"More," I whispered, because the orgasm had only taken the edge off. The heat was still there, still burning, the emptiness still screaming even louder now that I knew what it felt like to be filled. "Need more. Need you. All of you. Alpha, please."
"I know," he rumbled, lowering his head to kiss me. I tasted myself on his tongue—slick and sweet and desperate—and something primal purred in satisfaction. My Alpha, covered in my taste. Mine. "Going to give you everything, sweetheart. Going to fill you up until you can't think about anything but me."
I heard movement at the edges of the nest—Remy and Silas, still there, still watching. A hand found my hair, fingers threading through the sweat-damp strands and stroking gently. Another hand traced down my arm, following the curve of my bicep to my elbow to my wrist, the touch grounding and soothing. They were touching me, keeping me present, reminding me that I wasn't alone even as Harper positioned himself between my thighs.
I felt the head of his cock press against my entrance, hot and blunt and impossibly thick, and every thought in my head dissolved into white noise. He pushed forward, just the tip breaching me, and I gasped at the stretch. He was big—so much bigger than his fingers, bigger than anything I'd ever taken—and my body struggled to accommodate him even as slick flooded to ease the way. The pressure was intense, right on the edge of too much, and I heard myself whimper.
"Breathe," Harper groaned, his whole body trembling with the effort of going slow, of not just slamming home the way his instincts were screaming at him to do. I could see the strain in his jaw, teeth gritted, the tendons standing out in his neck like cables. His arms shook where they braced on either side of my head, muscles bunched with barely-leashed restraint. "Breathe for me, sweetheart. You're doing so good. Taking me so well. Just a little more. Just—fuck—just a little more."
I tried to breathe. Tried to remember how lungs worked. But he was sinking deeper with every passing second, stretching me open inch by inch, and all I could do was moan and clutch at his shoulders and feel.
The drag of him against my inner walls was exquisite—the thick head parting my flesh, the veined shaft following, every ridge catching against my sensitive entrance as he pushed deeper. I could feel my body opening for him, inner walls rippling and relaxing around the intrusion, slick flooding to ease his way. The wet sounds filled the nest as he pressed deeper, and I could feel myself stretching to accommodate his girth—wider than anything I'd ever taken, the burn of it mixing with pleasure until I couldn't tell them apart.
When he finally bottomed out—when I felt his hips press flush against mine, his pelvis grinding against my swollen clit, his cock so deep I could feel him pressing deep inside of me—we both groaned. The sound he made was broken, wrecked, like I'd just given him something precious.
"So tight," Harper gasped against my throat, his whole body shuddering, his hips twitching with the effort of staying still. "So fucking tight and wet and hot. Feel like you were made for me. Like your body was designed just to take me. Like I was made to fill you up."
"Move," I begged, my hips rolling against him, trying to create friction, trying to chase the pleasure that was building again despite the orgasm I'd just had. "Please, Alpha, please move—need to feel you—need?—"
He moved.
The first thrust punched the air from my lungs—a long, slow drag out that made me feel every inch of him retreating, followed by a deep, hard push back in that made my toes curl and my vision blur. My thighs trembled, useless for anything but clutching tighter around his hips. Every time he pushed in,the world closed in around the width and heat of him ruthlessly stretching me open. My scalp tingled, my mouth dry and open, panting. The second thrust made my eyes roll and my nails scrape down his back, desperate for something to anchor me when every nerve in my body was unraveling.
"Too much?" Harper's voice was rough silk—unsteady, breathless, nothing like his usual twinkle or devil-may-care banter. He sounded desperate; he sounded as close to losing himself as I was.
"More," I gritted, slurring it, not even caring how needy I sounded. "More, more, don't stop?—"
He lost control all at once—a staccato rhythm of thrusts that held me perfectly at the brink of pain and pleasure, my body strung out and shaking while he pressed his forehead into the crook of my neck, breath going ragged, teeth scraping like he needed something to keep him from falling to pieces. Harper's hands gripped my hips so tight I’d see bruises later. The pain only slid me further into the heat, the bed squealing under our bodies until every thrust felt like one more second I survived before coming apart.
