Page 63 of Fought and Found

I press forward. A fraction at a time. The knot stretches her entrance — slow, the tissue yielding around the widest point, and she is panting in short sharp breaths, her hands gripping my arms, her eyes locked on mine.

“Breathe,” I growl, voice dropping into gravel. “Take it. Take every inch of your mate.”

“I am breathing. I’m breathing, and you’re enormous, and I want every —oh—”

The widest point. Her jaw drops. Her eyes squeeze shut. A high sound — not a scream, the precursor — and her body stretches and yields and the knot pops past her entrance and seats inside her with a wet, obscene finality that we both feel in our bones.

Locked.

The mating knotswells to its full diameter. Larger than it was in the shower, stretching her to her limit, a burning pressure that makes her whimper.

The fullness is devastating.

Her walls grip every ridge, and the thick knot pulses in rhythm. I start to move — deep, rolling grinds that shift every textured band inside her while the knot grinds against her g-spot.

She comes almost immediately, crying out, walls clamping down hard around my knot in rippling sequence. I grind deeper, fangs scraping her shoulder.

“Mine,” I snarl against her skin. “This perfect cunt is mine. Say it while I’m locked inside you.”

“Yours—fuck—it’s yours—don’t stop—”

I fuck her with the knot — slow, devastating circles. The purr drops into its deepest register, vibrating directly through the knot and into her core. Each ridge vibrates with it. She sobs my name, coming again, harder, her body milking me in powerful waves.

I explore every inch of her while locked deep— hands mapping her breasts, thumbs teasing her nipples, mouth claiming her throat and the claiming bite I will soon leave. She maps me in return — fingers tracing every marking, stroking the dense fuzz on my chest, gripping my horns until my vision whites.

When the knot finally releases I flip her onto her stomach, pull her hips up, and sink back into her from behind. This round is harder, more possessive. I rail her deep, tail wrapped around her waist, one hand fisting her hair, the other gripping her hip hard enough to bruise. She pushes back to meet every thrust,moaning my name.

I reach around and rub her clit in tight circles. She comes again with a broken cry. The sensation pulls me over the edge. I roar and sink my fangs into her shoulder in the claiming bite as I empty myself deep inside her — thick, heavy pulses flooding her while the knot swells and locks us again.

“Mine.” Again. Spoken into her skin.

Trell saidminetonight. Thirty years of it —his,asset,best work— possession as a ledger entry, a serial number with my pulse attached. This is the word turned inside out. Spoken into her skin, it is not a claim of ownership. It is a surrender of it.

I turn her over — carefully, still locked, swallowing her gasp at the shift — because I need her face for this, and I am past examining why.

“Yours —” Barely a word. Her hands find my face. Small palms on my jaw. “And you’re mine right back, lovey.”

Something in my face rearranges. Muscles moving in a configuration they have not attempted in thirty years.

“There you are,” she whispers. “There you are.”

She holds my face. Thumbs on my cheekbones. Watching me come apart with an expression I have never seen directed at me — not fear, not assessment, not the clinical regard of a commanding officer evaluating an asset.

Tenderness. The look she gives lost things before she writes them down. Except this lost thing is not going in a notebook. This lost thing is inside her and knotted and purring and shaking and has nowhere to be except here.

“You smiled again,” she whispers.

“...I know.”

We stay locked together for a long time. I curl my body around hers, purring softly, hand over her heart.

She reaches back and strokes my jaw. “You smiled again.”

“Twice,” I murmur against her hair.

“I’m going to make it a hundred. I’m keeping count.”

We talk in the dark, locked together, her spine against my chest. I tell her about the Proving Dens — the night they made it clear the purr meant soft and soft meant target. The way I killed the sound at seven and catalogued it as a successful elimination for most of my life, until a courier offered tea to the male who was robbing her and something buried answered.