7. Lia
LIA
Iwake up on Monday knowing.
Not about the mark—I went to sleep last night already knowing about the mark—but about the whole of it.
I wake up in Wes Maddox's bed with the morning light coming through the gap in the curtain and the apartment quiet around us, and I lie there for a full minute with my head on his chest and my hand over his heart, and I'm not afraid of any of it.
Not the size of him. Not the speed of it. Not the mine that has been in his mouth since Friday night. Not the bite he has spent three days asking me, without asking, whether I want.
I want it.
I've wanted it since the bar.
I just hadn't known yet that I was allowed to.
He is still asleep. This is new—Wes Maddox has not slept in three mornings that I can count, has been the one awake every time my eyes opened, has been watching me sleep like a sentry with an assignment—and the fact that he's finally asleep now, the morning we are going to do this, matters.
The rut is easing. His body is letting him sleep.
I don't wake him.
I press my face into his chest and I listen to his heart and I breathe.
When he wakes, twenty minutes later, his hand tightens at my back before his eyes open. Like he can't bear, even in sleep, to wake up without checking. His fingers splay across my skin and his breath changes and then his eyes open and find mine, his face still soft and warm from sleeping.
"Hi."
"Hi."
He hasn't shifted his arm off me. His palm spreads a little wider against my back, like he's checking I'm still here before he commits to opening his eyes.
"You slept."
"I slept." His voice is rough. "Finally."
"What time?"
"Nine-ish."
I turn my head enough to see the clock on his nightstand.
"Wes, it's after ten."
"Mm."
"You slept for thirteen hours."
"You're here," he says. Simply. "Bear could finally turn off."
I kiss his chest. Right over his heart. His hand comes up to the back of my head and settles there.
"Lia."
"Yeah."
"You still want to do this?"
"Yes."
"You're sure?"
His thumb moves against the base of my skull—one small stroke, checking.
"Wes."
"I'm asking."
"I know."
"The bear is very awake right now. Do not confuse what he wants for what I'll take from you if it's not a full yes. Say it one more time."
I push up on my elbow. I look at him. His dark eyes. The beard. The mouth I've learned the shape of. The chest my hand is on.
"Wes Maddox. I am saying yes. I am going to say yes five more times while you are inside me. I am going to ask for it with my whole mouth. Please bite me."
"Christ."
"Is that a yes back?"
"That's a yes back."
"Good."
He kisses me.
Slow this time. The rut is still in the room but it's quieter—the drumbeat behind his ribs has softened, the animal urgency has eased into something steadier—and he kisses me like a man who has already won and has time to enjoy it.
"Shower first," he says.
"Okay."
"You eat. You drink water. Then we come back to this bed and we do it right."
"Okay."
"Lia."
"Yeah."
"I love you."
I go still.
He says it again. Quietly. His thumb at my jaw.
"I love you. I want you to hear it before.
I want it to be something I said to you in daylight in a bed, not something I said to you mid-bite with a mouth full of my own teeth.
I love you. I loved you when you walked through the door of the bar and asked about the sign.
I loved you when you poured Millie Henderson a glass of wine.
I loved you when you told me about the ex.
I have loved you the entire time and I am going to love you the entire time. "
My eyes are wet.
"Wes."
"Yeah."
"I love you too."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. I have been saying it to myself in my head since—since Monday.
Since the porch. I was going to make myself wait a month to say it out loud because I have been trying to be reasonable about all of this and apparently being reasonable isn't in my vocabulary anymore, so I'm saying it now. I love you."
"Lia."
"Yeah."
"Thank you."
He kisses my forehead. He gets out of bed. He picks me up—full scoop, one arm under my knees, one under my back—and carries me into the bathroom like a man who has decided he has carried me enough times that we don't need to make a thing of it anymore.
He washes my hair.
I didn't know this was going to undo me.
I've never had a man wash my hair before.
He stands behind me in his walk-in shower with the water at exactly the temperature I like—he learned it sometime on Day Two—and he works shampoo through my hair with his enormous hands and I lean back into him and cry a little in the water and he pretends he doesn't notice.
He washes the rest of me. Slowly. Between my thighs with his hand, careful, sore from three days of him. He isn't trying to arouse me. He is trying to take care of me. I lean against the tile and let him.
"You're shaking," he says.
"I'm fine."
"Lia."
"It's good shaking. It's—I'm fine. Keep going."
He rinses. He dries me. He wraps me in his robe because it's enormous and warm on me and he clearly likes me in it.
