29. Lena #2
His hand moved to my belly, spreading across the flat surface, spanning my hips with fingers that still smelled faintly of soap and copper. His certainty hummed between us, his knowledge, his fierce primal satisfaction.
“You know,” I breathed.
“I can smell it.” His voice dropped, rough with possession and something darker. “I’ve known for weeks. I was waiting for you to tell me.”
I laughed, the sound breaking loose before I could stop it. “Of course you could smell it. Wolf senses. I should have known I couldn’t keep a secret from you.”
“Nothing about you is secret from me.” He dropped to his knees before me, right there on the bathroom floor. His face pressed against my stomach, his arms wrapping around my hips, holding me close like I might disappear if he let go.
“My mate.” His voice was rough, barely human. The wolf purring beneath the words, satisfied and possessive. “My wife. The mother of my child.”
I threaded my fingers through his hair, holding him there. This man who had just killed for me. This monster who knelt before me like I was sacred, like I was everything he had ever wanted.
“Our child will know what their father is,” I said softly. “What their father does for family.”
“Yes.” His breath was warm through the fabric of my shirt, raising goosebumps on my skin. “They will.”
“I want them to.”
He looked up at me then, and the yellow was back in his eyes, the wolf present and satisfied. “You don’t want to shield them from me? From what I am?”
“No.” I cupped his face in my hands, this beautiful monster who belonged to me completely. “I want them to know that their father is dangerous. That he would destroy anyone who touched them. I want them to know they are safe because you would never let anyone hurt them.”
His whole body loosened. The tension drained from his shoulders, his jaw, the rigid set of his spine. I had given him permission to be exactly what he was.
He rose from his knees in a single fluid movement, lifting me with him, carrying me from the bathroom to our bed. One palm stayed pressed against where his child grew. His eyes never left mine.
“You’re even more mine now,” he said against my throat, his lips brushing the collar that marked me as his. “Carrying my child. Growing my pup inside you.”
“I was always yours.”
He laid me on the bed like I was precious, but there was nothing gentle about the way he stripped my clothes. Efficient. Hungry. The collar gleamed at my throat, and his eyes darkened when he saw it still there.
“You never take it off.”
“I never will.”
His palm pressed flat against my stomach, fingers splaying wide. “Tell me who this belongs to.”
“You.” The word came out breathless, needy. “It belongs to you.”
“That’s right.” His hand slid lower, between my thighs, finding me already wet. His fingers parted my folds and I gasped at the contact. “Already soaking for me. Your body knows who owns it.”
I should have protested. Should have said something sharp about not being owned. But his fingers were circling my clit, slow and deliberate, and I could not find the words.
“I put a baby in you.” His voice was rough, barely human. “My seed took root inside you. You’re growing my pup in your belly, and tonight I’m going to fill you again. Remind your body who it belongs to.”
I moaned, my hips bucking against his hand. The crude words should not have affected me this way, should not have sent moisture flooding between my thighs. But my body had never cared what should and should not be.
He positioned himself between my legs, the thick head of his cock pressing against my entrance. “Look at me.”
I did. The yellow was bright in his eyes, the wolf fully present.
“You’re mine,” he said, and thrust inside me in one hard stroke.
I cried out at the stretch of him, at the way he filled me completely. He did not give me time to adjust. He fucked me hard and deep, one hand braced beside my head, the other pressed flat against my belly where his child grew.
“Mine,” he growled with every thrust. “My mate. My wife. The mother of my pups.”
His words were dark and possessive and they sent me spiraling higher. I wrapped my legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, wanting more of him even as he gave me everything.
“Come for me.” A command, not a request. His thumb found my clit and pressed. “Now.”
I shattered around him, my cunt clenching tight, pleasure ripping through me in waves.
He followed me over the edge with a sound that was more wolf than man, his knot swelling at the base of his cock, locking us together.
I felt him pulse inside me, felt the hot flood of his release filling me, and my body clenched around him again, milking every drop.
His knot stretched me impossibly wide, locking his cum inside me. As if he needed to make sure it took. As if he had not already bred me.
“Good girl,” he murmured against my throat, still buried deep. “Taking my knot so well. Keeping all of me inside you.”
After, tangled in sheets that smelled like us, his hand warm against my belly and my hand covering his, he spoke into the darkness.
“I love you.” The words carried no softness. Only certainty.
“I love you.” I met his darkness with my own.
His eyes blazed. Fierce love. Dark satisfaction. Pride that I matched his darkness instead of shrinking from it.
Silence stretched between us, comfortable and complete. His fingers traced lazy patterns on my skin, and I let myself sink into the warmth of him, the solid weight of his body curved around mine.
This was what we had become. What we had chosen.
He pulled me closer, tucking me against his chest, his body curling around mine and the life growing between us.
Outside, the spring night was soft with the promise of new growth. Inside, the fire burned low, its light warm against the walls.
The darkness in him had found its match in me. That would never change.
And I would not have it any other way.