Chapter 33 Lina
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Lina
The bed was barely big enough to hold us, but that only made it easier to stay tangled.
The sheets clung to our damp skin, water still dripping from our hair, cooling fast in the basement air.
I tilted my head to look up at him, and his gray eyes were already on me, dark, heavy-lidded, drinking me in like I was the only thing in the world he’d ever wanted.
“I’m not done with you,” I whispered.
His fingers slid down my spine. “Good.”
I leaned in and kissed him, licking into his mouth like I needed to taste every piece of the man who’d brought me back to life. His hand slid into my hair, tilting my head to take more, while his other hand gripped my thigh and pulled me on top of him.
I straddled him, skin to skin, our bodies slick from the shower, flushed from heat. His cock was already hard again, thick and resting against the line of my pussy, and just feeling him there made me grind down, needy and unashamed.
He groaned loud, unfiltered. “Fuck, Lina… You’re going to ruin me.”
I reached between us and took him in hand, stroking once, twice, just to hear him curse again. I loved this power. The head of his cock slipped through my folds, dragging through slick heat that hadn’t gone anywhere since the moment he first touched me.
He gripped my hips, fingers pressing bruises into my skin. “You want it slow?” he asked, voice like gravel. “Or do you want me to flip you over and fuck the breath out of you?”
“I want both,” I breathed, shifting my hips and lining him up. “But right now, I want to ride you.”
His jaw clenched. “Then do it, baby. Take what you need.”
I sank down on him slowly, my breath catching as he stretched me open again. My thighs trembled from the effort, from the pleasure. His cock filled me so perfectly I couldn’t speak for a second. Just rocked there, hips grinding in slow circles, breath shaky, head tilted back.
Knox’s hands gripped my ass, pulling me down harder, watching my body take him like he was committing it to memory.
“Look at you,” he groaned. “Fuck - look at you riding my cock like it was made for you.”
I moved, finding my rhythm, fucking him the way I wanted now. My hands on his chest, my nails dragging down hard when he hit the perfect spot. He let me set the pace, let me use him, let me take my pleasure until I was gasping, thighs burning, body shaking.
But I wasn’t the only one unraveling.
His head dropped back, breath coming in short pants, muscles tight like he was fighting the need to flip me over and fuck me into the mattress. “You feel so good, Lina. So fucking good. I’m not gonna last if you keep looking at me like that.”
“Then don’t,” I whispered, clenching around him, grinding deeper. “Come inside me. I want to feel it.”
He groaned like it hurt, then suddenly sat up, one arm banding around my waist, the other cradling the back of my head as he kissed me again, rougher now.
Then he started thrusting up into me, hard, each movement lifting me off his cock and slamming me back down again. I cried out, fingernails digging into his shoulders, the new angle brushing something inside me that made my vision go white.
“Let go,” he growled into my mouth. “Squeeze my cock. Come for me like the good fucking girl you are.”
It was too much. The pressure, the stretch, the sounds of his breath in my ear, the slap of wet skin against skin, the way he talked dirty to me only in bed. I shattered in his arms, body locking down, walls pulsing around his cock as I came with a strangled cry.
He thrusted deep two, three more times with a broken moan, cock jerking as he spilled thick ropes of cum inside me, the heat of it pushing me into aftershocks.
He held me tight, still buried inside to make sure his cum stayed there, our bodies shaking, clinging to each other like the rest of the world had gone silent.
***
His fingers traced lazy patterns on my bare shoulder while I drew circles on his chest, both of us reluctant to break the spell of this perfect moment.
“I have something to tell you,” he said into the quiet, his voice rumbling under my ear.
“Another secret?” I asked, but I was smiling, continuing my exploration of his chest. “Should I be worried?”
“Not a secret. A confession.” He shifted slightly so he could look down at me, those gray eyes serious. “All these years, I’ve been writing letters. To people I’ve lost. People I wanted to talk to but would never get the chance.”
I propped myself up on an elbow, curious now. “Letters?”
