“Shh, we’ll get there soon.”
I’m losing the battle with my own control. Her scent is everywhere now, saturating the air, flooding my senses until I can barely think straight. The sight of her spread out beneath me—flushed and trembling andwanting—makes my cock throb painfully against the constraints of my jeans.
I shed them hastily, nearly tearing the zipper in my rush. The relief of being free is almost orgasmic in itself.
Phoenix’s eyes go wide when she sees me, her gaze traveling the length of my body with an expression somewhere between hunger and trepidation. I know what she’s looking at. Know the stories that have circulated about me, some of them true, most of them exaggerated.
“We’ll go slow,” I promise, settling between her thighs. The heat of her core against my cock makes us both gasp. “Tell me if it’s too much. Okay?”
She nods frantically, her hips already tilting up to seek more friction.
I guide myself to her entrance and push forward—slowly, so fucking slowly it’s actual torture—letting her body adjust to each inch before advancing further. She’s tight and wet and burning hot, and the sensation of sinking into her threatens to unhinge what’s left of my self-control.
Her fingernails dig into my shoulders hard enough to draw blood. I welcome the pain. It helps me focus.
“Okay?” I manage when I’m fully seated, my forehead pressed against hers, both of us breathing like we’ve run a marathon.
“More.” The word is a command, a plea, a prayer. “Please, Atticus, I need?—”
I start to move.
Every instinct in my body screams at me to take her hard and fast, to claim and conquer andmark. But I force myself to maintain the slow, deliberate rhythm I promised. Long, deep strokes that drag against every sensitive nerve ending. Rolls of my hips that grind my pelvis against her clit with each thrust.
Her moans fill the room, rising in pitch and volume until I’m sure the entire house can hear. I don’t care. Let them hear. Let them know exactly what’s happening in this room.
The pressure builds at the base of my spine—the first warning signs of my knot starting to swell. I grit my teeth against the urge to let go, to bury myself inside her and lock us together the way my biology demands.
“I want to bite you,” I confess against her throat, my voice barely recognizable. “God, Phoenix, I want to claim you so fucking badly?—”
“Then do it?—”
“No.” The word tears out of me, harsh and final. “Not like this. Try asking me again next week, baby.”
She whines in protest, but I capture her mouth, swallowing her complaints along with her sounds of pleasure. My thrusts speed up despite my best intentions, the rhythm becoming more urgent as my body races toward completion.
When she comes, it’s with my name on her lips and her walls clenching around me like a vice. The sensation drags me over theedge right behind her—my knot swelling to lock us together, my release pulsing into her in waves that seem to go on forever.
I collapse on top of her, catching my weight on my forearms at the last second, and let my forehead rest against her shoulder while I try to remember how to breathe.
“Holy shit,” she whispers. Her voice is hoarse, wrecked from screaming.
I manage a rough laugh. “Yeah.”
“Is this… are we stuck?”
I lean back enough to look at her, until I catch her wince. “Wait. Have you never been knotted before?”
She bites her lip. “Not exactly.”
Christ. Just more evidence that I need to keep my head. This girl has no idea what she was asking for, practically laying herself out like a buffet in front of a starving man.
“Just for a little while.” I shift carefully, adjusting our position so I can roll onto my side without pulling at the sensitive point where we’re still connected. “It’ll go down in about fifteen, twenty minutes.”
She makes a sound of tired acknowledgment, burrowing into my chest like a cat seeking warmth. Her body is still trembling with aftershocks, tiny muscles contracting sporadically around my knot in ways that make my nerve endings fire with residual pleasure.
“I don’t usually…” She trails off, seems to lose her train of thought, starts again. “This isn’t how my heats normally go.”
“How do they normally go?”
