Chapter 22 #2
But first things first.
I tilt her chin up, forcing her to meet my gaze. “How do you feel?”
She blinks at me, dazed. “I don’t… I feel…”
“Words, Phoenix.”
“Empty.” The confession comes out small, barely audible. “I feel so empty, Atticus. Like there’s this hollow space inside me that keeps getting bigger and I don’t know how to fill it—“
I kiss her forehead, soft and lingering. “I can help with that. If you still want me to.”
Her answer is immediate and fervent—she surges up to capture my mouth, her fingers tangling in my hair, her body pressing against mine with desperate urgency.
The kiss is sloppy, uncoordinated, all need and no finesse.
I let her take what she wants for a moment before gently taking control, slowing the pace, turning the frantic clash of lips into something deeper.
Something that feels almost like a promise.
When I finally ease her back onto the nest of blankets, her eyes are glazed but focused. Present. Here.
“You’ve definitely earned a reward, baby,” I murmur against her throat. “How do you want it?”
She looks up at me, lip trembling and crystal tears still clinging to her lashes. “Nice. I want it nice.”
I undress her slowly, ignoring the urge to go caveman and tear every inch of offensive fabric separating us.
When her bra strap slips from one shoulder, I trace its progress down her chest with my tongue, draw patterns across her ribcage with my fingertips, press open-mouthed kisses to the soft swell of her belly.
She writhes beneath me, making sounds that barely qualify as human.
“Atticus, please—”
“Shh, we’ll get there soon.”
I’m losing the battle with my own control. Her scent is everywhere now, saturating the air, flooding my senses until I can barely think straight. The sight of her spread out beneath me—flushed and trembling and wanting—makes my cock throb painfully against the constraints of my jeans.
I shed them hastily, nearly tearing the zipper in my rush. The relief of being free is almost orgasmic in itself.
Phoenix’s eyes go wide when she sees me, her gaze traveling the length of my body with an expression somewhere between hunger and trepidation. I know what she’s looking at. Know the stories that have circulated about me, some of them true, most of them exaggerated.
“We’ll go slow,” I promise, settling between her thighs. The heat of her core against my cock makes us both gasp. “Tell me if it’s too much. Okay?”
She nods frantically, her hips already tilting up to seek more friction.
I guide myself to her entrance and push forward—slowly, so fucking slowly it’s actual torture—letting her body adjust to each inch before advancing further. She’s tight and wet and burning hot, and the sensation of sinking into her threatens to unhinge what’s left of my self-control.
Her fingernails dig into my shoulders hard enough to draw blood. I welcome the pain. It helps me focus.
“Okay?” I manage when I’m fully seated, my forehead pressed against hers, both of us breathing like we’ve run a marathon.
“More.” The word is a command, a plea, a prayer. “Please, Atticus, I need—”
I start to move.
Every instinct in my body screams at me to take her hard and fast, to claim and conquer and mark.
But I force myself to maintain the slow, deliberate rhythm I promised.
Long, deep strokes that drag against every sensitive nerve ending.
Rolls of my hips that grind my pelvis against her clit with each thrust.
Her moans fill the room, rising in pitch and volume until I’m sure the entire house can hear. I don’t care. Let them hear. Let them know exactly what’s happening in this room.
The pressure builds at the base of my spine—the first warning signs of my knot starting to swell. I grit my teeth against the urge to let go, to bury myself inside her and lock us together the way my biology demands.
“I want to bite you,” I confess against her throat, my voice barely recognizable. “God, Phoenix, I want to claim you so fucking badly—”
“Then do it—”
“No.” The word tears out of me, harsh and final. “Not like this. Try asking me again next week, baby.”
She whines in protest, but I capture her mouth, swallowing her complaints along with her sounds of pleasure. My thrusts speed up despite my best intentions, the rhythm becoming more urgent as my body races toward completion.
When she comes, it’s with my name on her lips and her walls clenching around me like a vice. The sensation drags me over the edge right behind her—my knot swelling to lock us together, my release pulsing into her in waves that seem to go on forever.
I collapse on top of her, catching my weight on my forearms at the last second, and let my forehead rest against her shoulder while I try to remember how to breathe.
“Holy shit,” she whispers. Her voice is hoarse, wrecked from screaming.
I manage a rough laugh. “Yeah.”
“Is this… are we stuck?”
I lean back enough to look at her, until I catch her wince. “Wait. Have you never been knotted before?”
She bites her lip. “Not exactly.”
Christ. Just more evidence that I need to keep my head. This girl has no idea what she was asking for, practically laying herself out like a buffet in front of a starving man.
“Just for a little while.” I shift carefully, adjusting our position so I can roll onto my side without pulling at the sensitive point where we’re still connected. “It’ll go down in about fifteen, twenty minutes.”
She makes a sound of tired acknowledgment, burrowing into my chest like a cat seeking warmth. Her body is still trembling with aftershocks, tiny muscles contracting sporadically around my knot in ways that make my nerve endings fire with residual pleasure.
“I don’t usually…” She trails off, seems to lose her train of thought, starts again. “This isn’t how my heats normally go.”
“How do they normally go?”
“Alone. Miserable. Over as quickly as possible.”
The confession makes my heart clench. I tighten my arms around her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.
“Well,” I murmur into her hair, “things are different now.”
Her breathing is already evening out, her body going lax against mine as exhaustion claims her. The heat will demand more from her soon—cycles of need and fulfillment that will keep us both busy for the next day or two. But for now, in this quiet moment between storms, she’s finally at peace.
I watch her drift off, her face soft and unguarded in a way I’ve never seen before.
And I realize, with a certainty that settles into my bones like coming home, that I’m absolutely, completely, done for.