“To Blake mostly. Things I wanted to tell him. Updates about the pack, about Noah, about life going on without him.” He paused, his hand coming up to cup my cheek. “And... to you. Everything I wanted to say but couldn’t. Everything I dreamed of but thought I’d never have.”
My breath caught in my throat. “You wrote letters to me?”
“For five years. Sometimes multiple times a week when the guilt got bad. Sometimes just once a month when I could pretend I was healing.” His thumb brushed across my cheekbone. “Would you... do you want to see them?”
“Show me,” I whispered, needing to know what had been in his heart all those years I’d thought he’d forgotten me.
He kissed my forehead gently, then carefully extracted himself from our embrace. “Let me get them.”
I pulled the sheet up around myself, watching as he pulled on his boxers and disappeared into the main basement area.
When he returned, he was carrying a wooden crate that made me gasp.
It was full to the brim with envelopes, all different sizes and colors, some crisp and new, others worn from handling.
“These are all...?” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Yours. Every single one. Five years of thoughts I couldn’t share any other way.
” He set the crate down beside the bed, then sat next to me, suddenly looking vulnerable.
“I never thought you’d actually read them.
They were just... a way to cope. To pretend I hadn’t thrown away everything that mattered. ”
I reached into the crate with trembling fingers, pulling out the first envelope. It was dated just a week after he’d left me.
“How many?” I asked, overwhelmed by the sheer volume.
“Two hundred and forty-three,” he said quietly. “I counted once. Probably more now.”
My hands shook as I opened the first letter.
November 15th - Lina, I’ve whispered your name a thousand times since I walked out of that hotel room while you watched me leave.
The look in your eyes haunts me. It’s been a week since I left you there, and I’ve started seventeen letters trying to explain why.
This is the first one I’ve managed to finish.
I’m a coward. That’s the only explanation that matters.
You deserved better than a man who runs. ..
The tears started immediately. Knox pulled me against him, holding me as I read letter after letter, each one a window into his soul.
December 2nd - I wonder if you think of me. Probably not. Why would you remember someone who rejected you so cruelly? I think of you constantly. The way you laughed at my terrible jokes. The way you fit perfectly against me. The way you said my real name when I finally told you...
December 24th - It’s Christmas Eve. I keep thinking about your laugh. Are you laughing tonight? Are you happy? Are you with family? I sat through pack Christmas dinner imagining you there, wondering what traditions you have, what makes you smile during the holidays...
March 10th - Blake would have loved you. He always said I’d fall hard when I met my mate. Didn’t believe in mates then. Do now. Too late now. He would have kicked my ass for leaving you. God, I miss him. Miss you too, though I have no right to...
July 8th - Drove near Pine Valley today for a territory meeting. Couldn’t go further. Sat at the border for an hour like a coward. What if I’d stayed? Would you have let me? Would you have accepted what I am? What we could be? I’ll never know because I didn’t give you the choice...
November 3rd - I wonder if you found someone. Someone better. Someone who stays. The thought makes me want to tear the world apart, but I hope you did. You deserve someone who doesn’t run. Someone who gives you everything. Even if the thought of another man touching you makes my wolf homicidal...
January 1st - New Year. Same resolution. Find the courage to find you. Failed again. I’m so sorry, Lina. Sorry I was weak. Sorry I left. Sorry I can’t seem to move forward or back, just stuck in this hell I created...
Letter after letter, his soul laid bare on paper.
His regrets, his obsession, his dreams of what could have been.
There were updates about pack life I would have been part of, descriptions of traditions I would have learned.
Pages where he’d drawn house plans, designing a home he never built because it was meant for a family he didn’t have.
Sketches of a nursery that made my heart clench, dated two years before he even knew about the twins.
“You designed a nursery,” I whispered, tracing the pencil lines with my finger.
“I used to dream about children. What they’d look like. Dark hair like yours, hopefully. Your smile. Maybe my eyes.” His voice was rough. “I never imagined twins. Never imagined they’d be so perfect.”
There were angry letters too, full of self-hatred and recrimination. Letters where he’d obviously been drinking, the handwriting messy, the words raw. Letters about Blake, about guilt that ate at him. Letters about his parents, about pack politics, about everything I should have been there for.
