He gasped against my sensitive nerves, his body trembling as he tried to keep from thrusting up. I wrapped a hand around the part of him that I couldn’t get in my mouth and went to town. The hands on my hips tightened; the faint hint of neatly manicured fingernails digging in.
I lost myself to the physical sensations flying at me from all directions, wondering vaguely if Gage would stop me before I made him come like this. I didn’t think he would, and my desire not to waste his knot warred with the appeal of watching him come undone while he was helpless to stop it.
The thick length twitched hard in my mouth as I gushed another release over his face. He bucked, unable to control the movement, his tip shoving toward the back of my throat. Through the bond, Heath lost control as well, his orgasm pouring over me.
My aching need to be filled overrode everything else. I pulled off Gage’s cock and scrambled inelegantly down his body, straddling his hips instead of his head so I could get him inside me. He let out a choked cry as I slammed down, taking his cock in a single, brutal stroke.
He’d already been too close, because that was all it took to push him over the edge. He spurted into me, jerking once, twice, three times. I groaned as his knot swelled, stretching tissues that had been abused for days, but were already begging for more.
A third release, deep and slow, washed along my nerves. The knot inside me jostled as Gage pushed himself into a sitting position behind me. He cinched my back against his front with an arm around my stomach and carefully shuffled both of us back until he could lean against the headboard.
I shivered, then lolled back against him as all the tension flowed from my body. Through the bond, Heath, too, had gone soft and quiescent. There was a kind of blank awe buzzing across the connection, low and confused.
I shouldn’t have liked it as much as I did.
“What was that you said about being gentle?” Gage murmured against the exposed skin of my throat. Amusement laced through his tone.
“Umm...” I said brilliantly.
He chuckled, the puff of air whispering across sensitive flesh.
We rested together, his knot seated warm and deep inside my body. His fingers trailed up my arm and across my shoulder, pausing to trace the mark of Heath’s teeth in my mating gland. After a moment, they stilled.
“I’m gonna say something kind of crazy,” Gage murmured, his light touch still resting over Heath’s mark. “Because this whole thing has been crazy, right?”
I made a humming noise of curiosity.
“It’s just that... you’ve already decided to have this removed,” he went on, tracing my gland. “So, I’m thinking—what’s stopping us from mating, too?”
My breath stuttered. I rolled my head, meeting his hazel eyes as best I could in this position.
“You told me once that you wanted to feel what it would be like if you’d chosen all this,” he said, holding my gaze with his steady, comforting presence. “And... we could choose it now. You could have a mate that you’d chosen, and I could know what it feels like to be bonded to my amazing, beautiful scent match.”
My throat bobbed convulsively as I pictured what he was proposing. A mate who actually seemed to care for me... a connection that I could choose because it was something I wanted.
It will only make things harder when you have to let go, I tried to tell myself.
But would it really? Could anything be harder than going back to my stupid, meaningless life after all of this?
“What do you think?” Gage asked, worry creeping into his voice as my silence stretched too long.
I swallowed hard. Once. Twice.
“Yes,” I whispered, the word a hoarse rasp. “Yes. I want that.”
