The Mating Game by Lana Ferguson - 27

I thought I knew what to expect when it came to all this heat business, but I’m quickly realizing that every incident before this one was…mild. They must have been, because it suddenly feels like my body has caught fire. I gasp for breath as the inferno rages through me, my pajamas feeling like they’re too tight, too scratchy, like I need to get them off .

“Need these off,” I hiss, tearing at my top.

“Shh,” Hunter soothes, taking over my futile efforts and easing the cotton over and off me. “You’re okay. I’m here.”

“It burns,” I groan, clasping my arms around my middle. “It hurts , Hunter.”

“I know, sweetheart,” he says gently. “I’m here.”

He seems too calm for this, considering I feel like I’m bursting at the seams, but when I catch sight of his eyes as he urges me to sit up so he can start helping me out of my pajama bottoms, there’s a wildness there that betrays his placid demeanor. Almost like he’s holding back for my sake.

When I’m blessedly naked, I become wholly irritated that Hunter isn’t in a similar state, so I shove at his shirt to try and force it off of him, but he takes over that task too. My eyes feel heavy-lidded as he pulls away from me to continue stripping down to nothing, and it isn’t until he’s fully bared to me that I get some relief from the frenetic energy that’s pulsing inside me, my body seeming to take this as a sign of impending relief.

“Hunter,” I whimper, barely recognizing my own voice as a cramp tears through me. “I need you.”

“I know you do,” he hums, gathering me in his arms and pulling me against him before turning to spread me out over the mound of blankets and pillows lining the bottom of the tent. “I know exactly what you need.”

His kiss is gentle when he curls his big body over me to press his lips to mine, but in my current state, it feels like that isn’t enough. I nip at his lower lip like some sort of animal—and under different circumstances I might find that funny—but right now, all I can think about is the ache between my legs and deep down in my belly, begging for some sort of satisfaction. Satisfaction that I’m starting to understand only he can give me.

I gasp when I feel his cock slot between my legs, so thick and hard already that it steals my breath, I want it so much. “Please,” I beg, hardly even recognizing my own voice. “ Please , Hunter.”

“Fuck, Tess,” he rasps. “The way you smell right now…” He lifts his head, that same wildness in his eyes, the pupils so enlarged they nearly swallow his irises. “You need my knot, don’t you, omega?”

“Please,” I plead again, my nails digging into his sides as I try to pull him back down to me. “Need you.”

“I told you,” he says, his voice gravelly and low and seeming to reach right between my legs like a caress. His large hands circle my waist, gripping me tight as his thumbs span across my belly, stroking there. “I know exactly what you need.”

My head tilts back and my mouth gapes open when he starts to push inside me, stretching me with a wonderful burn of a different kind—one that is almost enough to distract me from the fire licking at my skin. Almost.

Hunter takes his time inching inside me, his pace too slow for my liking, but if I close my eyes, I can focus on the hot length of him filling me, and he bites at my lower lip roughly as I cling to his hips. He never takes his hands off my waist, keeping a tight hold on me and almost pinning me down as he goes just a little deeper.

“So wet,” he says on a sigh, and when I open my eyes, I catch him staring down between us as he bottoms out. “So fucking hot inside.”

“Feels so good,” I whine. “More. I need more.”

“You need more?” His thumb skims along my belly as he stirs his hips. “You need me to fuck this pretty pussy?”

“Please,” I mewl, my vision blurring and my embarrassment at begging flying out the window. “Please move.”

Hunter’s teeth press into his lower lip as he looks down at me from beneath hooded lids, holding my gaze as he slowly pulls out of me. I feel every inch of him, can feel the slight bulge of his knot as it eases out of me, the press of it against my inner walls sending a flurry of sparks through my system that threaten to steal my breath.

“Look at you,” he breathes, his voice shaky. His breath catches when his knot slips inside me again, a flush creeping down his neck. “You look so pretty when you’re full of me. Fuck, Tess. You look like a goddamn daydream.”

I gasp when he thrusts hard —the sudden fullness so intense that I feel fit to burst. It’s too much and yet not nearly enough, and I reach above myself to grip the pillows scattered about our tent. He rocks his hips in a smooth motion when he withdraws this time, never slowing as he pulls out to the tip only to glide back inside.

The sounds in our tiny space—wet, slick sounds that only betray how needy I am—add to the frenzy building inside me. I need his next thrust more than air; I don’t think I knew what need really was until this moment.

I feel like I’m burning when he pulls one hand away from my waist to lick the pad of his thumb, then brings it between us and rolls it against my clit. The simple touch sets me off like a firework, and I claw at the bedding above my head, trying to get closer or to escape—I’m not even sure which.

“That’s it,” he hums. “That’s a good girl.” He paints a circle against the swollen bud, each touch making me clench around the hard length of him as he rocks in and out of me. “You’re going to take everything I give you, aren’t you? You’re going to take it because you need me, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I hiss, my eyes rolling back. “Need it. Need you.”

Through the haze, I don’t miss the slight edge to his voice, and something primal inside me preens at the knowledge that this is satisfying to him, that maybe he needs me too. His hand is still on my belly, so I cover it with mine, urging it upward, and he lets his palm slide over my sternum and between my breasts. I hold it there over my heart, clutching his fingers in mine as I push down on his still-thrusting cock.

“I do,” I say again. “I need you, Hunter.”

His pupils flare, his jaw clenching for only a moment before his arms wind around me, urging me off my back. He gathers me up in his embrace like it’s nothing, like it’s easy , and holds me to him as his mouth covers mine. My thighs bracket his hips as I straddle his lap, the angle forcing him deeper, forcing his knot to press into a place inside me that has me seeing stars.

“ Hunter ,” I cry against his tongue.

