The Alpha’s Claim(3)

The Alpha’s Claim

Chapter 3

I woke up burning.

Not the fever kind. The other kind. The one I’d spent years pretending I would never feel again. Heat rolled under my skin in slow, heavy waves, low in my stomach, between my legs, behind my teeth. My cock was already hard against the sheets. Slick had soaked the inside of my thighs while I slept.

Kade was still on top of me.

Not fully. Just enough of his weight to pin me in place, one heavy thigh slotted between mine, face buried against the side of my throat. The second I shifted he woke. Gold eyes opened. He inhaled once and the sound that left his chest was pure animal.

“It’s started,” he said.

I tried to push him off. My arms felt weak. “Get off me.”

“No.”

He sat up just enough to look down at me. The sheet had tangled around my hips. He dragged it away without asking, leaving me naked and exposed under the dim morning light filtering through the trees. His gaze moved over every inch of me — the flush on my chest, the way my cock twitched against my stomach, the wet shine of slick already coating my thighs.

“You’re dripping,” he said, almost soft. “And it’s only the beginning.”

I turned my face away. “I don’t want this.”

“You keep saying that.” He caught my jaw and forced me to look at him. “But your body is begging. Your scent is so thick I can taste it. And every time I touch you, you lean in before you remember to fight.”

His hand slid down my stomach and wrapped around my cock. One slow stroke. I bit back a sound. He did it again, tighter, thumb spreading the wetness at the tip.

“See?” he murmured. “Already feeding me those little noises.”

I hated him for being right.

He stroked me until my hips started lifting into his fist without permission, then let go. The loss made me snarl. Kade only looked satisfied. He pushed my thighs apart and settled between them, staring down at the mess I’d made of the sheets.

“Look at you,” he said. “Open. Wet. Ready.”

Two thick fingers pressed against me. I tensed. He didn’t force them in right away. He just rubbed slow circles through the slick, watching my face, waiting until my body softened and pushed back against his hand on its own.

Then he pushed inside.

The stretch burned. My back arched off the bed. A broken sound tore out of my throat before I could stop it. Kade’s free hand pinned my hip to the mattress while he worked his fingers deeper, curling them until he found the spot that made my vision white out for a second.

“There,” he said. “That’s the place that’s going to take my knot.”

He added a third finger. The burn sharpened. Slick made filthy wet sounds every time he moved. I was shaking, one hand fisted in the sheets, the other gripping his forearm hard enough to leave marks. He didn’t stop. He just kept fucking me open with those slow, ruthless strokes until I was rocking down onto his hand and making sounds I didn’t recognize.

“Kade—fuck—please—”

“Please what?”

“I need—” I couldn’t finish it. The words stuck.

He leaned down until his mouth was against my ear. “Say it. Tell me what you need.”

“Your cock,” I gasped. “I need your cock. Please.”

The growl that left him was pure victory.

He pulled his fingers out, shoved his own sleep pants down, and slicked himself with the mess already coating his hand. The blunt head of his cock pressed against me. He didn’t thrust in right away. He stayed there, letting me feel the heat and the size of him, gold eyes locked on mine.

“Last chance to keep fighting,” he said, voice rough. “After this, you’re mine in every way that counts.”

I should have told him to stop.

Instead I wrapped my legs around his waist and pulled him closer.

Kade pushed in.

One long, controlled thrust until he was buried to the hilt and I was stretched around him so tightly I could barely breathe. The burn was sharp. The fullness stole every coherent thought. He stayed still, forehead pressed to mine, breathing hard, giving my body time to adjust to the size of him.

“Okay?” he asked, quieter than before.

I nodded, eyes stinging.

“Words, Evan.”

“Yes. Move. Please move.”

He did.

Deep. Steady. Every thrust dragged against that spot inside me until I was crying out with every stroke. The wet sound of it filled the cabin. His scent wrapped around me thicker than the sheets. The bond between us pulled tighter with every movement, hot and inevitable, until I couldn’t tell where my need ended and his began.

“You’re taking me so well,” he growled against my throat. “Look at you. Made for this. Made for me.”

I came the first time without a hand on my cock, body locking up around him, a broken shout torn from my chest. Kade didn’t stop. He fucked me through it, slower, deeper, until the oversensitivity made me whimper and claw at his back. Then his rhythm changed. Harder. More urgent. The base of his cock started to swell.

“Knot,” he warned, voice strained. “Take it.”

The stretch turned sharper, almost too much. I cried out as the knot locked behind my rim, sealing him inside me. Heat flooded me in thick pulses as he came, flooding me so deep I felt it in my stomach. The pressure of the knot against that spot inside me tipped me over again. I came a second time with his name in my mouth and tears sliding into my hair, body shaking apart under him.

Kade collapsed forward, still buried deep, knot holding us locked together. His mouth found the side of my throat. Teeth scraped. Then he bit down — hard enough to break skin, hard enough to mark.

The bond snapped fully into place.

I felt him. Not just the weight of his body or the heat of his release. Him. The possessive, hungry, absolute claim of an Alpha who had finally caught what belonged to him.

He licked the blood from the bite and pressed his forehead to mine, still breathing hard.

“You’re not running again,” he said, voice rough with satisfaction. “Not from me. Not from this. You’re mine now, Evan. In every way.”

I should have hated the words.

Instead I lay there beneath him, knotted full, marked, and already aching for the next time he would take me apart, and realized the worst truth of all.

Part of me had stopped wanting to run the moment he first touched me in the rain.