Chapter 11
SELENE
Ihave not known Harry for very long, that’s true. But the way he towered over that alpha, ready to squash his head like a melon—that was a new Harry. A strange, different Harry, who burned with rage.
He was almost beautiful. I didn’t know he was capable of such things, and it makes that never-ending ache in my belly grow fiercer.
Wordlessly, he carries me out of the house and down the front steps, then along the overgrown road.
I know I don’t need to hold on to him, that he would never drop me, but I also can’t let him go.
He smells… perfect. Like home. Like a hearth and a warm meal.
Like everything I’ve ever wanted, ever needed, and it’s right here.
I don’t even have words to express how grateful I am that he came when he did. And it is a very inconvenient moment for that endlessly needy part of me to become very loud and very needy.
“Harry,” I whimper, rubbing my thighs together. He pauses, then inhales deeply as he peers down at me. “I’m sorry. I… It…”
I can’t even finish my sentence, as embarrassed as I am. He just rescued me from what could have been something very terrible. He took a massive blow to the head, and a few ugly stumbles. He needs rest and his wounds cleaned. He needs a meal and a bath.
But I need him, too.
Harry’s voice comes out low, throaty. “Is it bad?”
I nod, pushing my nightgown down to cover myself. “I’m sorry. It hurts. It—”
“Shh.” He glances around, then seems to locate what he’s looking for, and heads to a tree. He bends down and sets me down at the base of it, where the pine needles have pulled away from the trunk. “This will work.”
“What will work?”
He doesn’t say anything as he kneels in the dirt in front of me, then gently, sets a hand on my thigh and pulls it to one side so my legs are spread around his broad shoulders.
Oh, no. Is he going to lick me? Here? Right here?
I can’t think of anything better right now, except maybe…
No. Not that. Harry doesn’t want that, with me, on the forest floor.
Once my legs are spread, he tucks his hands under me, lifting me up by the rear.
Then he leans down and slides his tongue down, from my clit to my ass.
He groans, and the scent I detected earlier—his masculine, homey smell—swells bigger around us.
It makes my need even more acute, and it won’t be sated by this alone.
Instead of tasting my clit, Harry’s tongue wiggles inside me, and I moan as it spreads me open. He sucks, and his shoulders clench between my thighs.
“This flavor,” he says with a groan, “is like nothing else. I can’t get enough.”
Then he reaches upward, flicking his tongue back and forth, riling me up. But I don’t need any more riling. I need something inside me, desperately.
“More,” I plead.
Obediently, Harry lifts a finger and slips it inside me, and it’s so good, so unbelievably good, and still not enough.
My hips cant up into it, and he pulls that finger out before plunging it back in again.
Soon, it’s joined by two, and yet I need more.
Still, something important is missing, and I will never escape this feeling unless Harry gives me what I crave.
I reach down and touch his hair, and his eyes dart up to mine as his fingers slow.
“Thank you,” I tell him, stroking his shaggy blonde mane. “But… you don’t have to do this. For me.”
I want to give him the chance to tell me the truth. I don’t know what I’ll do if he says the thing I’m dreading, but he needs to have the choice.
“What?” Harry raises his head, bushy brows furrowed. “I want to do it.”
“Do you? Really? Or is it… because you feel like you must?”
He shakes his head vigorously, and lowers my hips to the ground so he can stare down into my face. His blue eyes are sharp, surprisingly so.
“Selene.” He leans down until his nose is only inches away from mine. “I have never, ever done anything with you I didn’t want to do. In fact, I have held back on doing most of the things I wish I could do.”
My heart flutters. I hope he means what I think he means.
“Like what?” My voice comes out small.
“Like this.” He closes the distance between us, and his lips brush over mine. Immediately, I light up like a lamp to a match.
He’s kissing me. Harry is kissing me.
Goodness. Does that mean he likes me?
His next pass over my lips is firmer, and I press back, wanting him to know how much I long for him.
What it means to me that he came for me tonight.
I wrap my arms around his neck and bring him closer, which means now I’m flat on my back on the tree roots and Harry is on top of me, his arms bracketing my head as he sucks on my lower lip.
I have never been kissed like this. Though I’ve only been kissed maybe twice, so it’s a small pool.
But his mouth is speaking to mine, applying pressure and then retreating in a way that’s tentative, hopeful, and hungry.
I can’t help my hips snapping up against his, and above me, Harry groans, one of his hands reaching down to curl around my waist.
“Selene,” he says in a warning tone. “I need you to know that I want you. I have wanted you. I’ve done my best to stay true, to keep it under control, but—”
I feel his thick cock against my belly as he pushes me down again, pinning me to the base of the tree. And I finally understand.
“Then please,” I beg him, lifting my head to press a feverish, needy kiss to his lips. He returns it, grinding that lump in his pants against me with even more fervor. “Please, have me. This will never stop until you do.”
Harry makes a noise that’s distinctly a growl, and he lowers his mouth to my ear.
“Are you certain?” he says, sounding strangled. “You’re sure that you want me inside you?”
Just saying the words aloud sends a shiver down my spine.
“Yes.”
Abruptly, Harry pulls away. He hastily unbuttons his trousers, then tugs them down. And finally, I get to see him up close. His cock is heavy and swollen, the head starting to peek out from under the loose skin. My eyes travel along it to the base, where there’s a large lump.
“What the…” Harry is staring down at himself, his mouth agape. “That can’t be.”
“What is it?” I ask, retreating. “That man—Greld—he had one, too.”
Harry hisses and shoves his cock angrily back into his pants, buttoning them closed again. I stare up at him, and reach out to grab his arm just as he jerks back.
“Wait. Stop. Talk to me.” I sit up so I can better reach him. “What is it? What did you see?”
He shakes his head, unwilling to look me in the eye.
