Chapter 12 - Connor
I carry her deeper into the forest until the sounds of celebration fade to nothing.
The moonlight filters through the canopy overhead and paints silver patterns across a small clearing I’ve known since childhood.
A place where pack members come when they need solitude, when they need to let their wolves run free without the weight of hierarchy and expectation.
Tonight, I bring my mate here for an entirely different reason.
I set Fern down gently, her feet touching the soft carpet of moss and fallen leaves.
She sways a bit, and I steady her with a hand at her elbow.
The white dress clings to her curves, rumpled from being carried, and flowers are scattered through her hair where my fingers dislodged them during that kiss.
That kiss that’s still burning through my veins like wildfire.
She looks up at me with those pale blue eyes, and I see everything there—fear, confusion, anger, and something else. Something that might be desire if she’d let herself acknowledge it.
“Connor,” she starts with a warning in her tone, “we need to talk about—”
“No.” I take both her wrists gently and place her palms flat against my chest. “We’re done talking for tonight. You want to hit me? Go ahead. Push me, punch me, do whatever you need to do. I’ll take it. I’ll keep taking it until you finally admit that this is exactly what you want.”
Her hands tremble against my shirt. “You don’t know what I want.”
“I know it, and my wolf knows it.” I hold her gaze, refusing to let her look away. “It’s time for that stubborn human mind of yours to catch up.”
For a moment, she just stares at me. Then her face crumples, and she shoves at my chest with both hands.
“I hate you,” she says, pushing harder. “I hate that you dragged me into this. I hate that you didn’t give me a choice.”
I plant my feet and let her push, my body solid as stone beneath her hands. She’s not trying to hurt me—we both know she couldn’t even if she wanted to. This is something else. This is her trying to purge everything she’s been holding inside since the moment we met.
“I hate that you made me feel safe when I should be terrified.” She pushes again, and tears start streaming down her face. “I hate that you’re just like him. Just another man who thinks he can control me, who thinks he knows what’s best for me.”
That comparison to her ex cuts just as deep as the first time, but I hold my ground. Let her get it all out.
“I hate that I agreed to this. I hate that I’m so weak I couldn’t find another way.” Her voice breaks, and she shoves me harder. “I hate that you make me feel things I don’t want to feel.”
I start giving ground, taking one step back, then another as she drives forward. Her palms press against my chest with increasing desperation, and I let her push me across the clearing until my back hits the rough bark of an oak tree.
“I hate you,” she sobs again, but the words have lost their venom. “I hate—”
I can’t take it anymore. Can’t stand to hear her say those words one more time when we both know they’re not entirely true.
I lean down and kiss her hard, cutting off whatever she was about to say.
She freezes for a heartbeat with her hands still pressed against my chest. Then she makes a sound—half protest, half surrender—and kisses me back with a ferocity that steals my breath.
She curls her fingers into my shirt, yanking me closer instead of pushing me away, and I feel the exact moment her anger transforms into something different.
I snatch her waist and twist, reversing our positions until she’s the one pressed against the tree trunk.
She gasps into my mouth as the bark scrapes against her back through the thin cotton of her dress, but she doesn’t push me away this time.
Instead, she arches into me, and her body fits against mine like it was designed for exactly this.
The bond hums between us; that new connection is singing with approval. I can feel her emotions bleeding through—confusion, desire, fear, need—all tangled together until neither of us knows where one ends and another begins.
I break the kiss long enough to look at her, but she yanks me back down, and her mouth finds mine with renewed hunger.
I kiss her like I’ve been starving for it, like she’s the only thing that can satisfy the hunger clawing through me.
I roam her body with my hands, learning her curves through the fabric of her dress—the dip of her waist, the flare of her hips, the soft weight of her breasts.
She responds in kind, and her fingers fumble with the buttons of my shirt until she gives up and just rips it open.
Buttons scatter across the forest floor, but I couldn’t care less.
She flattens her palms against my bare chest, and I hiss at the contact. I know my skin must feel like fire beneath her human hands, but she doesn’t pull away. Instead, she traces the lines of muscle across my stomach, her touch tentative and exploring.
“You’re so warm,” she breathes against my mouth.
“That bothers you?”
“No.” She kisses me again, harder this time. “God help me, no.”
I slide my hands down to her thighs and lift her effortlessly before pinning her against the tree with my body.
She wraps her legs around my waist instinctively, and the white dress rides up to her hips.
The position puts us at the same height, lets me kiss her deeper, lets me feel every inch of her pressed against me.
“Connor,” she gasps when I move my mouth to her neck. “We shouldn’t—”
“Tell me to stop and I will.” I nip at the sensitive skin below her ear, and she shudders. “But if you don’t say it now, I’m not stopping until I’ve claimed every inch of you.”
Her response is to thread her fingers through my hair and pull me back to her mouth.
I take that as a yes.
The bond flares between us, urging me forward and demanding that I complete what we started at the ceremony.
My wolf is howling inside my chest, desperate to mark her, to make sure every creature in this forest knows she belongs to me.
But I force myself to slow down, to savor this moment instead of rushing through it.
I want to remember everything. The way she tastes, the sounds she makes, the feel of her body responding to mine.
I lower her back to her feet, and she whimpers at the loss of contact. “Patience,” I tell her.
“I don’t want to be patient.” She reaches for me, but I catch her wrists.
“Too bad.” I spin her around so she’s facing the tree with her palms pressed against the bark. “You’ve been fighting me since the moment we met. Now you’re going to let me take control.”
