forward, plunging into her heat.
Gabriela gasped. Even only partway in, his cock stretched her. She raised her knees and spread her legs wider. Broxen growled, baring his teeth as he drew back. The ridges on his shaft dragged along her channel and clit, coaxing moans from her. When he drove back in, he pushed deeper than the first time, and deeper still with each subsequent thrust.
And all Gabby could do was cling to him, eager for what was to come, eager for him to fulfill his word and make her wholly his.
Broxen shuddered. The feel of his mate’s tight, hot, slick sex as it cinched around his cock was impossible to put into words. It was everything for which he’d yearned and so, so much more; it was torturous and rapturous and a thousand other human terms he couldn’t recall in the face of such overwhelming pleasure.
The pressure that had been building within him over the last year—more so by far in the last several days than ever before—was too immense to withstand. It threatened to tear him apart, it threatened to crush him. But he didn’t want it to end, not yet.
He needed more. Forever more.
He slipped a hand between their bodies to grasp Gabriela’s soft breast, caressing it and pinching her nipple, and watched her eyelashes flutter and her features contort in pleasure. He smoothed that palm up to cup her cheek, forcing her eyes to meet his.
“My beautiful mate,” he said, thrusting deeper into her sex. “So beautiful.”
Lips parted and softly panting, she smiled and framed his face with her hands. Her eyes were bright with desire and affection. “I love you, Broxen.”
He knew the meaning of that word, love, but until a few days ago he’d never really understood it. He’d never understood the depth of what he truly wanted with Gabriela, couldn’t have even imagined it. Love seemed too simple a word for what he felt for her, but it was the right word.
His chest swelled, flooding with heat separate from that of his lust, and his jaw clenched. It was fullness, happiness, it was…just everything.
Something else flared within him in that moment, something he’d felt with her before—a primal, deep-rooted instinct, a bestial drive that was closer to raw emotion than it ever would be to rational thought. His gums ached, and his fangs lengthened; he needed to mark her.
Gabriela is mine.
He swept his tail to the side, wound it around her calf, and hitched her leg high over his hip. Hooking his thumb beneath her chin, he turned her face aside to expose her neck. His eyes fell to that spot wherever her neck and shoulder met, the spot he’d nuzzled before.
Broxen dropped his head, sinking his fangs into Gabriela’s soft, tender flesh even as he buried his shaft inside her to its base.
She gasped and stiffened beneath him. Broxen squeezed his eyes shut and shifted his free hand to her ass to hold her in place as he pumped his hips hard and fast. The sweetness of her skin, the saltiness of her sweat, and the metallic tang of her blood were overwhelming, making his head spin.
“Broxen,” Gabriela rasped. Her hands dropped to his arms, and her fingers bent, scraping his skin. The little trails of pain left by her nails were thrilling.
Pleasure blossomed low in his belly, racing up along his spine and sparking outward. It was in direct opposition to that impossibly building pressure at his core, which felt like a star was collapsing inside him.
Beneath him, his female tensed. Her sex quivered and constricted around his shaft, heightening both his pleasure and his torture, and a fresh wave of heat flooded her as her moans escalated into cries.
Broxen snarled against her skin and rutted harder still, his own breath ragged. His rhythm faltered abruptly. For an instant, the pressure was so immense, so unbearable, that his mind went blank and his heart stuttered.
He pulled his mouth away from her and reared back, climaxing with a growl that would’ve been a wall-shaking roar had he not locked his jaw to suppress it. Ecstasy blinded him, but his hands found her hips regardless, slamming her against is pelvis and locking her there as his seed burst from him. Stream after stream filled her.
Awareness was slow to return. Broxen floated on a wave of bliss unlike anything he’d ever felt. He pumped his hips shallowly, groaning at the slick heat that was his mate’s sex.
My mate.
Shoulders heaving with heavy breaths, Broxen opened