"That's it," Harper growled, his pace quickening, his thrusts growing harder, his control starting to fray at the edges. His gray eyes were fixed on my face, watching every expression, every flutter of my lashes, drinking in every sound I made. "That's my omega. Take it. Take all of it. Feel how deep I am? Feel how full you are? You're mine, you hear me? Mine."
"Yours," I sobbed, the word ripped from somewhere primal, somewhere that existed before language. "Alpha. Yours. All yours." His hips snapped harder,faster, driving into me with a force that would have been painful if I wasn't so slick, so ready, so desperate for exactly this. The pleasure built higher and higher, coiling tight in my belly, pressure building toward something huge.
Then I felt it.
Something starting to swell at the base of his cock—pressure against my entrance that hadn't been there before. Each thrust pushed it against my opening, the growing bulge catching on my rim, stretching me wider with every stroke. His knot. He was starting to knot.
Harper groaned, voice gone ragged and lost, his teeth grazed my jaw and throat. "Gonna knot you, Artemis, gonna fill you up so good, not gonna let you go—never—never—" The words were frantic, but he was still holding some small shivering line of control, trying to keep himself from breaking all the way.
The knot made him even harder—impossibly so—and every thrust now was a struggle, every push a challenge to my body's limits.It was too much. He was too big, too swollen, every stroke now a stretch that teetered on the edge of pleasure and pain.He must have felt it, the catch and squeeze of me fluttering around him, because his thrusts became harder.
"You can take it," Harper rasped, shuddering above me. "You're perfect, Artemis. Give it to me, let me—fuck—let me knot you."
“Alpha” I gasped out. Yes. I could take it. I wanted it—I needed it, the fullness, the surrender. I squeezed around him, desperate to coax out every last shred of himself he was willing to give. The pressure of the knot against my slick, overused entrance was the start of something bright and vast and uncontainable, and every time he forced it a little deeper I swore I could feel my body splitting along some hidden seam.
"Almost—there," he gritted, his hips stuttering, his chest slicked with sweat and pressed to mine, barely held up by trembling arms. “Such a good omega.” It happened all at once. The knot forced its way past my rim, a brutal stretch that made me cry out, white-hot and blinding for a second, and then I was utterly, absolutely full. I could feel the pulse of him inside me,throbbing, every frantic heartbeat pumping more heat into my body, dragging all of me into the singularity of that moment.
Harper bucked once, twice, and slammed in deep, locked in place. "Fuck, Artemis—" His head snapped back, eyes squeezed shut, jaw clenched like he was bracing for the end of the world. "Such a good girl. You can take it.”
The moment stretched on, a scream turned silent by the force of having nothing left to give, not even breath. My body trembled, clamped, flooded. I heard the snap of something inside me and for a second, I thought I might die from it, but then my body remembered itself, remembered pleasure, and the luxurious, impossible fullness of being so thoroughly claimed. I pulsed hungrily around him, milking him, greedy for every drop my body demanded. The knot fit so tightly it hurt, but the pain smeared into ecstasy, a slow-blooming sensation that radiated out from the point of connection.
Harper’s arms finally gave. He collapsed onto me, his chest crushing the breath from my lungs, his aftershocks vibrating through me. I clung to him, nails still digging at his shoulders, and sobbed against his neck because there was nothing else left to do.
"Artemis." Harper's voice broke on my name, cracked and shattered like he'd been split open. I opened my eyes to find his face above mine, and there were tears on his cheeks. His gray eyes were wet, overwhelmed, looking at me like I'd just handed him something sacred. Like I was something sacred. "I— You— I don't have?—"
He couldn't finish. Didn't have the words. The Head Alpha who always knew what to say, who always had the right command or the perfect reassurance, was speechless. Undone. Broken open by what we'd just shared.
I understood. There weren't words for this.
