EPILOGUE
FOUR YEARS LATER
OLLIE
The water is warm as I wash the couple of plates and glasses from dinner last night in the kitchen sink.
One look outside the window above the sink is enough to bring a smile to my face at the signs of late spring in the forest around us.
Impossible to resist the late morning breeze I know will flow in, I lift up on my toes and crack open the window, the suds from my hand sliding down my arm in the process and lightly soaking Ethan’s shirt where I have folded it near my elbows.
The smell of pine steeped in the morning sun wafts in and I inhale it deeply, greedily, so similar to Ethan’s scent.
My mate’s scent, I think as my smile grows until my face hurts.
He wasn’t in bed when I woke up, but I could swear I felt him kiss me before he left.
The front door creaks open and my heart skips a beat, the anticipation of seeing him stronger than ever even after years of being with him.
“Baby?” his gruff voice sounds from the kitchen doorway and I look over my shoulder at him.
In a white T-shirt, tattered jeans, hair ruffled and slightly sweaty.
And eyes boring right into mine.
His gaze sweeps me from head to toe, taking in every detail—the shirt I’m wearing, its hem hitting me just mid-thigh, my bare legs, the heart-eyes I probably have.
I don’t even realize the water is still running until he’s already walking my way, with a sexy grin on his lips that makes me weak in the knees.
I shut it off just as he comes up behind me and cages me in against the sink.
Ethan’s warmth suffuses my back only moments before I feel him bend his head and press a kiss on my neck.
“Happy birthday, sweetheart,” he whispers roughly on my skin and a pleasant shiver runs through me.
My position only allows me to turn my face just so I can look at him, and I smile, nuzzling his jaw.
“Thank you,” I breathe out. “I missed you this morning.”
“Mm…” he hums against my throat. “I had to take care of a few things. Have you been up long?”
I shake my head. “Not really. Just enough to wash up a few things here and reply to a text from Bill. He said that all my crochet souvenirs sold out and that I’d better bring more when I come in for work on Monday. He’s very happy with me.”
Ethan groans and I can’t help but chuckle at his reaction.
We only lasted six months living apart from each other before I asked him to do exactly what he had promised me that Christmas night more than four years ago; to come and take me, and move me in with him.
And since that meant quitting the jobs I had, he introduced me to Bill, the elderly owner of the gear equipment, souvenirs and paraphernalia shop at one of the resting stops along the trails here, who is one of the sweetest people ever and who immediately hired me to help him.
Bill who adores me just as much as I adore him, which is the reason for Ethan’s groan.
“Of course he’s happy, he gets to see you every day for hours,” he grumbles with his nose buried in my curls.
“Are you jealous of Bill?” I laugh, loving how ridiculously adorable he is.
“Yes.”
“He’s seventy!” I exclaim incredulously, tilting my head to look straight into his warm, brown eyes.
“So?”
God, this man.
“You’re right,” I tell him seriously, never breaking away from his gaze. “After all, I do seem to have a thing for older men.”
The look he gives me is pure fire.
“You do, don’t you, baby?” he rasps, his hand coming up to cradle my throat softly, his thumb rubbing against the mating mark he gave me two years ago during my heat. “This 26-year-old hot, young thing likes his men older, huh?”
“Mhm,” I mumble, my eyes slipping shut at the feeling of his possessive touch and low-spoken words. “Especially 40-year-old men with sexy, graying temples.”
“Is that right?” he says in a voice so deep, I feel it resonating inside me. His mouth replaces his hand, and I feel his lips on my mark, kissing it, sucking on it with purpose.
Oh God, I love it when he’s possessive, when the need to stake his claim on me overrides everything else. When he reminds me again and again that I’m his.
I inhale sharply when I feel his other hand brushing my thigh, slipping under the hem of the long shirt until he’s gripping my bare hip, squeezing it when he confirms I’m wearing nothing underneath.
“It looks like my birthday boy woke up feeling naughty today,” he whispers harshly, still mouthing my exposed nape.
His hand snakes to my front to cup my slowly hardening dick and balls, a choked whimper escaping me when he starts massaging me in his big palm.
“Where is your underwear, honey? Did you think that it was appropriate for you to come in here and wash the dishes with just my shirt on like a walking wet dream?” He squeezes my aching cock and my breaths turn into pants, my hands bracing on the sink.
“Answer me, Ollie,” he commands me firmly, roughly.
“Yes,” I manage to say, my body burning from his touch. “I wanted you to find me like this.”
