11. Wren #3
I grind into him. Small. The only movement the knot allows, my hips rolling so the swell of it drags against the place inside him that makes his voice break, and I keep doing it, slow, steady, my teeth resting on his gland, until his breath goes short and his hands clamp on my shoulders and I can feel it building in him.
In him, not just around me. His whole body going rigid, every muscle locking, half panic, half something so far past pleasure it doesn’t have a name.
“Wren, I’m—it’s—“
“I know. I’ve got you.”
I bite.
He comes the second my teeth break skin.
His hole spasms around the knot and his mouth opens on a wrecked sound and his cock jerks between us, untouched, the first thick pulse of cum hitting his chest, then his stomach, then spilling in messy, helpless spurts while his body clenches around my knot in a rhythm that drags me straight over the edge with him.
His blood is hot and tastes like copper and salt, and underneath, something sweet that’s just him. The bond slams into place.
And it drags me under. My knot throbs, a deep, pulsing ache that crests and breaks, and I come so hard my arms give out.
I catch myself on my elbows, teeth still set in his neck, buried, knotted, and the orgasm isn’t one wave.
It’s a series, each pulse pumping into him while my knot throbs in time and his body milks every one out of me like it was made for this.
I’m filling him. I can feel it, the wet heat of it, and through the bond I can feel him feeling it, and that loop nearly takes the top of my head off.
My whole body shakes. I grind as much as the tie allows, wringing out every last aftershock until I’m empty and trembling and my jaw finally, finally unclenches.
My eyes sting. Hard.
When my jaw unclenches, I lick over the mark.
Gentle. Slow. The wound is already closing, the edges neat.
It’ll scar silver and permanent, visible above any collar he ever wears.
Jude’s grin in the side mirror flashes through my head.
Declan tipping his chin. They’ll see this mark, and they’ll know.
Mine.
“Mine,” I whisper against his skin. The word comes out wrecked. “Soren. You’re mine.”
His fingers card through my hair, slow and trembling. A low rumble starts in his chest, a purr. Aaron told me about this once, about omegas and the sounds they make when they’re happy, and I called him an idiot. But he was right. It’s real, and it vibrates through me like a second heartbeat.
“Yours,” he murmurs. “Yeah. Yours.”
I roll us carefully onto our sides, still locked together, and pull the blankets over us.
The nest settles around us. His birds watch from the shelf.
My henley is bunched up under my hip. There’s slick and cum everywhere, on his stomach, between his thighs, soaking into layers of blankets, and neither of us gives a shit.
I brush my thumb over the bite mark, featherlight, checking the edges.
He shivers but presses into the touch instead of flinching away.
I smooth my palm down his neck, his shoulder, settle the blankets higher around us, tuck a fold of Milo’s quilt against the small of his back where he runs cold.
My knot throbs gently inside him, and he hums, content, pressing back against me.
His purr deepens, buzzing warm against my ribs.
This is the part I didn’t realize I wanted. Just holding him after. The quiet part.
He traces the mark on his own neck, fingertips featherlight. Smiles with his eyes closed.
“Does it look how I think it looks?” he asks.
“It looks like you’re taken.”
“Good.” He presses closer, tucking his face into my throat. “I want everyone to see.”
We talk about nothing. His favorite bird: Stumble, he says, because she was the first one that felt like she had a face instead of just a shape. I have to bite my tongue so hard I taste copper again. The festival. Whether Jude will actually make a playlist about this.
“He’ll pretend to be disgusted and then demand every detail,” Soren says, yawning.
“And you’ll tell him.”
“Obviously. It’s only fair.”
My knot eases slowly. I slip out of him, and he makes a small, unhappy noise, so I pull him tight against my chest, arm heavy over his waist, my nose pressed to his new mark. His heartbeat thumps steady through his back. Trusting.
Tell him about the birds.
The thought pushes through, clear and sharp, and I don’t crush it. I hold it. Turn it over.
I almost say it. But tonight I bit him, put my mark on him, made it permanent while he still thinks the guy leaving birds everywhere is someone else. If I tell him now, right after all this, it’ll feel like I was keeping secrets on purpose. Like I set him up before he even knew what was happening.
He deserves to hear it when he can think straight. When he’s not still buzzing from the bond and my teeth marks and my knot. When he can look at me and decide how he feels about it without feeling trapped.
Not tonight.
Soon, though. I’m done hiding behind the work.
My hand finds his, lacing our fingers together over his stomach. I close my eyes and let him pull me under.