the door swung open. Sawyer filled the doorway, his pale eyes burning like ice on fire, his scarred hands clenched at his sides, the knuckles white with tension, his massive chest heaving beneath his black shirt. His scent flooded the room — earth and leather and something wild, something barely contained, something dangerous that made my inner omega whimper with need, that made my body clench with renewed want despite everything I'd already experienced.
"Out." His voice was gravel and broken glass, his eyes never leaving my face, his jaw tight enough to shatter, a muscle ticking beneath the scar on his cheek. "Kol. Out. Now."
Kol pressed one last kiss to my lips, whispered "good luck" against my mouth with a hint of his usual mischief, and practically fled, closing the door behind him with a soft click.
Then I was alone with Sawyer. He didn't move from the doorway, just stood there staring at me with those pale eyes, his gaze traveling over my body — the marks on my neck, the flush of my skin, the evidence of what I'd done with the others still glistening between my thighs, my hair tangled and wild againstthe pillows. His nostrils flared, breathing me in, and a low growl rumbled from his chest, vibrating through the air between us.
"You smell like them." His voice was rough, almost angry, but I could hear the want underneath, the desperate need he was barely keeping leashed, his hands flexing at his sides. "Like Reid and Nolan and Kol. Like sex and everything I've been dying for."
"I do." I pushed myself up on my elbows, letting him look, letting him see everything, my body still humming with arousal despite three orgasms, already responding to his presence, to his scent, to the promise of what was to come. "But there's still space for you. There's always been space for you, Sawyer."
He moved. One moment he was across the room, the next he was on me, his body covering mine, his mouth claiming mine in a kiss that was more bite than caress, his teeth catching my lower lip, his tongue demanding entry. His hands were everywhere, rough and demanding, gripping my thighs, my hips, my breasts, like he couldn't decide what he wanted to touch first, like he wanted to touch everything at once, like he was trying to memorize every inch of me through touch alone.
"Been waiting so long." He growled against my mouth, his hips grinding against me, the rough fabric of his pants rubbing against my oversensitive flesh, the friction almost painful but somehow exactly what I needed. "Listening to them have you. Smelling you come over and over. Nearly broke down the fucking door a dozen times."
"Then stop waiting." I clawed at his shirt, yanking it over his head, revealing the scarred expanse of his chest, the muscles that rippled beneath his skin, the evidence of a hard life etched into his flesh like a map of survival. "Take me, Sawyer. However you want. I can handle it."
He flipped me onto my stomach so fast I gasped, his hands gripping my hips and pulling them up until I was on my knees, my chest pressed to the mattress, my ass in the air, completelyexposed and vulnerable to him. His palm came down on my backside with a sharp smack that made me cry out, not in pain but in surprise and sudden, shocking pleasure, heat blooming across my skin.
"Like this." His voice was dark, commanding, his hands spreading me open, his breath hot against my swollen, sensitive flesh, his thumbs tracing circles on my inner thighs. "Going to take you like this. Going to show you what happens when you make me wait."
His tongue found my center and I screamed. He wasn't gentle. He licked into me with fierce, demanding strokes, his tongue thrusting inside me, his teeth grazing my clit, his hands gripping my thighs hard enough to leave bruises, his growls vibrating against my most sensitive flesh. He ate me like he was starving, like I was the first meal he'd had in years, like he couldn't get enough no matter how deep he buried his face between my legs.
"Sawyer!" I fisted my hands in the quilt, my hips bucking back against his mouth, another orgasm already building with terrifying speed, the pleasure coiling tighter and tighter in my core. "Oh god, Sawyer, please?—"
He pulled back, and I sobbed at the loss, but then I heard the rustle of fabric, the rasp of a zipper, and felt the blunt head of his cock pressing against my entrance, impossibly thick, impossibly hot.
"Tell me you want this." His voice was strained, barely human, his hands trembling where they gripped my hips, his cock twitching against me. "Tell me you want me. Need to hear it."
"I want you." I pushed back against him, desperate for more, desperate for everything he would give me, my body aching with emptiness. "I want you, Sawyer. I need you. Please, please, I need you inside me?—"
He thrust into me in one brutal stroke. I screamed again, the stretch almost too much, his cock impossibly thick, impossibly hard, filling me so completely there was no room for anything else, for any thought beyond him. He didn't give me time to adjust, just pulled back and slammed home again, setting a punishing rhythm that had me seeing stars, that drove the breath from my lungs with each impact.
"This is what you do to me." He growled, his hips snapping forward over and over, the sound of skin against skin filling the room like thunder, his balls slapping against my clit with each thrust. "This is how crazy you make me. Every day. Every fucking day, watching you smile at them, touch them, love them. Wanting you so bad I couldn't breathe."
"I love you too." I gasped out the words between thrusts, my body jolting forward with each impact, pleasure and pressure building inside me like a storm, overwhelming and unstoppable. "I've always loved you. From the first day, when you understood. When you didn't push."
Something shifted in his rhythm, the brutal pace softening slightly, his hands loosening on my hips, his body draping over mine from behind, his chest hot against my back, his heart pounding against my spine. His lips found my ear, his breath hot and ragged against my skin.
"Say it again." His voice was rough, but vulnerable now, the anger and desperation giving way to something softer, something aching, something that made my heart clench. "Please. Say it again."
"I love you, Sawyer." I turned my head, finding his mouth with mine, kissing him as best I could from this angle, pouring everything I felt into the press of my lips. "I love your darkness and your scars and your silence. I love that you understand me. I love that you never pushed. I love you."
He groaned against my mouth and his rhythm changed, becoming slower, deeper, each thrust deliberate and devastating, reaching places inside me no one had ever touched. His hand slid around to find my clit, circling it in time with his movements, building the pleasure to unbearable heights, his calloused fingers rough and perfect against my sensitive flesh.
"My omega." He pressed the words into my skin like brands, his lips trailing down my neck, his teeth grazing the one unmarked spot left — the back of my neck, where a bite would be visible to everyone, always, where it would proclaim my claimed status to the world. “Mine."
"Yours." I pushed back against him, feeling his knot starting to catch at my entrance, feeling the stretch increase with each thrust, the pressure building toward something inevitable. "Always yours. Now knot me. Bite me. Finish it."
He thrust harder, deeper, his knot pressing against me with each stroke, catching and releasing, catching and holding, the pressure building until I was sobbing with need, until I couldn't tell where the pleasure ended and the desperation began. And then, with one final thrust that drove the air from my lungs, his knot locked inside me. The stretch was overwhelming, the biggest yet, his cock buried so deep I could feel him in my chest, his knot pulsing and throbbing against every nerve inside me. He ground against me, tiny movements that sent shockwaves of pleasure through my entire body, and I shattered, my entire body convulsing around him as the orgasm ripped through me like wildfire.
