"I can feel you," I whispered. "Every time I clench, you..."
"I know." His hand stroked my face. "Every time you grip me, it triggers another release. By the time the knot goes down, you'll be so full you'll be able to feel it."
I already could. My belly was slightly distended, swollen with the sheer volume of his seed. I touched it, felt the warmth, and my throat tightened.
He was inside me. His seed was inside me. After ten days of torture, I was finally, completely, irrevocably his.
"Thank you," I said. The words felt inadequate. "For waiting. For making me choose."
"Thank you for choosing." His forehead pressed against mine. "I've been waiting twenty cycles for you."
"I know." I kissed him softly. "I'm not going anywhere."
The knot pulsed inside me. More seed. More fullness. More of him, claiming every part of me.
I lay there in his arms, connected and complete and finally at peace.
KERRIS
His knot pulsed inside me every few minutes, releasing more seed, keeping my belly warm and swollen.
We talked.
Not about anything important at first. He told me about the Ossuary, about the creatures whose bones made up this territory, about the millennia of history that had shaped this landscape. I told him about engineering school, about the structures I'd designed, about the bridges and buildings that still stood somewhere on colony worlds I'd never see again.
His cock stayed hard inside me the entire time. Every time I shifted, I felt the ridges drag against my walls. Every time I clenched, he pulsed more seed into me. The intimacy was overwhelming. Not just physical, but emotional. We were connected in the most fundamental way two beings could be connected.
"The nursery," I said eventually. "You built it twelve cycles ago?"
"Eleven cycles after I finished the main chamber." His hand stroked my hair, gentle despite its size. "I was certain, then, that someone would come. Someone who would see what I'd built and want to stay."
"Forty-three females," I said. "And none of them..."
"None of them were you."
I'd spent my whole life being overlooked, being second choice, being the one people used but never kept. And here was someone who'd been waiting two decades for me specifically.
"How did you know?" I asked. "That I was different?"
"You climbed." His voice rumbled through my body. "First thing you did after arriving, you climbed to high ground. You tested the load capacity before committing your weight. You thought like a builder."
"That's what made you decide to..." I couldn't finish the sentence.
"That's what made me decide to wait. To be patient. To give you time to understand what I was offering." His hand moved to my belly, pressing gently against the swell where his seed filled me. "The others ran or hid or screamed. You analyzed."
I laughed. The sound was broken, emotional, nothing like my usual controlled humor. "I analyzed my way into being bred by an alien monster."
"You analyzed your way into a home." His voice was serious. "You analyzed your way into a partnership with someone who understands structure. You analyzed your way into a future worth building."
The knot pulsed. More warmth flooded into me. I gasped at the sensation, my walls clenching involuntarily.
"I can feel that," I said. "Every time you..."
"I know. The knot keeps stimulating both of us. It's designed to maximize the chance of conception."
Conception. A child. His child, growing inside me.
The thought should have terrified me. Instead, it made me clench around him again, which triggered another pulse, which made me moan.
