Claiming What’s Mine(3)

Claiming What’s Mine

Chapter 3

I fucked him through the first orgasm without slowing down.

Noah came with a sharp, broken cry, hole clamping down around me so tightly it almost pulled my own release out of me right then. I gritted my teeth and kept thrusting, deep and steady, dragging him through the oversensitivity until his nails bit into my shoulders and he was making soft, wrecked sounds against my neck.

“Kade— fuck— too much—”

“You can take it.” My voice was barely human. “You’ve been running from this for three years. You’re going to feel every second of it.”

I lifted him off the table without pulling out. His legs locked around my waist on instinct. I carried him the short distance to the bedroom, each step driving me deeper inside him, and lowered us both onto the bed. The second his back hit the mattress I hooked his knees over my elbows again and set a harder rhythm.

The wet sound of it filled the room. Noah’s scent had gone so thick it coated the back of my throat. Every thrust pushed another wave of that sweet, desperate heat into the air. My wolf was finally quiet — not gone, just focused, locked onto the single task of claiming what was ours.

I dropped my head and dragged my mouth along his throat. The urge to bite down, to leave a permanent mark, sat right behind my teeth. I scraped them over the skin instead, testing. Noah’s entire body shuddered.

“Do it,” he rasped.

I lifted my head just enough to meet his eyes. They were dark, glassy, completely given over to the heat and the bond.

“You sure?”

“I’ve been sure.” His hands framed my face, unsteady. “Stop asking. Just take what’s yours.”

The last of my careful control burned away.

I bit down hard enough to break skin, right over the place where his neck met his shoulder. Blood welled against my tongue. The bond snapped fully into place with a force that knocked the air from both of us. I felt him — not just the heat of his body or the way he clenched around my cock, but him. The three years of anger. The longing he had buried. The relief so sharp it almost hurt.

Noah came again the second the mark settled, untouched, crying out as his body locked up around me. The rhythmic clenching pulled my own orgasm up from the base of my spine like a tide. I buried myself to the hilt and let go, flooding him in thick pulses while a growl tore out of my chest. The base of my cock started to swell.

Noah’s eyes went wide.

“Kade—”

“I know.” I thrust once more, forcing the growing knot past his rim. The stretch made him cry out again, high and desperate. I kept pushing until the knot locked behind his rim and we were sealed together. “Breathe through it. I’ve got you.”

He did. His forehead dropped against my shoulder. I felt every tremor that ran through him as the knot continued to swell, stretching him wider, pressing relentlessly against that spot inside him until he came a third time with a broken sob, spilling between our stomachs in weak, oversensitive pulses.

I held him through it, one hand stroking down his spine, the other braced on the bed so I wouldn’t crush him. The knot kept us locked. Every small shift sent aftershocks through both of us. My release kept pumping into him in slow, heavy waves until he felt overfull and the scent of us mixed so thoroughly I could no longer separate them.

For a long time the only sound was rain and our breathing.

Noah eventually lifted his head. His eyes were clearer than they had been since the creek, though still dark with residual heat. The mark on his neck was already bruising, a perfect imprint of my teeth. Pride and something deeper moved through my chest at the sight.

“You’re staring,” he muttered, voice rough.

“You’re mine.” I brushed my thumb over the edge of the bite. “I’m allowed to stare.”

He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, softer, “I hated you for a long time.”

“I know.”

“I hated that you let me walk away.”

“I know that too.” I shifted carefully, mindful of the knot still holding us together, and settled more of my weight over him. “I was a coward. I thought I was protecting you from a bond you didn’t want. Turns out I was just protecting myself from the chance of being refused again.”

Noah’s hand slid into my hair, fingers curling loosely.

“I’m not refusing now.”

“No,” I agreed, and felt the truth of it settle into the bond like a second heartbeat. “You’re not.”

The knot stayed swollen for a long time. I kept him pinned beneath me, mouth occasionally returning to the mark, licking over it, pressing soft kisses to the bruised skin while he drifted in and out of a light doze. Every time he clenched around me on instinct I felt a fresh pulse of possessiveness roll through my chest.

When the knot finally softened enough to slip free, a rush of our combined release followed. Noah made a small, embarrassed sound. I kissed the corner of his mouth and reached for the cloth I kept in the nightstand, cleaning him with slow, careful strokes.

He watched me the entire time.

“Your heat isn’t done,” I said quietly. “It’ll climb again in a few hours. Stronger.”

“I know.”

“I’m not letting you out of this bed until it breaks.”

A faint, tired smile touched his mouth. “I wasn’t planning on going anywhere.”

I tossed the cloth aside, stretched out beside him, and pulled him against my chest. His face tucked into the crook of my neck on instinct, right against my scent gland. The trust in the gesture hit harder than the sex had.

Outside, the storm kept going.

Inside, my wolf finally curled up and rested for the first time in three years, satisfied that what belonged to us was finally home, marked, and full of our claim.

Noah’s breathing evened out against my skin.

I stayed awake a little longer, one hand resting over the bite on his neck, feeling the steady pulse of the completed bond, and let myself believe — for the first time since the night he walked away — that I might actually get to keep him.