Chapter 43 Home
When I finally got his belt loose and pulled his pants down, his cock sprang free. I wrapped my hand around him instantly. He was thick and hot, the tip already slick. I licked my lips and started to drop to my knees.
Jackson growled and gripped my arms, stopping me.
“You can suck me off later,” he growled. “Right now I need to be inside you.”
The anticipation made me whimper. Every nerve under my skin was on fire. My need felt like a living thing, clawing at my insides and demanding to be filled.
He didn’t wait. He shoved my skirt up around my waist, ripped my panties off with one sharp tug, and lifted me. My back hit the door the second my legs locked around his waist. He pushed into me in one hard thrust, burying himself to the hilt.
I cried out, the stretch burning so good I saw stars.
He was thick, hot, and so deep it stole my breath.
There was no time to adjust. He fucked me like he was possessed, hips snapping forward with raw, punishing force.
Each thrust slammed me back against the door, the sound of skin on skin loud in the quiet apartment.
“Fuck, Harper,” he snarled against my neck, teeth scraping my skin. “You’re burning up. So fucking wet for me.”
The words barely registered. I was lost in the feeling of him — stretching me, filling me, claiming me. My nails dug into his shoulders and my head fell back against the door as I moaned his name like it was both a prayer and a curse.
The heat spiraled higher. My cat screamed for more. I rolled my hips to meet every thrust, desperate and greedy for it. Jackson’s rhythm grew erratic, deeper and harder, his breathing turning ragged against my skin. The bond flared between us, feeding off the heat and feeding off his rut.
I came first, clenching around him so tight I saw stars, a broken cry tearing from my throat.
Jackson didn’t stop. He fucked me through it, hips snapping, teeth grazing my neck.
Then I felt it — the base of his cock swelling, pushing against my entrance with every stroke. For a second I didn’t understand. Then it hit me. His knot. Forming for the first time, locking us together the way nature intended during a heat.
The thought made me clench around him so hard he groaned.
“Harper—” His voice was wrecked. “I'm... fuck... I'm knotting you.”
He thrust once, twice more, then buried himself to the hilt as the knot swelled fully, locking us together with a wet, obscene pop. The pressure was so intense that I came again, my walls pulsing hard around his swollen knot.
Jackson snarled, as he spilled deep inside me, pulse after pulse. The knot kept every drop trapped, forcing my body to keep it all. He held me there, pinned against the door, both of us shaking.
“Mine,” he growled against my throat, teeth grazing the mating mark. “All fucking mine.”
I could barely speak. Only a broken moan escaped as another smaller orgasm rolled through me, milked by the thick knot stretching me open.
Jackson didn’t pull out. He couldn’t. Instead he adjusted his grip and carried me across the room. I whimpered at the movement, the knot shifting inside me with every step, sending sharp sparks through my body. He sat on the new couch, keeping me in his lap, still impaled on him.
I collapsed against his chest, panting, trembling, the sharpest edge of the heat momentarily dulled but far from gone.
His arms banded around me, holding me like he had no intention of ever letting go.
One hand stroked slowly down my back while the other stayed firm on my hip, possessive and anchoring me on his knot.
His forehead pressed to mine. “God, you feel perfect,” he rasped.
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. My body was still catching up, every nerve lit and oversensitive.
Soon the heat started rising again. It came slow at first, then more insistent, a low burn spreading through my veins.
A needy sound slipped out of me before I could stop it.
Without thinking I began to rock against him, as much as the knot allowed.
Every small movement sent fresh sparks through me.
The night was only beginning, and the next few days would be sweet torture.
Time bled forward and then fractured. Light turned into dark and back into light again until I stopped keeping track.
Everything narrowed down to heat and hands and the relentless pull of him, over and over, until nothing else existed.
By Tuesday evening, the worst of the heat had finally broken.
I was still sore all over, every muscle aching in that deep, satisfied way, but I could think again. My cat was curled up inside me, passed out and thoroughly smug.
Jackson lay beside me, one arm draped possessively over my waist. He felt me stir and pressed a kiss to my temple.
“You back with me?” he asked, voice rough from days of little sleep.
“Barely.” My own voice came out hoarse. “How long was that?”
“Three days. You did good.”
I shifted and immediately winced. Everything was still tender. I remembered very little of the last three days, only flashes of endless need, Jackson’s hands, his knot locking us together again and again, and the world narrowing down to nothing but him.