He takes me back into the kitchen and makes me eat half a bagel and two pieces of bacon and drink two full glasses of water.
He stands at the counter in nothing but his towel and watches me eat and he doesn't put his hand on me once while I do.
I finish. I stand up.
"Bedroom," I say.
"Bedroom."
We go back.
He strips me at the edge of the bed.
The robe comes off first. His gaze moves over me in the morning light—bare, my hair damp, my skin still pink from the shower—and he touches my face, my shoulder, the side of my breast. No rush. His hand slides down my side. Over my hip. Down my thigh. Back up.
"You're perfect."
"Wes."
"Every inch of you. Every curve. Every single part."
"I know."
"Say it."
"I'm perfect."
"Mine."
"Yours."
He takes my hand. He walks me around to the side of the bed. He turns me so I am facing the window—morning light coming in, I can see the hills, I can see the top of the diner's roof two buildings over—and he stands behind me and puts both of his hands at my waist and looks at me in the glass.
"I want you to see."
I find his eyes in the glass.
"See what."
"Me giving it to you."
"The mark."
"The mark. You watch. You're going to see it happen."
The hills are behind us in the window. My own face looks back at me through the glass, flushed already, lips parted.
"Oh."
"Is that okay?"
"Yes."
"Good girl."
He lowers me onto my hands and knees on the edge of the bed. My palms flat on the comforter. My knees apart. My face toward the window. In the glass I can see his reflection—enormous behind me, dark hair, dark eyes, the line of his throat—and I can see my own face, my hair tangled, my mouth parted.
He runs his hand down my spine.
"I'm going to take my time, Lia."
"Okay."
"Going to make you come for me before I knot you. Going to get you absolutely ready. Then I'm going to give you the knot. And when it locks I'm going to bite. That's how it works. You feel the lock—that's when you'll know."
"Okay."
"Say it back."
"Come, then knot, then bite."
"Yes."
"Okay."
He drops to his knees behind me.
Oh.
His mouth on me. From behind. His hands on my hips, holding me open, his tongue sliding through my pussy slow—deliberate, thorough, nothing rushed.
He licks through my wet folds, full and slow.
He circles my clit. He presses his tongue inside me and I drop my forehead to the comforter and I make a sound.
"Look up."
"I—"
"Look up, sweetheart. Watch."
I lift my head. I look at the window. I see myself—flushed, mouth open—and behind me Wes's broad shoulders, his head lowered, the focused concentration on his face.
He works me patiently. Two fingers slide into me. His tongue keeps circling. He crooks his fingers and finds the spot and strokes and my knees start to tremble.
"Stay up."
"Wes—"
"Stay up, Lia."
I stay up.
He builds me. He isn't in a hurry. The rut has settled enough that he can do this properly—extended, thorough, an orgasm he's making rather than chasing—and he rides me up to the edge and holds me there until I am begging.
"Please."
"Please what."
"Please let me?—"
"Say it."
"Let me come, Wes, please?—"
"Come for me."
I come.
Watching my own face in the glass. Watching the way my mouth drops open. Watching his shoulders behind me. His fingers are deep in me and his tongue is on my clit and I come with a cry that fills the room and his hand presses harder against my hip to hold me still.
He keeps his fingers inside me.
"That's one."
"Wes—"
"Staying in. I'm going in wet, sweetheart. That was the warmup."
He stands.
I see him in the glass. Naked behind me.
His cock thick and flushed and hard and slick at the tip, already slick from how wet I am.
He fits himself to me. The wide head of him presses against my pussy and I'm still shaking from the first orgasm and he pushes his cock in slow and I watch his face in the glass as he seats himself fully.
"Look at us."
"Wes—"
"Look at you taking me, Lia. Look at how you stretch around me. Like your body was built to hold mine."
I look.
In the glass I can see his cock disappearing into my pussy. The size of him. The way my body gives around him and stretches. He stays deep. His hands are spread wide on my hips.
"Move," I say.
He moves.
Slow at first. He draws out almost to the tip and thrusts back home and I feel every inch of him.
The thick width of him. He is watching me in the glass as he does it and I am watching him back and the intimacy of seeing my own face, undone, while he moves in me—I've never done this before, I've never had anyone who wanted to do this—and something breaks loose in my chest.
"Wes."
"I know."
"I can't?—"
"You can."
He speeds up. He drives in harder. Each thrust pushes me forward into the bed and his hand comes up to the small of my back to hold me in place. His other hand slides around to find my clit and rub circles while he thrusts into me and I start to come again almost immediately.
