Page 45 of Knot in the Wedding Cards

“Look at me,” I growl, turning her to face the mirror. The memory is so raw and fresh, as if it truly didn’t occur more than 5 years ago, a few months before what should have been the best day of our lives…only to turn to our worst.

That could be why it makes it so easy to fall into the rhythm of the past, getting lost in this desperate need for relief.

I free my cock and notch it against her dripping entrance. One thrust and I bury myself to the hilt.

So fucking tight. So wet.

Her walls grip me like they never forgot. I fuck her hard, deep strokes that make her cry out with every slap of skin. In the reflection, her face is pure bliss—lips parted, eyes glassy. I reach around, rub her swollen clit, and she comes with a sharp wail, pulsing around me.

“Amber,” I rasp aloud in the truck, voice wrecked. My fist flies faster, grip tightening. The memory shifts, her legs wrapped around my waist as I lift her, pounding up into her while she clings to my shoulders.

Her scent coats everything—sweet, needy, perfect. I can almost taste the slick on my tongue.

Pressure coils tight at the base of my spine. My balls draw up.

I stroke harder, thumb pressing just under the head on every upstroke, the way she used to do with her soft fingers. The first rope of cum shoots hard across the dashboard, thick and white.

Another follows, then another, painting the dark vinyl in messy streaks while I groan through gritted teeth, hips jerking into my fist.

Even after I finish, I’m still hard.

The knot at the base of my cock swells fast and angry, throbbing painfully. It was supposed to be for her.

We waited—me, August, Cade—all of us holding back until the wedding night. One by one we’d knot her, lock deep inside our Omega, pump her full and seal the pack bond with teeth at her throat. Mark her as ours forever.

Instead, we left her standing in a ballroom with nothing but a note and a broken future.

I curse under my breath and wrap both hands around the swollen knot, massaging firmly the way she always did—gentle pressure at first, then tighter circles that eased the ache.

My thumbs dig in, rolling over the sensitive bulge. It hurts. It always hurts when it’s not inside her. Cum still drips from the tip, sliding down over my fingers as I work the knot, breath coming in harsh pants.

How I yearn for her soft hands. Her tender touch. The way she’d kiss my neck and whisper “I’ve got you, Beck” while she milked every drop with that greedy pussy of hers before she’d use those skillful hands to massage my knot for whatever length of time I needed to feel satisfied and whole.

I keep stroking the knot, eyes shut tight, wishing it was her. Wishing I could take it all back. The truck smells like sex, regret, and the faint lingering trace of apricot-rose from memory alone.

My knot finally starts to go down, but the emptiness in my chest only grows.

She’s stronger without me.

And I’m still here, hard and aching and alone in my truck, jerking off like the coward I am.

The memory fades as I force myself to be back in reality, needing to focus on the present or else I’d be sporting a hard-on in a heartbeat, and no one has time to be explaining myself when the woman I’m fantasizing about is surely counting the minutes where she doesn’t have to be in the same environment as me.

The wind's been freshening off the water all morning, and we're back in the conservatory for final measurements, her team spread down the length of it, her at the north end under the braced ridge with her pen going tap, tap, tap, when I hear it.

Not loud.

A creak with the wrong grain in it, high and to the left, the sound of load going where load was never invited, and my bodyis moving before the thought finishes; three strides, fast, and every instinct I own is screaming to grab her, arm around her waist, and haul her out of the fall line the way you'd snatch anyone from under weight.

It takes everything to not do that.

Every fucking level of restraint…

I stop, two feet short, hands open, everything in me pulling against the leash I put on myself in a ballroom an hour ago, and I say, hard and level:

"Amber. Step back. Now. Toward me, two steps."

She moves. No questions, no freeze. Just two clean steps on those sensible shoes, and the corner panel lets go where she'd been standing, a slab of old plaster; a sleeve of dust coming down off the braced section and cracking apart on the stone floor exactly across the spot her notes were being written.