I hear her breath hitch, feel the spike of arousal through our bond. She likes this—the idea of surrendering, of letting someone else make the decisions for once. Even if she’d never admit it out loud.
I gather her hair in one hand and move it over her shoulder, exposing the back of her neck. The zipper of her dress runs from collar to waist, and I lower it with agonizing slowness. The fabric parts to reveal smooth skin that practically glows in the moonlight.
“Beautiful,” I muse as I trace my fingers down the path of her spine.
She shivers under my touch. “Connor…”
“Shh.” I press a kiss to the back of her neck. “Let me worship you.”
I peel the dress off her shoulders and let it fall to pool at her feet. She’s wearing simple white underwear beneath—nothing fancy, nothing meant to seduce—but the sight of her standing there in just scraps of cotton and moonlight makes my mouth go dry.
I run my hands over her skin, mapping the curves and valleys of her body. She’s soft everywhere I’m hard, smooth where I’m rough. The contrast sends heat spiraling through my veins. When I cup her breasts, she leans back against me with a soft moan that nearly undoes me.
“Turn around,” I command, my voice barely more than a growl.
She obeys, and the trust in that simple action makes something behind my sternum ache. She shouldn’t trust me. Not after everything I’ve done. But she’s looking at me like I’m something worth believing in, and I’ll be damned if I disappoint her now.
I drop to my knees in front of her, and her eyes go wide.
“What are you—”
“Letting you know exactly how much I want this.” I hook my fingers into the waistband of her underwear and drag them down her legs. “How much I want you.”
The scent of her arousal hits me, and my wolf practically howls with satisfaction. She’s already wet for me, already ready, and knowing I did that to her—knowing I’m the one who brought her to this point—fills me with savage pride.
I lean forward and press a kiss to her inner thigh. She jumps, and her hand flies to my shoulder for balance.
I look up at her and request, “Let me taste you, Fern. Let me show you how good this can be.”
She nods, too overwhelmed to speak, and I take that as permission to continue.
I start slow, trailing kisses up her thigh until I reach the apex. Then I lick a long stripe through her folds, and she nearly buckles. I hold onto her hips to steady her, keeping her in place as I explore her with my mouth.
She tastes like salt and sweetness and something uniquely her. I lose myself in the act, in learning what makes her gasp, what makes her moan. When I find her most sensitive spot and circle it with my tongue, her fingers tighten in my hair almost painfully.
“Oh God,” she whimpers.
I increase the pressure, working her with single-minded focus as I slide two fingers inside her and curl them to find that spot that makes her back arch. Her inner walls clench around me, tight and hot, and I pump my fingers while my tongue continues swiping against her swollen bud.
She’s close. I can feel it in the way her thighs tremble and hear it in the desperate sounds falling from her lips. I double my efforts, determined to push her over the edge, to make her come apart under my mouth.
“Connor, I’m—I’m going to—”
Before she can finish, she shatters with a cry that splits through the clearing. Her body convulses, and her inner walls clamp down on my fingers. I work her through it, drawing out every last tremor until she’s sagging against the tree, barely able to stand.
I rise to my feet and catch her before she can fall. She looks up at me with dazed eyes, lips parted, cheeks flushed.
“That was just the beginning.” I kiss her softly, letting her taste herself on my lips. “We’re not done yet.”
She reaches between us and fumbles with my belt. “Then stop talking and finish what you started.”
I help her with my pants, shoving them down along with my boxers. My cock springs free, hard and aching, and when she wraps her hand around it, I nearly lose control right there.
“Fern,” I warn, but she’s already stroking me.
“I want you,” she confesses, and the honesty in her voice breaks something open inside me. “Please, Connor. I need you inside me.”
I lift her again to pin her against the tree, and she guides me to her entrance. For a moment, I pause there, with the tip of my cock just barely inside. Our eyes meet, and then I thrust forward, burying myself to the hilt in one smooth stroke.
We both cry out at the sensation. She’s tight and wet and perfect around me, and I have to grit my teeth to keep from coming. Her nails dig into my shoulders as she adjusts to my size, and her breath comes in short pants against my neck.
I pull back and thrust forward again, establishing a rhythm that has her gasping with each stroke. The angle is perfect, letting me hit deep inside her, and the sounds she makes drive me wild. I pick up the pace and drive into her harder, faster, chasing release.
“Yes,” she moans as her head falls back against the tree. “Just like that. Don’t stop.”
I have no intention of stopping. Not when she feels this good, not when her pleasure is feeding into mine through that connection and amplifying everything tenfold.
I can feel her climbing toward another peak as her body tenses around me. I adjust my angle just a bit, and she keens.
“I’m close,” she gasps. “Connor, I’m so close.”
“Then fall,” I tell her as my rhythm becomes erratic as my own release approaches. “I’ve got you.”
She comes with a scream that probably carries all the way back to the pack house, and her body clamps down on me like a vice.
The sensation triggers my own release. I thrust deep one final time and empty myself inside her with a roar, marking her from within, completing the bond in the most primal way possible.
Pleasure rockets through me, more intense than anything I’ve ever felt, and for a moment, I’m nothing but sensation and instinct.
When it finally subsides, I slump against her with a grunt. My legs are shaking, and I’m not entirely sure I can hold us both up much longer.
“That was…” Fern starts, then laughs breathlessly. “I don’t even have words.”
I press a kiss to her temple and chuckle. “Good. I’d hate to think I left you capable of speech.”
She smacks my shoulder weakly. “Asshole.”
“Your asshole now.” I reluctantly pull out and lower her to her feet, keeping an arm around her waist when she wobbles. “Like it or not.”