“It was a knot,” he says hoarsely. “Something’s happened. Something’s changed. I didn’t… I didn’t have this before…”
Before me. Somehow, I did this to him.
“How could I not have known?” Harry says, balling his hands into fists as he stares at the ground. “That I had this in me? I know my uncle was an alpha, but...”
Harry pauses, then turns his gaze on me. His brows lift and his lips turn up. “It came out when I needed it. To find you. It brought me to you and made sure we both escaped alive. For that, I’m grateful.”
“Me, too.” I sit on my knees and wrap my arms around his neck, pulling him close against me. “Thank you for being what you are.”
That warm scent of his envelops me like a soft blanket. I lean back so I can kiss his lips, and he returns it tentatively. He’s uncertain now that I want him, but now I need him more than ever. I lean back against the tree and pull him with me, spreading my legs so his hips are wedged between them.
Harry swallows hard.
“If we do this, Selene, I’m going to want to put that knot inside you,” he says in a low voice. “I’m going to knot you, and we’ll be linked. Forever.”
I stare at him. “Linked? How?”
“You’ll feel what I feel, and the same will be true for me.” He pauses. “Perhaps… that has already happened.”
I furrow my brow and scoot closer to him, listening.
“When Greld took you… I sensed your fear. Your panic. But if you don’t feel me the same way yet, then it only goes one direction.
” He bites his lip. “That means the bond has only formed one way. But if I knot you tonight, that will change. You’ll be a part of me as much as I’m a part of you.
We’ll be together until we die. We’ll have children together.
It’ll be my knot that fills you up every night, for the rest of your life. ”
He bends his neck, waiting for my judgment. It’s a lot to take in, I’ll admit. If we do this now, it will be forever.
Reaching out, I snake a hand under his chin, into his furry beard, so he’s forced to look up at me the way he once made me do the same. I peer into his blue eyes, which hold so much fear in them.
“What if I want that?” I ask. “What if that life sounds like a good one?”
His brow creases. “Does it?”
Smiling, I stroke his beard, hoping that maybe he can sense the joy I feel at this idea. At the suggestion of a life together. The corner of his mouth rises, and I think that perhaps he does.
HAROLD
Selene wants me. She wants me. She’s going to give that to me—the rest of her life—and willingly.
I have no choice. Naturally, the forest floor is the last place where I want to take a woman’s virginity, but we’re far from home and the scent of her in need is too much. I have to have her right now.
This time, I kick off my trousers along with my boots.
Though it’s still dark, tendrils of sunrise are lighting up clouds in the sky, giving me more light to see Selene by.
I pull her nightgown up to bare her pebbled nipples to the world, and my cock throbs even more insistently.
I lean down to lap at her breasts, but she tangles her hand in my hair and tugs.
“I can’t wait.” Her voice cracks. “Please, Harry. Make me yours.”
I suppose I will attend to her better next time, after we’ve slaked her thirst. At least I have what’s needed now to sate her.
Glancing down, I’m awed again at the shape of the knot that’s grown at the root of my cock. All along, I never knew. But it came to life in me when I needed it most—and now I’m going to show her what I can do with it.
I understand the basics, but I don’t know how I’m going to work that bulbous thing into Selene’s small, virgin body. Omegas are designed to take a knot under the right circumstances, but how do I trigger it?
Kneeling between Selene’s legs, I run a finger down over her clit, where I tease her until she’s whining in objection, begging me to touch her elsewhere. Then I move down further to make sure she’s wet—and find her drenched in her slick. My cock pulses in my grip, ready to find its way there.
“Harry!” She places her hand over mine. “You need to do it. Now.”
I understand. Shuffling closer, I spread her legs to reveal that shining, swollen cunt, and thick, white seed drips from the slit at the tip of my cock.
Now I understand—the tingles I felt whenever I scented Selene, the change in my spend.
My body aches for nothing but to thrust inside her, to finally taste her and give her everything she needs.
I slip the head between her folds, then search for that tiny entrance I know is waiting. Soon, I find it, but when I push, only the very tip of my cock can slip through. Selene’s eyes widen as I apply pressure, and her mouth falls open.
“Oh, that is much bigger than your fingers,” she gasps, and I try to hold back a chuckle.
“It certainly is.”
As challenging as it is not to simply thrust in and fuck her as badly as I want to, I can’t hurt her like that.
I pull back, then push in again, and just the feeling of her wet slick against my exposed skin is stretching my self-control.
I apply more pressure, and Selene lets out a cry of alarm as I slip through.
Fuck, I didn’t intend to hurt her.
“I’m sorry,” I say to her, kissing her nose, her cheeks.
“Don’t be sorry.” She inhales deeply, then lets the air out, while I remain motionless. “I… needed this.”
I nod and pull back slowly, hoping not to inflame it. Then I slide in again, easier this time, and Selene’s head falls back against the tree roots. Nothing feels like her inside, warm and wet and perfectly formed around me. I’m only buried an inch deep, but already, my control is slipping.
“More,” she whispers. “Harry, I need more. Please!”
This time, when I withdraw, I thrust in deeper, farther, her small body giving way for me.
Her legs wind around my waist as I set a slow pace, exploring more with each gentle pump of my hips.
I have an iron grip on myself, one that could fray at any moment as she squeezes around me.
Her lovely breasts bounce with every motion, and I’m finding it harder and harder not to simply take her like an animal in the woods.
Already, all my instincts demand I shove my knot inside her, but I need her to open to me first like a blooming flower.
Then, I can show her everything I have to offer.
I lean down, remaining shallow as her small channel allows me through. Selene’s beautiful eyes open, and I kiss her again, trying to show her how my heart beats because she’s here. How I’ll never be the same now that I have her. How my world is finally complete.