“I’ve got you,” he growls. “You’re mine .”

In my current state, those words do funny things to my brain, making me shiver all over as I wrap my arms around his neck to cling to him more tightly. My tongue tangles with his as he bounces me on his lap, my slickness leaking out to wet his thighs in a way that might embarrass me any other time. But right now? Right now it only makes me burn hotter, knowing that I’m marking him this way. It makes me feel like—for right now, at least—he’s mine too.

His kisses move to my jaw, then across my cheek, farther still to my throat, and I can feel the sharp press of his teeth against my ear before he rasps, “I own this pretty pussy, and I’m going to knot you until neither of us can walk.”

And that sounds like heaven, like bliss , and the raging inferno inside me climbs to new heights, threatening to carry me away. I cling to him like he’s holding me down, and in a lot of ways, he is. His arms keep me rooted on his lap, his cock fills me in a way that makes me feel desperate, and his scent dizzies me but in the best way. I bury my face in his neck to draw in more of it, a choked cry escaping when he fills me just right.

I feel his fingers in my hair, winding through the strands and gripping them tight enough to urge my head back, forcing me to look at him. He holds me there as he thrusts up into me roughly, baring my throat to his gaze as he studies it intently. I don’t know what he sees—can’t fathom what he’s looking at—but in the next second his lips follow the path of his eyes, and he puts his mouth on the tender skin there, his tongue licking at a place near the bend of my shoulder, making me seize up.

“ Oh .”

“Do you know what this is?” He licks there again, nibbling with his teeth gently. “This is your mating gland,” he explains. “If someone bites you here, if you bite them back…it binds you. Did you know that?”

And he makes no further moves, and deep down beneath the haze I know that this isn’t something for us—it’s too soon, nonsensical even—but amid my fevered thoughts, the explanation still makes me shiver.

His nose is buried in my throat. “You smell so fucking good. You feel so fucking good. It’s too much.” He nuzzles that gland, and I tense up in the most delicious of ways, his cock swelling, feeling a bit thicker than before. “I need you to come, because when you do, I’m going to fill you up. I want you so full of me that you feel me for days .”

I realize all at once how much I want that too, and when his fingers dive between us, skimming just below my belly button, I find myself nodding eagerly even as their tips collide with my clit.

“Right there,” I breathe. “Don’t stop.”

“Not stopping,” he hums. “Never stopping.”

He rolls the sensitive bundle between his fingers expertly, applying exactly the right amount of pressure, enough that the fire licking at my skin seems to take on a singular purpose, pooling low in my belly and even deeper as the pleasure climbs higher and higher. My nails bite against his shoulders—they’re surely going to leave a mark, and I like that too. I want to mark every inch of him. I want to sink my teeth into his skin until he bruises. I want so many things that have never occurred to me in the slightest, and I can’t say how much of it is my heat or just…him.

“Oh,” I gasp suddenly as he touches me perfectly. “Right there. Right there. Oh my God .”

I cry out loudly when I start to shake with my orgasm, and the rush of slickness between us has the sound of his skin slapping against mine sounding downright filthy. I throw my head back, oblivious to anything and everything except the feeling of his cock sliding along my sensitive inner walls. Distantly, I can hear Hunter let go also, and I close my eyes when his knot starts to swell, feeling it press against my insides tighter and tighter until he can barely move, until he’s forced to slow. Even then, he continues to rock his hips in tiny thrusts—like he simply can’t bear to stop.

I don’t know how long we stay like that—clinging to each other and trapped in our current position—but when the pounding of my heart finally slows, when I can finally let my eyes flutter open, I find Hunter watching me through hooded eyes, his expression awestruck.

“Are you…okay?”

I blink slowly, trying to make sense of the question, and when I do, a laugh burbles out of me. “Am I okay ? I’m fucking fabulous. I mean, I feel like Jell-O, but I’m great .”

“I didn’t…hurt you, did I?”

“Not at all,” I assure him, tucking my head against his shoulder. “That was perfect.”

His fingers comb through my hair, and I hear him slowly inhale at my temple, hear the soft sigh that follows.

“ You were perfect,” he says quietly.

My mouth curves into a smile. “I was?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“So were you,” I assure him.

He moves to situate himself, the action making his knot jostle inside me, forcing a soft whimper out of me.

“ Oh .”

“It’ll pass,” he assures me. “In a little while.”

And instead of feeling put out by the fact that I’ll be here for the foreseeable future, I feel oddly morose that it won’t be longer. I know it’s probably simply the hormones, but something deep in my brain mourns the fact that we can’t stay like this forever, as silly as the thought is.

“But this will happen again?” I ask, trying to sound curious and not desperate.

He nods against my hair. “It will. For a couple of days, most likely. I can’t be sure since your cycles are so irregular.”

I don’t want to think about what that might mean for when my brothers return or when we’re forced to go back to the real world, so I choose to live only in this moment. It’s a really nice moment, after all.

I can’t help but shudder with pleasure as I remember the intensity in Hunter’s eyes when he fucked me, when he uttered dark promises of owning me, and I let them replay over and over in my head as his hand starts to rub soothing circles against my back. I hold him close and wonder what it means—how much I liked hearing it, how much I want to hear him say it again .

The things I’m feeling right now could be just hormones, just some product of biology—but I feel them just the same. And what does that mean for us? Can I really let him take care of me like this, knowing what I do about him? What will happen when this is over? When we’re forced to return to reality? Will I still feel this way? Will he ? The uncertainty of it all has my stomach twisting into knots. Because given that this is temporary, given that we’re only supposed to be “friends who help each other”…I have no way of knowing what all this means.

If Hunter’s contemplative silence as he touches me is any indication…I have a feeling he doesn’t either.