“This is you,” I whispered after reading what felt like the hundredth letter. “All of you. Every thought, every regret, every dream.”
“Every obsessive, pathetic moment,” he said, but I could hear the vulnerability under the self-deprecation. “I told you I was a mess without you.”
“Not pathetic,” I corrected, setting aside the letters to cup his face. “Human. Even big bad Alpha wolves are human sometimes.”
“I wasn’t human,” he said seriously. “I was barely functional. Ask Noah. Ask anyone. I was going feral, slowly but surely. The broken mate bond was killing me, and I couldn’t even tell anyone why.”
I kissed him softly, tasting the pain he’d carried for so long. When I pulled back, I made a decision. No more living in the past. No more letters to ghosts and regrets.
“No more letters,” I said firmly, climbing into his lap, the sheet pooling around my waist. “I want the real thing. I want you here, present, with me. Forever.”
“Forever?” His hands came up to span my waist, holding me against him. “You mean that?”
“I mean it. No more running. No more hiding. Just us.”
“There’s something else,” Knox said softly, his hands stroking up and down my sides. “About what we have. Do you feel it? This pull between us?”
“Every second,” I admitted. “When you’re not near, it’s like I can’t breathe properly. My skin only feels right when you’re touching it. Even when I hated you, I couldn’t stop wanting you.”
“That’s because we’re something special. Something rare.” He cupped my face gently, thumbs brushing over my cheekbones. “Wolves call it fated mates. Two souls that were meant to find each other. Created for each other by the moon herself.”
I processed this new information. “Is that why you left? Because of this bond? Because it scared you?”
“No.” His voice turned fierce, his hands tightening on me. “I left because I was a coward. The bond should have made me stay. Should have made me fight for you. Should have made it impossible to walk away. Other wolves search their whole lives for what I threw away.”
“But you came back.”
“No.” He shook his head. “YOU came back. You found me, even dying. Even hating me. You came back when I didn’t deserve it.”
“We found each other,” I compromised.
“You brought me back. Our children brought me back.” He kissed me softly, reverently. “Most wolves never find their fated mate. Some search for decades. We’re blessed by the moon herself, and I nearly destroyed it with my fear.”
“Nearly,” I emphasized. “But not quite. We’re here now.”
“We’re here now,” he agreed.
I looked down at the ring on my right hand, the sapphire catching the soft light. His grandmother’s ring, meant for his mate. For me. I’d been wearing it on the wrong hand, holding back that last bit of commitment out of fear or spite or both.
Not anymore.
I deliberately moved the ring to my left hand, sliding it onto my ring finger where it belonged. Knox’s breath caught, his whole body going still under me.
“Ask me,” I said softly.
“Lina-”
“Ask me properly. Ask your mate to marry you.”
He shifted us carefully, moving me off his lap so he could slide from the bed and kneel beside it. Even naked, he looked every inch the Alpha, powerful and sure. But his hands trembled as he took mine.
“Basilinna Marie Winters,” he began, his voice rough with emotion. “Mother of my children, my fated mate, my heart, my soul, my everything. You’ve already given me more than I deserve. You’ve given me a family, a future, a reason to be better. Will you give me forever? Will you marry me?”
“Yes.” I pulled him up for a kiss that said everything words couldn’t. “Yes to all of it. To marriage, to mate bonds, to forever. Yes, Knox.”
He crushed me against him, kissing me with a desperation that made my toes curl. When he finally pulled back, we were both breathing hard.
“When?” he asked. “Tomorrow? Tonight? Now? I’ll wake up the whole pack if you want.”
I laughed at his eagerness. “Soon. After we deal with Mary and the conspiracy and your parents. I want to get married without death threats hanging over our heads.”
“Fair enough.” He settled back onto the bed, pulling me against him. “But soon. I’ve waited five years. I don’t want to wait much longer.”
“Soon,” I promised, curling into his warmth.
We fell asleep tangled together, my ring catching the moonlight through the small window, finally complete, finally whole, finally exactly where we belonged.