Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Titan
Day after day I keep my vow. I fill her, claim her, mark her as mine in the most primal way a man can mark a woman.
She’s changing—her body softening further under my constant attention, her pussy now molded to the shape of my cock.
When I enter her, it’s like coming home to a place made just for me.
And she’s starting to crave it now. No longer just submitting, but seeking.
Reaching for me in her sleep, whimpering when I pull out even for a moment, grinding against me with needy little movements that make the beast inside me roar with satisfaction. Mine. All mine.
This morning, I wake to find her already astride me, her soft thighs spread wide over my hips, her slick heat enveloping my morning hardness. Her eyes are closed, lips parted in concentration as she works herself on my cock.
“Look at you,” I growl, my hands finding her hips, guiding her movements. “My greedy little mama can’t even wait for me to wake up before taking what she needs.”
Her eyes flutter open, and for a moment, I see shame there—shame at wanting me, at needing the pleasure only I can give her. But then I thrust up hard, hitting that spot deep inside that makes her gasp, and the shame dissolves into raw need.
“That’s it,” I encourage, watching her plump breasts bounce with each movement. “Use me. Take what you need.”
She rides me with increasing desperation, her hands braced on my chest, nails digging half-moons into my skin. When she comes, it’s with a broken sob, her inner muscles clenching around me so tightly that I follow her over the edge, pumping her full of my seed once again.
Afterward, she collapses on my chest, her breathing ragged against my neck. I stroke her back, feeling the delicate knobs of her spine beneath my calloused fingers. Five years in these mountains have made me forget how fragile humans can be. How breakable.
My time in Afghanistan taught me that lesson first. Eight men under my command—brothers, really—all dead because I wasn’t fast enough, strong enough, smart enough.
Their ghosts followed me back to American soil, haunted me through nightmares and flashbacks until I couldn’t stand the look of pity in civilian eyes anymore.
So I retreated here, to this mountain that belonged to my grandfather, and I built myself a fortress where no one could find me.
Where no one could get hurt because of me again.
Until her. Until this soft, curvy little woman crashed into my life, bringing with her the scent of wildflowers and city shampoo and something that makes my dead heart beat again.
I carry her to the bathing pool I’ve constructed from the natural hot spring that runs through the mountain. Still inside her—I rarely pull out these days—I lower us both into the warm water, arranging her on my lap so we’re chest to chest, her legs wrapped around my waist.
“You need to eat,” I tell her, reaching for the bowl of berries and dried venison I prepared earlier.
One by one, I feed her, watching with satisfaction as she takes food from my fingers.
Her lips are swollen from my kisses, her neck marked with my beard burn and love bites.
Every visible sign of my possession makes something primal and satisfied unfurl in my chest.
“The fire seems to be dying down,” she says quietly, her eyes drifting to the window where we can see the valley below. The smoke has thinned considerably since yesterday, and fewer helicopters circle the area.
I feel her tense slightly in my arms, and I know what she’s thinking. If the fire is contained, she might have a chance to leave. To go to her sister, whose messages have grown more frequent and more desperate over the past few days.
“It doesn’t matter,” I tell her, tightening my grip on her hips, pressing her down more firmly onto my cock. “Fire or no fire, you’re staying here. With me.”
She doesn’t argue, but something in her eyes clouds over.
I’ve seen that look before—in the eyes of men who know they’re trapped, who are calculating their odds of escape.
I fuck it out of her, right there in the bathing pool, water sloshing over the edges as I remind her body who it belongs to now.
Later, while I’m chopping wood for the fireplace—I‘ve carried her with me, seated her on a nearby stump with my seed leaking from between her thighs—I catch her glancing toward the entrance of the fortress. Toward where the waterfall conceals the passage to the outside world.
I set down my axe and stalk toward her. “Something interesting out there, little mama?”
