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So I kneel behind her and push in, one inch at a time, and I make her feel every ridge of my grain going into her. Then I stop, all the way inside, and I don’t move.

She sobs. “Rowan…”

“I know.”

“Move. Please, please, move…”

“In a minute.” I lean over her back, my chest against her spine, and put my mouth right next to her ear. “I want to feel you first. Your pussy’s fluttering. Every few seconds. Did you know that? Little squeezes, all along my cock, begging me. I could stay right here all night and just feel you beg.”

She whimpers and pushes back against me, trying to fuck herself on my cock. I put one hand on her hip and hold her still. It takes almost no effort.

“You’re shaking,” I murmur. “Good. Shake for me. You spent years alone in this bed, Hattie. Every single heat. Nobody to hold you. Nobody to fill you up.” I drag out slowly. Push back in, deeper. She cries out. “Never again. I’ll be here for every single one. I’ll hold you through all of it. I’ll keep you so full you forget what empty feels like.”

“Rowan…” she sobs. “Oh God… please…”

Then I start to move, long and slow and deep, and I don’t stop. I don’t speed up either. I just keep going, steady, and every time she gets close, she starts to clench and shake, and I keep the same exact rhythm and fuck her right through it. She comes. Then she comes again. Then again. She’s crying and laughing and grabbing at the blankets, and her slick is running down both our thighs, and I just keep going.

Trees are good at one thing. Patience.

And while I fuck her, I look down at the back of her neck.

Her braids have fallen to one side. And right there, at the curve where her neck meets her shoulder. Her bonding gland. Swollen and soft and dark, and it smells so sweet. Sweeter than anywhere else on her. I can see it pulsing.

My mouth floods.

My teeth ache. My jaw aches. Every single part of me that’s alpha is screaming at me to put my mouth there and bite down and make her mine forever. Right now. Tonight. It’s the strongest thing I’ve ever felt in my whole existence, stronger than the storm that pulled me out of the ground.

And I want to. God, I want to.

But she hasn’t asked.

She’s in heat. She doesn’t know her name right now. And a bite is forever. It’s not something you take from somebody while they’re crying into a pillow.

So I don’t.

I lean down and kiss the gland instead, just once, gentle. She shudders all over. Then I lift my head and do the only thing I can think of, which is clamp my teeth down on the corner of the headboard as hard as I can.

The wood crunches.

She comes again, screaming, clenching down on my cock so hard my knot slams into her, and I roar into the headboard as I come with her. Pouring into her, filling her up, locking us together, my teeth sunk into the wood while I shake.

When I finally let go, there are deep teeth marks right through one of the little carved bees.

Hattie is face down in the nest, panting, tied to me. Half asleep already.

“Rowan,” she mumbles, slurring. “Did you just bite the bed?”

“Yes.”

“Why’d you bite the bed?”

I pull her down into the blankets with me, my chest to her back, and wrap both arms around her. Still locked inside her. Her bonding gland is right in front of my mouth, sweet and warm and pulsing.

I rest my lips against it. Just rest them there.

“Go to sleep, sweetheart,” I tell her.

She’s snoring before I finish.