17. Knox
KNOX
T he truck hasn’t even fully stopped when she moves.
One second my petal is beside me, the next the door is flying open, her small boots hitting gravel, hair wild in the night breeze as she sprints away.
She laughs .
Actually laughs, that wicked sound pouring out as she bolts into the trees, skirt flaring, silky chestnut hair catching what little light the moon gives us.
“Race you home!” she calls over her shoulder, voice breathless.
Daring.
My blood turns molten as thoughts of traps and sheer cliff edges tear through my mind and my chest.
“Lily!” I bellow, the sound ripping out of me raw and feral, rolling across the forest like thunder. “You fucking stop right there, little girl!”
My boots slam the ground and my body launches after her. The earth shakes under my weight as I tear down the trail, trees blurring past, every muscle straining.
She squeals, the sound high and sharp, weaving like fucking magic through branches.
I see the flash of her blue dress darting ahead and fuck me, she’s fast. Faster than I expected.
The new boots give her speed and confidence, her legs pumping with a strength I didn’t see that first night tangled in my snare.
For a heartbeat—God help me—I almost admire it. Almost let pride flicker at how strong she’s become under my roof, on my mountain.
In my care.
But admiration burns quick into need.
Because the longer she stays out of my reach, the more the terror claws at me. That I’m losing her. That tonight, after the disaster of the fair, she might run for real.
The fair.
Christ, it was a mistake.
Dragging her down into a pit of staring eyes and whispers on every side. My temper stretched thin, and I had to focus every ounce of attention on her before I gave in to the urge for my fists to break bone.
Men looked at her while women looked at me like I’m the monster they’ve always imagined.
And Lily, my sweet flower, caught in the middle.
No. Enough of that fucking shit.
I need her back in my arms.
Where she belongs.
I pour on more speed, the ground pounding beneath me, the trees ripping past like matchsticks. I see her, reach out, and she fucking darts left, quick as the rabbit I first named her.
“You’re asking for it, petal,” I grunt.
She giggles and astonishingly, she puts on more speed. “Catch me if you can, Bear!”
I can.
I will.
Because she’s everything.
So, I surge and I catch her.
My chest crashes into her back and she shrieks, the sound breaking into laughter and gasps all at once as I lift her off her feet.
Spin her.
Her spine hits the rough bark of a pine right before my arm cages her in place, my breath storming hot against her cheek.
Her eyes are bright and wild and so fucking beautiful I want to weep and howl. When they meet mine and her lips part, trembling, I feel every bone in my body weaken.
“Thought you could outrun me?” I rasp, low and rough, my body pressing her down into the tree. “On my own fucking mountain?”
Her chest rises fast, breath hitching, arousal sparking between us.
“Maybe…” she gasps, tilting her chin. “Or maybe I wanted to be caught.”
A hot and guttural growl rumbles up my throat. I press harder, my frame dwarfing hers and cage her completely, no hope of escape.
“Then you get what you wanted.”
Maybe I wanted to be caught.
Her words detonate inside me.
I snarl and crush my mouth to hers, all teeth and tongue and desperate hunger. Her little gasp feeds my soul, the nails clawing at my shoulders riling me up good.
I’m gone, stripped of restraint or reason… just the feral beast who’s been clawing at my ribcage since the second she landed in my snare.
I shove her higher against the tree, bark scraping her back through the thin cotton of her dress.
My palms bracket her thighs, force them open, and she wraps around me like she was made for it.
Her heat sears through those cheap white panties, wet already, slick enough that my cock twitches so hard it hurts.
“Mine,” I rasp against her throat, dragging my teeth along that sweet spot until she cries out. “You hear me, petal? Man, woman, child. Not a fucking soul gets to look at you the way I do.”
“Yes, Bear,” she gasps, grinding against the rigid line of me. “Only you.”
I rip her panties aside with a single swipe of my fingers, the fabric giving with a sharp tear. “Eat you later, baby. Right now, I need inside you. Or I go fucking berserk.”
She nods eagerly and my cock is free in a second, thick and heavy, the head already leaking. I line up, press into her, and she arches with a strangled cry. “Yes! Oh, Bear, yes!”
The tight clutch of her makes me see white. Fuck, she’s so small, so tight, I can barely breathe.
“Easy,” I groan, forehead pressed to hers as she claws at my back. “You’re gripping me like a fucking iron fist. Gonna split you open, petal.”
“Do it,” she whimpers. “I can take it. Take it, Bear. It’s yours.”
The sound of that rips me clean apart. My petal, begging for me, begging for all of me.
I drive deeper, inch by inch, feeling her body stretch around me, fight me, then give. Fight. Give. Fight. Give.
Sweet heavenly fucking fuck.
She sobs against my mouth, but it’s not all pain. It’s the same savage need tearing through me. Her pussy clenches in vise-like grips, drawing me in like it was spun from threads meant only for me.
And then— Christ —I send a prayer and push. And she… fuck, she takes that last inch. The one I’ve held back. The one I’ve denied her because I was half-convinced it would break her.
But she takes it.
All of me. Root to tip.
I roar my triumph into her throat, pounding my fist into the tree beside her head to keep from collapsing. “Fuck—Lily—petal—you did it. Took me. Every inch.”
“I… I did?”
“Yes, baby. What a fucking good girl you are. The keeper of my very own special edition cunt now, aren’t you?”
