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“Hattie.”

“It was hot,” she says, totally unbothered. “And I had a feeling.”

I’m going to die in this clearing. Happily.

She’s soaked. Her thighs are wet with it, shining in the light coming down through the leaves, and when I drag my fingers through her pussy, she’s so slick and swollen they slide right through her. She moans and lifts her hips into my hand.

I open my pants and fist my cock, and I’m so hard it aches. I drag the head through her slowly, up over her clit and back down, and the heat of her soaks right into me. She’s warm and wet and soft, and she flutters against the tip of me like she’s trying to pull me in.

I press against her entrance and push, slow.

She stretches around me, tight and hot, and I feel the head of my cock sink into her. The grip of her steals all the air out of my chest. I keep going, one slow inch at a time, feeling her open for me, feeling every ridge of my grain slide into her and her body squeeze down around each one. She grabs my arms. Her mouth falls open. Her back arches up off my coat.

I sink all the way in until my knot presses against her and there’s nothing left. Then I hold still, buried in her, and breathe.

There are leaves in her hair. There’s moss under her. The whole forest is all around us, quiet and old and watching. And she’s right here, under me, holding on.

I start to move.

I fuck her slow and deep at first, long strokes that drag almost all the way out and push all the way back in, and every time I bottom out, she gasps. Then she wraps her legs around me and pulls me in harder, and I give her what she’s asking for. Faster. Rougher. Her heels dig into my back. Leaves crunch under us. Somewhere above us, a crow takes off, offended.

“He looked at you,” I growl, driving into her. “Some fucking cattle trader from over the mountain looked at you like you were up for sale.”

“I’m not…”

“No. You’re not.” I pin her hips down and fuck her harder. “You’re the woman who walked into a toy shop and asked for exactly what she wanted. And you got it. You got me. Nobody else gets a single fucking inch of you.”

She sobs my name. Her nails rake my back.

“Come for me,” I tell her. “Let the whole forest hear it. They’ve heard worse from me.”

She comes with her whole body. Arching up off the moss, clenching around me so hard my arms shake, crying out loud enough that I hear birds scatter for a hundred yards. And I go right over with her, shoving my knot into her and pouring everything I’ve got inside her while she shakes.

We lie there in the leaves for a long time. Tied together. Her cheek against my chest and my hand in her hair, pulling out the ribbons one at a time.

The fiddle is still going, way off in the distance. Badly.

“Rowan,” she murmurs.

“Hm.”

“You called me your mate. In front of everybody.”

I think about that.

“You are,” I say.

She doesn’t say anything. But she presses her face into my chest and holds on tight, and I feel her smiling against my skin.

* * *

We walk back to the fair an hour later, covered in leaves.

Nobody says anything. Not one word. But every alpha we pass takes one sniff and steps out of our way, and Auntie Bess looks at the leaves in Hattie’s hair and just raises one eyebrow all the way up to her bonnet.

That night, in our bed, I lie awake while Hattie sleeps against my chest.

It’s our third bed. I built it the day after her heat broke, out of the rest of that oak. Thicker legs. Iron bolts. I’m not taking any more chances.