A low growl sounds from deep within Ethan’s chest and I instinctively arch my back against his front, needing to feel more of him.
“Good fucking mate,” he grinds out, rolling his hips against my ass, letting me feel how hard he already is. “Why did you stop washing?”
Jesus, what he’s doing with his hips and hand and lips is so damn good, my mind is all over the place.
“I couldn’t – ah – couldn’t keep doing that. My hands are shaking.”
“Poor thing. So needy, so desperate.” His palm releases me and I let out a most unflattering whine, but only for a moment.
Because his fingers trail all the way back to my hole that’s been trickling slick since he cornered me against the sink.
“Shh, I’ve got you, sweetheart,” he soothes, his thick fingers finding my rim, spreading my slick around, stretching me slowly, a sweet torture that has my legs trembling.
“I’m so hungry, baby. You don’t want me to be hungry, do you?
” I shake my head, my eyes squeezing shut, when he barely breaches my entrance.
“Then hold onto that sink and don’t let go until I’ve eaten my fill,” he breathes in my ear, and then he’s gone.
Cool air hits my back, and for a second I feel like I’m drifting, my head hazy, muddled with need.
But when Ethan bunches the shirt around my waist and kneels behind me, his strong hands spreading me open for his greedy eyes, I’m no longer drifting. My knuckles tighten on the sink, my feet planted firmly on the floor, and at the first lick against my hole, my body bows for him.
He eats me out like he’s starving for me, like I’m all he’s ever wanted in his mouth, grunting and growling against me. His tongue slips inside my soft hole and I let out a moan that is almost primal.
And it’s that moan that has him standing up and wrapping himself around me, the loss of him devastating.
“No, please, Ethan, don’t stop. Please don’t stop,” I mumble deliriously, turning my head to seek him out.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” he says in a voice as wrecked as I feel, kissing my cheekbone, my jaw, the corner of my lips, before he goes back to mouthing my mating mark. “I need to be inside you. Please let me feel you. I need to feel you wrapped around me.”
“Yes, oh God, yes,” I arch, pushing my ass out, almost sobbing when I hear him unzipping his jeans. “Take me, Ethan. I need my mate inside me.”
“Fuck, Ollie, you’re so fucking good for me. So fucking perfect,” he mutters hoarsely, the blunt head of his cock notching at my slippery hole. “You’re so wet, so drenched for me. You’re leaking all over my dick.”
“I’m so empty without you,” I push back desperately, both of us groaning when the tip enters me. “Full, make me full of you, Ethan, please.”
His hands gripping my waist is all the warning I get before he spears me on his cock in one hard, deep thrust that has me screaming.
And he does it again, and again, slamming inside me with a ferociousness that makes my head spin, my body sing, my heart soar. Because he can’t help taking me like this. Because he’s powerless to his need and love for me. Because he wants me just as much and as completely as I do.
Locking my arms, I meet him thrust for thrust, fucking myself on his cock until we’re nothing but animalistic sounds and instinct. Two mates fucking their need and love into each other.
“I can’t fucking breathe until I’m inside you, you know that?
” he whispers roughly, nipping the shell of my ear.
“Every second of every day I just pretend I’m functional without you when all I want is to be inside you, to feel you as close as humanly possible until I can feel your heart beating from the inside. ”
“Oh God, Ethan,” I pant, his name a prayer and a curse on my lips, my moans turning into cries when he stabs my gland with short, fast, relentless jabs that send violent pleasure into every nerve ending in my body.
“Yeah, baby. Scream my fucking name. Scream the name of your mate. Next time, I’ll let you run in the forest and chase you down.
And when I catch you, I’ll pin you to the ground and fuck you right there, and you’ll just take what I give you and writhe on my cock like a good little omega, won’t you, sweetheart? ”
The images he’s putting in my head are so filthy good that I feel the pleasure crest and crest, rising so fast and so hard that I’m probably seconds away from exploding all over him. Heat travels down my spine and I can only chase, chase, chase that devastating pleasure.
“Yes, Ethan, I’d take you so good. Oh God, so good,” I mutter, almost incoherently, mindless at the climax that’s barrelling down on me. “E- Ethan, I’m going to come. You’re going to make me come.”
His thrusts get faster and erratic, his movements losing all semblance of control as the kitchen fills with the sound of skin smacking against skin and the obscene noises of his slick-drenched cock moving inside me.
“Yes, love. Fuck yes, come on my cock, let me feel you squeeze the fuck out of me. Suck the cum out of me, baby.”