I moved.
The first thrust punched the air out of his lungs. The second made him cry out, high and sharp, his fingers digging into the pine needles. By the third, I'd found a rhythm, brutal and relentless, driving into him with all the pent-up need of a decade of wanting.
The sounds he made were obscene. Whimpers and moans and broken fragments of my name, spilling out of him with every thrust. His back arched deeper, his ass pressing up to meet me, taking everything I gave him and begging for more.
I leaned over him, covering his body with mine, one hand planted beside his head while the other gripped his hip hard enough to bruise. The new angle let me go deeper, hit something inside him that made him jerk and a scream tear from his throat.
"There," he gasped. "There, there, please, don't stop—"
I didn't stop. Couldn't stop. The primal part of my brain had taken over completely, reducing me to instinct and need and the overwhelming drive to claim, to mark, to make him mine in every way that mattered.
The forest disappeared. Time disappeared. There was nothing but the slap of skin against skin, the wet sounds of my cock driving into his slick heat, the symphony of his pleasure echoing off the trees. I felt savage. Uncontrolled. More animal than man.
And beneath me, Dalvin was loving every second of it.
"Harder." The word came out as a sob. "Please, harder, I need to feel you—"
I gave him harder. Slammed into him with enough force to drive him forward on his hands, to make his arms buckle, to press his face down into the pine needles while his ass stayed raised, impaled on my cock. He moaned at the new position, at the vulnerability of it, at the way it let me use him exactly how I wanted.
"You're mine," I growled against the back of his neck. "Say it."
"Yours." No hesitation. No doubt. Just pure, desperate surrender. "I'm yours, Min-ho, I've always been yours—"
The words broke something open inside me. All the walls I'd built, all the control I'd cultivated, all the careful distance I'd maintained for years—it shattered like glass, leaving nothing but raw emotion and overwhelming need.
I felt tears on my face. Didn't know when they'd started. Didn't care.
Dalvin sobbed beneath me. Not from pain. From the same overwhelming emotion that was drowning me, from years of loneliness and fear finally releasing their hold. His hand reached back, fingers digging into my hip, pulling me closer, deeper, demanding everything I had to give.
I buried my face against his shoulder and thrust deeper, harder, pouring everything I felt into the rhythm of our bodies. This wasn't just sex. This wasn't just claiming. This was a homecoming. A reunion. The joining of two halves that had been separated for far too long.
The pressure built at the base of my spine, inevitable and overwhelming. I could feel my knot starting to swell, could feel Dalvin's body responding to it, his inner muscles clenching and fluttering around me as his own orgasm approached.
He had begun to shake, tremors running through him that had nothing to do with cold and everything to do with the pleasure building to an unbearable peak. I could feel it through the physical connection between us, could feel how close he was, how desperately he needed release.
"I'm going to bite you," I said. "I'm going to claim you. Bond you. Make you mine forever."
"Yes." He turned his head, baring his throat, offering me the bonding gland that still bore Vernon's faded mark. "Do it. Please. I want it to be you. It was always supposed to be you."
I drove into him one last time, burying myself as deep as I could go, my knot swelling to lock us together. At the same moment, I sank my teeth into the soft flesh of his neck, right over Vernon's old claim, obliterating it, replacing it with my own.
The bond snapped into place.
It was like nothing I'd ever experienced. A flood of sensation and emotion that wasn't my own, pouring into me through a connection I could suddenly feel humming in my chest. Dalvin's pleasure hit me first, the echo of his orgasm crashing through my nervous system and triggering my own release. I came with a roar muffled against his neck, spilling into him in hot pulses, filling him while my knot kept us locked together.
But beneath the pleasure, I felt everything else.
Years of fear. Years of pain. The cold terror of Vernon's cruelty, the desperate hope of escape, the fierce protective love for a child I'd never met. Relief, so much relief, that it was finally over, that he was finally safe, that the alpha claiming him was the one he'd wanted all along.
And underneath all of it, love. Quiet and steady and unshakeable, a foundation that had survived years of abuse and over a decade of separation. Love that had never wavered, never faded, never stopped believing that somehow, someday, we would find each other again.
I held him through the aftershocks, my body curved around his, my teeth still buried in his neck as the bond finished forming. He trembled beneath me, crying quietly, his hand reaching back to grip my hip and hold me close.
"I've got you," I murmured against his skin. "I've got you. You're safe now. You're mine, and I'm never letting you go."
He nodded, a small movement, and I felt his agreement through the bond. Felt his trust, fragile but real, unfurling in his chest for the first time in years.
We stayed locked together for twenty minutes as my knot slowly subsided. I shifted us onto our sides, pulling him against my chest, wrapping my arms around him to ward off the cooling air. His torn clothes offered no protection, so I pulled off my jacket and draped it over him, covering his bare skin.