“Yes!” Her nails score bloody lines down my shoulders. “Don’t stop, Bear. Please don’t stop. Fuck me.”
I grind deep, hips locked, savoring the perfect fit. She’s so tiny, yet she’s holding me like her body was carved for this moment. A fairytale come to life, but not the sweet kind. The dark one. The true one.
“My perfect Goldilocks,” I rasp, nipping her earlobe, voice shredded. “Still too little and too tight, but I’ve trained it right, haven’t I? Now it lets me in just right. This sweet pussy… just right for me.”
She gasps, her body shuddering as my words hit, her cunt spasming tight around me. I almost lose it then and there.
“Maybe I should call you Goldilocks now,” I growl, fucking her harder, pounding her into the tree, sap sticking to my palms as I brace us both. “Perfect little Goldilocks with the perfect cunt. Mine. Always mine.”
Her cries echo through the trees, raw and shameless. She clenches, milks me, her release flooding me until I’m roaring again, losing myself in the savage rhythm of taking and giving, claiming and being claimed.
“Look at you,” I snarl, kissing her jaw, her mouth, her temple between thrusts. “So small, so goddamn strong. Taking every inch of your Bear like you were born for it.”
She sobs my name and sinks her nails in, tiny vicious bites I’m addicted to, her body trembling as another climax wrecks her. The sight, the feel… Jesus , it unravels me.
I slam deep, deeper, hold her there, and explode, my release pulsing into her until I can’t tell where I end and she begins. My vision tunnels as my body convulses, and still I hold her up, keep her caged against the tree because she’s mine.
My found treasure. My forever.
Her lips find mine, sloppy and sweet, as she pants against my mouth. “I did it, Bear. I took all of you.”
The pride in her voice makes my chest cave in, a ragged growl vibrating through me as I kiss her hard.
“You did, petal. You’re my perfect little Goldilocks. And I’ll never let you go.”
Several minutes later, when an ounce of strength has returned, I exhale with one vow ringing in my chest.
Whatever comes, I’m fighting for this till the final bell, and I’m the last man standing with my precious petal in my arms.
Lily
I’m still clinging to him long minutes later.
The bark is rough against my spine and his cock still pulses inside me, reminding me it’s there. That it owns every inch of me.
My thighs are trembling, my breath stuttering, and yet a wild, feral triumph swells in my chest.
I did it.
I took all of him.
Every inch of my Bear.
His forehead is still pressed to mine, sweat dripping, chest heaving like he’s run a war. His huge hands cradle me even as they cage me and keep me pinned to the tree as if the forest itself might try to steal me away.
“You’re mine,” he rasps, still inside me, voice shredded raw. “Every damn inch of you, petal.”
“And you’re mine,” I whisper back, stroking his jaw, reveling in the scratch of his beard against my palm. The thought bursts out before I can stop it. “I’m sorry. I thought I knew what you needed. Thought dragging you down the mountain, making you face people would do you good. But I was wrong.”
His eyes flare, chest rising sharp as he struggles to breathe.
“You don’t need them,” I murmur, tears pricking my lashes. “You don’t need anyone. You’re great, magnificent the way you are. Exactly the way you are.”
He drops his forehead back against mine with a ragged groan. “Fuck. Petal. You make me… need to… fuck …”
He can’t find the words and I don’t need them.
I feel it in the way he fucks me again. Right there.
In the dirt, against the tree, like the forest is our cathedral and my body is the altar. His thrusts are savage, but his mouth… his mouth kisses me like I’m his lifeline. Like every inhale and exhale depends on me letting him have this, have me.
Satisfying every filthy, primal fantasy I hid even from myself.
His lips break from mine just long enough for him to pant into my ear, “No more people. Just us. Forever.”
My whole body quakes, pleasure and terror tangled in my chest.
Because I want it. God, I want it so bad.
“Just us,” I whisper back, blissful, shaking, clinging.
But the final word sticks in my throat. I can’t promise forever. Not yet.
He comes with a roar, shoving me deeper into the tree, claiming me all over again while the forest soaks up our cries. And I come too, dizzy and dazed and more his than I’ve ever been.
When it’s over, the silence feels heavy. Sated, but muted. The world has shifted. My heart has shifted.
He pulls out slowly, groaning low as thick globs of cum drip from where we were so magnificently joined. Then he tucks me against his chest like I’m fragile, ruined, precious . Like he didn’t just pump me full of monster cock and cum.
The truck is waiting where we left it, doors open, headlights still catching on the trees. He sets me in carefully, like I’ll break if he’s rough.
But his jaw is tight, eyes shadowed, and I know what’s going on behind them. He heard my words. Worse, the absence of the one I didn’t say.
Forever .
The rest of the drive is quiet, the mountain welcoming us back without ceremony. I rest my head against the window, listening to the rumble of the engine, watching the trees blur into darkness.
Every bump jolts me, every shift of his hand on the wheel reminds me he’s here, he’s mine.
And still the silence stretches, thick and unfinished.
By the time he pulls into the clearing, I’m raw and shaky all over again. He cuts the engine, then turns to me. The look in his eyes nearly steals my breath.
“Bed?” he rasps, voice wrecked.
I nod, throat tight. “Bed.”
Knox carries me over the threshold of his cabin like I’m already his wife, already his forever. And maybe… maybe I am.
But for tonight, I let myself forget the weight of that word and the world.
Tonight, I let myself belong only to him.