Chapter 7
Chapter seven
Jen
"You," I say. "And Crull. Both of you."
The room goes quiet.
In the cell, there was always a reason to doubt myself. A drug. Somebody else messing with me and my body's responses.
There is none of that here.
Just my need.
Thaw goes still.
He has waited a long time to be wanted by his mate with nothing standing between her and the choice.
"Then we go slow," he says.
"Free people can choose to go slow."
Across the bed, something in Crull settles.
The tension I've felt in him for weeks eases out of his shoulders. Out of his jaw. He closes his eyes for a second.
They come to me from both sides.
Thaw first. His mouth finds mine and it is deep and hot and instantly consuming, his tongue sliding into my mouth, his fingers gripping the back of my neck to tilt my head. His hand spreads wide between my shoulder blades, pushing my chest flat against his.
I am already shivering. My hands knot into the front of his shirt. The ache between my thighs sharpens into a scream. My nipples are painfully hard against the sweatshirt and every touch feels like a spark.
On my other side, Crull does not wait.
His massive hand slides under the hem of the sweatshirt, calloused palm scraping over my stomach. The heat of him is staggering. When his fingers slide down to cup my hip, his thumb digs into my waist, anchoring me.
"Jen," Crull rumbles against my ear, a low vibration that rattles through my teeth.
He leans down, his mouth finding the curve of my neck. His teeth graze my skin — not breaking it, just pressing hard enough to leave a deep, possessive mark right over my pulse. I cry out into Thaw's mouth, my hips twitching against the mattress.
The air in the dark room is changing. Thick. Heavy.
And past them, in the doorway, the scent is striking Harek.
I can see him over Thaw's shoulder. His bright green eyes are completely blown out, the pupils swallowing the color until they are nearly black.
His chest is heaving. His nostrils flare as he drinks in the scent of my arousal filling the small room.
His hand is clamped onto the wooden doorframe, his knuckles white, his whole body vibrating with a restraint that looks like physical agony.
The thread under my ribs yanks hard—raw, and desperate.
He doesn't move.
"Look at him, Jen," Thaw says, his mouth leaving mine to trail down my jaw. His hand slides down my belly, his fingers hooking into the waistband of the sweatpants. "Let him see what you want."
Thaw pulls. The sweatpants and underwear go down together in one smooth motion, leaving me bare from the waist down in the center of the bed.
He parts my knees. The sheer mass of him spreads my legs wide and pins my knees down, and I am open and slick and dripping with need.
Thaw makes a sound.
He drops between my open thighs.
His face buries into my core. He inhales deeply, his hot breath scalding my sensitive skin, and then his tongue hits my center.
My body arches off the mattress.
He tastes me with long, heavy strokes, his tongue rough, driving into my wetness. I scream, my fingers clawing at the sheets. He is not gentle. He is devouring me, sucking hard on my clit until I am sobbing.
Crull moves in from behind me. His huge, scarred torso looms over me, his breath ragged. He grabs a knee and slides his large hand in from the side, replacing Thaw's mouth, and he drives two thick digits straight inside me.
He is too big. The stretch is a tight burning fullness and my hips buck frantically against his hand. He pumps inside me, hard and fast, finding the spot that makes my toes curl, while Thaw's mouth goes right back to my clit, sucking until I am wrecked and thin and sobbing his name.
In the doorway, Harek makes a sound. A low, broken growl climbs out of his chest.
I want him.
Not instead. Also.
He does not move. The thread is wide open between us and he is holding the doorframe like the doorframe is the only thing keeping him in his own body.
"Thaw —" I choke out, my hips thrashing against Crull's hand. "Thaw, please."
"Crull," Thaw says. The alpha command cuts clean through the haze.
Crull rises over me. He is already hard against my hip and then he settles between my legs and lines himself up, and the head of him pressing into me is hot and blunt and so wide my body registers the girth of it before he even moves.
He drives forward in one long thrust.
He fills me. All the way. My vision goes white for three seconds as my body tries to hold the sheer mass of him. I bark out a cry, my hands flying up to grip his forearms, the dense scarred muscle locking under my fingers.
"Look at me," Crull rasps, his amber eyes pinned to mine. "Jen. Look."
I force my eyes open.
The brand on my wrist sings — heavy, blinding white light.
He begins to move.
Each thrust shakes my frame against the mattress. He lifts my hips higher, the wet heavy slap of his pelvis against mine echoing in the room. I am screaming, my fingers ripping at the sheets.
His pace tightens. His thrusts shorten. Whatever held him on a leash for weeks is off. He knows I am free and choosing him and that breaks his restraint.
Thaw is there before I drop. His hands find my shoulders, pinning my upper body to the bed. He bends down, his mouth catching mine, drinking my screams while his packmate takes me.
The dual sensation shorts out my brain.
My walls begin to seize around Crull. He feels the contraction and a sharp, guttural roar climbs out of his chest, his spine arching as his body locks.
He gives three more massive lunges and then he holds, buried inside me, hot pulses spilling into my body.
The brand at my wrist sears so bright I see it behind my eyelids.
He stays inside me through the after-pulses, the brand on my wrist still humming.
When he slides out, our eyes catch and I see the free Crull who cherishes me. As his heat leaves I feel an emptiness that is a cold ache.
Thaw moves in immediately. He catches my hips and pulls me toward him, his gold eyes glowing in the dim light.
He lines himself up where Crull just was. I am still slick and open and aching from it and he slides in slow, the whole way, no resistance.
He thrusts. Slow and heavy. The bond at my sternum is wide open under his palm and he is moving inside me.
"Jen," Thaw says, his pace finally quickening. "Look at me."
I look at him. His thumb presses against my clit and his deep thrusts feel like his body is deeper in mine than I have ever felt. His cock is hitting that spot inside that makes me clench. His growl vibrates his heavy member inside me.
He smiles and keeps going, watching my every response. He sees me start to go and slams into me faster, driving me higher as my orgasm crests.
Then his hips drive deep one more time and he locks — his whole body going still inside mine — and the bond at my sternum floods so hard I feel it in my fingertips.
He spills hot into me and stays there, breathing, the brand under his palm and the brand under Crull's wrist on mine pulsing in the same rhythm.
He rolls us so I am splayed over him. He keeps his large hand anchored to my lower back, holding me in place.
His fingers curve over my ass, reaching down and feeling where he is still buried in me.
He stays inside me for a long time, his chest heaving against mine, the room slowly settling back into the quiet of the dark forest outside.
Nobody speaks.
The heat has burned down to embers.
What is left is warm.
Thaw shifts, sliding out of me with a soft friction, and turning me into Crull on our side. I am between them. Their bulk a wall between me and reality.
"That was the first time," I say, finally. Quiet. "The first time it wasn't in a cell."
"Yes." Thaw's thumb moves over the mark. "I am honored to be your mate Jen."
"I will crush anyone who tries to take you from us." Crull's voice, rough, against the back of my neck. "Never again, you will always get to choose. Every time."
I lie there held between my two mates, with the forest quiet outside.
The Syndicate is still out there hunting us.
But this. Chosen, and free, and warm, and mine.
I am asleep before I decide to be.