She startles, guilt flashing across her face. “I—I just?—“
“You just what?” I crouch before her, my hands on her knees, spreading her legs so I can see the evidence of my claim still marking her inner thighs. “Thinking about running?”
“My sister,” she whispers, her eyes filling with tears. “Please, Titan. Just let me check on her. Just one call.”
I should be angry. But I’m terrified at the thought of her leaving. But I also can’t stand the tears in her eyes. So, I find myself reaching for her phone, which I’ve kept charged but useless due to lack of signal. I hand it to her, watching her eyes widen in surprise.
“There’s no signal in here,” I tell her. “The waterfall and stone block it.”
Hope and desperation war on her face. “But outside?—“
I cut her off. “You don’t go anywhere without me inside you, little mama. That was the deal.”
It wasn’t a deal. It was a claim, a vow, a unilateral decision. But saying it like this gives her the illusion of choice, and for some reason, I want her to choose me. Not just submit to me.
That night, while I’m tending to the fire, I catch her.
She’s tiptoeing toward the entrance, phone clutched in her hand, wearing nothing but one of my shirts that hangs to her knees.
For a moment, I just watch her, curious to see how far she’ll go.
She reaches the passage that leads to the waterfall and pauses, looking back toward where I usually sleep. Checking if I’m following.
I let her get all the way to the edge of the waterfall before I move. Silent as a predator, I stalk behind her, watching her hold her phone up, searching desperately for a signal bar.
When my hand closes around her wrist, she jumps but doesn’t scream. She’s learned that screaming only makes me harder, makes me claim her more fiercely.
“Found you,” I whisper against her ear, backing her against the stone wall beside the waterfall. The mist coats her skin, making it glisten in the dim light. “Are you really tying to leave me, little mama?”
“I wasn’t leaving,” she protests weakly. “I just wanted to call my sister. To tell her I’m okay.”
“You’re more than okay,” I growl, lifting her easily, my hands cupping her ass as I position her over my already free cock. “You’re mine. You’re home.”
I slam her down onto me, watching her head fall back against the stone wall, her mouth open in a silent scream of pleasure-pain. The phone clatters to the ground, forgotten as I fuck her against the wall, the spray from the waterfall coating us both.
“Say it,” I demand, each word punctuated with a thrust. “Say you belong to me.”
“I—I belong to you,” she gasps, her nails digging into my shoulders, legs wrapped tight around my waist.
“Your pussy belongs to me,” I continue, grinding against her clit with each thrust. “Your womb belongs to me. Your future belongs to me.”
“Yes,” she sobs, and I feel her inner walls fluttering around me as she approaches her peak. “Yes, all yours.”
But even as she comes, clenching around me like a vise, I see tears streaming down her face. Not just tears of pleasure—these are tears of conflict, of guilt, of being torn between the pleasure I give her body and the duty pulling at her heart.
I come inside her with a roar, flooding her womb with my seed once again. But as I press my palm against her lower belly, feeling the slight distension where I’m still lodged deep inside her, something tugs at my consciousness. Something that feels uncomfortably like doubt.
Her sobs continue even after the pleasure has subsided, her face buried against my chest, tears mingling with the waterfall spray on my skin.
And suddenly, I’m back in Afghanistan, holding another broken body—my teammate Johnson, bleeding out in my arms, begging me to tell his wife he loved her one last time.
A promise I couldn’t keep because by the time I made it back, she’d already taken her own life from grief.
Another person I failed. Another life shattered because of me.
I carry my little captive back to our bed of furs, still connected, her tears dampening my neck.
For the first time since she crashed into my life, I wonder if keeping her means watching her shatter the same way.
If my need to possess her is destroying the very thing that drew me to her—that soft, sweet light in her eyes that’s now clouded with conflict and tears.
The beast inside me snarls at the thought of letting her go. Mine, it insists. Mine to breed, mine to keep.
But the man I was before the mountain—before the war broke me—whispers something different. Something that sounds dangerously like sacrifice.