I looked around. We were in the new apartment’s bedroom. Or what passed for one. Just a queen mattress on the floor, sheets tangled everywhere, and an open sports bag in the corner with Jackson’s clothes spilling out. The rest of the place was still mostly empty.
Jackson’s hand stroked down my spine.
“How do you feel?”
“Sore. Like I got fucked within an inch of my life for three straight days.” I tilted my head to look at him. “You knotted me. A lot.”
His eyes darkened with satisfaction. “I’m going to miss it.”
I blinked. “The knot?”
He huffed a quiet laugh. “Yeah. I’ll miss that.”
“You’re insane.”
“You didn’t seem to mind.”
He wasn’t wrong. The knot only happened with a mate and only during heat.
Reality crept in slowly.
“I missed my pills,” I said.
Jackson went still.
“I took them every day before this. Pregnancy is unlikely, but… not impossible.”
He exhaled slowly. “If it happens, it happens. I’d prefer not to bring a baby into this world with Thomas still breathing down our necks, but if you are pregnant, I would love the baby all the same.”
I kissed the underside of his jaw. “Me too.”
We lay there tangled together a while longer before he spoke again. “We should go back to your place tonight. Get you some real clothes for school tomorrow. Jason brought me spares on Sunday, but you’ve been living in that bathrobe and nothing else.”
Somehow Jackson had even found time to order a bathrobe and food.
I groaned. “Fine. But I’m stealing your sweatpants.”
He smirked. “They look better on you anyway.”
Ten minutes later, we drove to my old house in comfortable silence, my hand tucked in his the whole way. I was wearing his oversized sweatpants, rolled several times at the waist, and my Britney top from Saturday night. I looked ridiculous, but I didn’t care.
“I texted your coach on Monday,” Jackson said after a while.
I frowned. “What did you say?”
“I told him you had a stomach bug. Then I told Reid I was dealing with something similar, just different symptoms so it wouldn’t look too convenient.”
“And they just accepted it?”
“We’re their top runners,” he said simply. “They’re not going to push too hard when we both miss a few days.”
Fair point.
Talia and Mira were both home when we walked in. Artemis wound around my legs the second I stepped through the door.
“Artemis has been a little terror without you,” Talia said with a grin. “He’s been sleeping in your bed every night and knocking shit off the counters like it’s his full-time job.”
“Thanks for taking care of him.”
I scooped him up, pressing my face into his soft fur.
“Sorry, Mommy was gone,” I murmured in the ridiculous baby voice I only used for him. “But the last few days were not a sight for kittens.”
Jackson’s wolf grumbled through the bond. I felt the sharp spike of jealousy as I baby-talked the cat.
I ignored him.
“Soon,” I whispered to Artemis, scratching under his chin, “when everything is ready, you’re coming with us to the new apartment.”
We grabbed some clothes and a few necessities, promised the girls we’d be back for Artemis soon, and headed back to our apartment.
The next day came faster than I expected. After morning practice, where Coach watched me a little longer than usual, but didn’t comment, the hallway outside Environmental Science buzzed with noise.
Rick grinned the second he saw Jackson. “Well, well. Look who finally crawled out of the cave.”
Jason snorted. “I already gave him shit at morning practice. Lucky bastard disappeared for three days. I’m taking notes for when I find my mate.”
“Can’t wait to meet mine so I can knot her for three days straight,” Rick said.
Two girls walking past wrinkled their noses. “Disgusting.”
“Jealous,” Jason called after them.
I rolled my eyes. Jackson just smirked and pulled me closer.
The boys kept talking, but my attention snagged on Lia. She was leaning against the wall, watching us. When our eyes met, she smiled.
“You two have been glued together since you mated,” she said lightly.
Rick snorted. “Understatement.”
Lia looked at Jackson. “The Harvest Hunt is this weekend. I’ve been waiting for it all year.”
Then she turned back to me. “Jackson always partners with me for the Harvest Hunt. Every year since we were ten. It’s our tradition.”
Rick nodded. “Those two have won it since they were kids. It’s kind of their thing.”
I had no idea what the Harvest Hunt was. Jackson must have felt my confusion through the bond, because he explained, “It’s one of the oldest pack traditions. A big group hunt before winter.”
Lia’s gaze stayed on me. “You don’t mind, do you, Harper?”
If I said no, I was the jealous outsider disrupting a pack tradition I barely understood. If I said yes, my mate spent an entire day alone deep in the woods with the woman who wanted him.
I shrugged. “If it’s tradition.”