"That's two. Come for me. Let me feel it."
I come around him.
Clenching tight. My arms shake. I drop to my elbows. He adjusts—fits his body over mine, his chest blanketing my back, still inside my pussy, still driving in—and his lips are at my shoulder, breath hot. His weight heavy.
"I love you," he says into my skin.
"I love you."
"I'm going to knot you with my cock now."
"Okay."
"I'm going to mark you when it locks."
"Yes."
"Say it once more."
"Yes. Please. Mark me. Make me yours."
His hips drive harder. Faster. I feel the swelling start—the knot growing at the base of his cock, stretching my pussy wider—and I press my hips back and I say "yes" and "please" and "give it to me."
The knot swells to full.
It catches.
It seats.
It locks.
He comes. Deep, long pulses inside my pussy, his knot sealing everything in. My body is clenching around his cock. My third orgasm rolls up and takes me and I cry out and?—
His mouth is at the curve where my neck meets my shoulder.
"Breathe," he says.
"Yes—"
"Now."
He bites.
His teeth sink in.
The pain is sharp and for one single second it's just pain and I gasp and then?—
Something opens.
I don't have another word for it. Something in my chest opens the way a door opens when someone you love walks through.
Warmth floods into me—not heat, something else, deeper, older—and I feel him.
I feel the whole of him. His love. His relief.
His bear, quiet and satisfied behind his sternum.
The full weight of every year he spent alone.
And I feel myself, moving into that space. Filling it. The shape of me settling into the shape of him.
I cry.
Not a little. A lot. It comes out of me in a wave—every feeling I've had since Thursday, every single one, pouring up my throat.
I am shaking. Weeping. Wes is holding me pressed against him, knot locked deep, his teeth still in my shoulder.
He is making a low sound in his throat that is the bear and the man together.
He releases the bite slowly.
His tongue presses against the wound. Soft. Then he kisses it. Then he shifts us—we are locked, he can't pull out, but he rolls us carefully to our sides so his weight isn't on me—and he curls around me and holds me while I cry.
"Shh. I'm here."
"I—"
"I've got you, sweetheart. I'm right here."
"I feel you."
"I know."
"I feel you inside my chest."
"I know, Lia."
"Is it always?—?"
"The bond. You'll feel me all the time now. When you're upset. When you're happy. If something happens to me—you'll feel it. Same for me with you. That's the mark."
"Oh."
"I know it's a lot."
"It's not bad. It's—it's—I thought I'd feel bound. I don't feel bound. I feel held."
"Yes."
"Wes—"
"Yeah."
"You're crying."
"A little."
"I felt it."
"I know."
We lie there. His knot locked deep. His forehead against mine. My tears drying on his chest. His tears on mine. His hand is cupping the bite. He is tracing its shape with his thumb.
"What does it look like?"
"Perfect." He kisses it. "Beautiful. You'll see in the bathroom in a minute."
"Will it—it's going to heal like a scar?"
"Yeah. Permanent. Won't fade."
I turn my face further into his chest. The bond is humming low and steady, and every time I breathe I feel him breathe back.
"Good."
"Good?"
"Yeah. I want it. I want everyone to see."
"Everyone will see."
His thumb keeps its small circle over the bite. The motion is careful, repeated, like he's still convincing himself it happened.
"Wes."
"Yeah."
"I'm yours."
"You're mine."
"And you're mine."
"I'm yours."
He says it plain. The way he has said everything since the first minute I walked into his bar. I am yours. Not a performance. Not a romantic flourish. A statement of fact.
The knot holds us for a long time. He strokes my hair. He kisses the mark. He tells me—quietly, slowly—the names of his parents. His grandparents. The Maddoxes who built the bar in 1903. The history of the town. Things I'll be part of now.
I listen.
My chest is warm. The bond is warm. Wes is warm against me and inside me and around me and for the first time in my adult life I don't feel like I'm in transit between two places.
I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.
I don't cry a second time. I am too full for crying. I lie in his arms and feel his knot slowly soften and feel him eventually slide out of me and feel him pull me back against his chest anyway, still not letting go.
"I'm tired, Wes."
"Sleep."
"We just slept."
"Sleep again."
"You first."
"Together."
"Together."
He pulls the blanket over us. His palm is flat over the bite mark on my shoulder. He presses his mouth to my temple.
"Mine," he says.
"Yours," I answer.
I close my eyes.
The bond hums.
I sleep.
---