I lean over her, planting my hand next to her head, as I carefully ease into her. We’ve never knotted twice in one day before, and I don’t want to add to her pain. She whimpers, but her scent only gets stronger, blanketing over us both and slowly stealing my sanity.
Fuck.
She’s so tight, even with all of her slick, I have to clench my teeth. A bolt of lightning streaks down my spine, and I shudder. Her breathing quickens, short pants that press her breasts into my chest. She cants her hips when I don’t speed up, her nails digging into my hips before scratching all the way up my back. The pain is enough to have my control crumbling away completely.
“Jesus Christ, baby girl,” I mutter.
Worries about hurting her slowly fade, and I let her mewls and whimpers and scratching nails drive me faster, harder, until I’m covered in a layer of sweat and the sounds of our bodies slapping together drown out all of her delicious noises.
“Bite,” she whispers.
Warning bells go off in my mind a heartbeat before her teeth settle against my wrist still next to her cheek. I pull up onto my knees, not stopping my rhythm but tracing my hand down her body before she can break my skin. One unintentional bond is enough. Her lips are so swollen, it exaggerates her desperate pout. New tears drip down her face and into her hair. I softly wipe one away.
“I know, baby girl,” I say, keeping my voice warm even as the need to take her, to claim her, rushes through me. My pace picks up even more. “I’ll make you warm, though, okay? I’ll take the pain away so you don’t want to bite.”
Release gathers between my hips, and I flick her clit, making sure she goes over before me just like always. She shatters after only a few seconds, her body strungsotight. Her back bows as she screams, her voice breaking. I follow only a heartbeat later, pulling her hips into me, wedging my knot as deep as her body will take me. My entire vision blurs out as I come, the wave reaching all the way to my damn finger tips. Carys screams again, her scent pulsing out from her. As the sensation fades from my limbs, I ease an arm under her and carefully pull her into my chest. Just like the first time we knotted.
Just like I found her with my brother.
I shove the thought away before bile can rise in my throat again.
She trembles with aftershocks. I press my lips to her temple and run my hand through her hair, softly pulling apart some of the knots. Sanity slowly returns. With it comes the terrifying reality that she’s in heat. She’s in heat, and she’s now beenknotted twice without any kind of protection. Jesus, this day just becomes more and more of a clusterfuck the longer it goes on. I take a deep breath, trying to shed some of the anxiety that’s spreading out from my stomach like a damn weed. This isn’t impossible to work around, I remind myself. I’ll just add the heat-specific morning after pill to the grocery delivery I’m going to put together as soon as she’s cleaned up and asleep next.
“Lemongrass,” she whispers.
She slowly traces my shoulder with her lips. Goosebumps follow her movement, and I tighten my hold on her waist as my dick twitches, already hardening again inside of her.
“You okay?” I press the words into her hair. She shivers. Her arms wrap around my waist, her palms pressed flat against my back.
“Good. Warm.”
Her breathing steadies as the minutes pass, relaxing into my chest more fully. I carefully tuck her hair behind her ear and find her eyes closed, her lips slightly parted. All the pain and despair is gone in her expression, nothing but peace now. When my knot finally releases, I ease out of her bed.
After turning on the water in the bathtub again, I grab my phone and start on the food order, adding the medication before I might risk forgetting. Then I return to Carys. She’s relaxed in a way she wasn’t on the way here. Her heat’s sated for the time being. My eyes catch on the scabbed bite mark on her hip, and my stomach twists so hard it’s a miracle I don’t throw up all over her carefully constructed nest. I swallow down the roaring wave of emotion the same way I did in her shop. My touch is as gentle as I can manage as I ease her limp body into my arms and into the bathroom, intent on getting her cleaned up fully this time.
Chapter Twenty-Four
RHETT
Several hard knocks pull me out of the dreamless sleep. Carys sprawls across my chest, her hair tickling my nose as I carefully roll onto my side. She whines, her brow furrowing, but doesn’t wake up, curling in on herself, her cheek pressed tight to my chest. My body aches like I’ve spent the entire night getting slammed into the boards instead of fucking my scent match. How long has it even been since the last round? It’ll be a miracle if either of us can walk when this is all done.
I blindly grab my phone, trailing my fingers through Carys’s hair.
11 pm.
Only an hour since she fell asleep against me again, her body releasing its tension before my knot had even deflated.
The knocking comes again.
“Carys bug? Are you in there?” Ares’s voice is muffled worry. My stomach twists.
Ohfuck.
“Baby girl?” I whisper against her temple. “You awake?”
She hums, but her eyes don’t flutter. Given how distraught she was this afternoon, I should be glad she’s managed to find a moment of deep sleep. Instead, I’m as nervous as a man headed to the gallows.
“Fuck, okay. Here we go, I guess.”
