Echoes of Fire (The Mercury Pack #4)(108)

“I’m gonna have this ass now.”

“Bracken—”

“Stay right there, don’t move.” He used first one finger, then two to ready her ass for him, stretching the muscles, making her moan. Once he sensed she could take it, he drove a third finger inside. Scissored, thrust, and swirled those fingers until she was demanding more. Only then did he withdraw them and replace them with the head of his cock.

“Be still for me.” Ever so slowly, he sank inside, groaning at how hot and tight she was. Loving the sight of his cock disappearing into her ass. Loving that it was made to take him. Finally balls-deep, he flexed his hips, smiling at her little gasp.

“Get it over with.”

He smiled. “You pretending you don’t like it? No sense in lying, baby.” Draping himself over her, he bit her earlobe. “I can feel through the bond exactly how much you like it.” He slowly pulled back his hips until only the head of his cock was inside her ass. Then he thrust deep, and a spike of pleasure rushed down their bond. His mouth curved. “Yeah, you like it.”

He pumped his hips at an easy pace, thrusting deep, careful not to hurt her. Soon she was demanding that he move harder, faster, pushing back to meet each thrust. He gave her what she wanted. Took what he needed.

When they were both close to the edge, he roughly plunged two fingers into her pussy and bit hard into her shoulder. Her orgasm hit him through their bond, heightening his own, making his cock thicken and throb before shooting jet after jet of come inside her.

Panting, he pressed a kiss between her shoulder blades. “You okay?”

“Hmm.”

Drained of energy, he collapsed beside her on the bed and pulled her close. “Shower. In a minute.”

“Hmm.”

They just lay there for a while, wordlessly recuperating.

Finally, she broke the silence. “The bond snapped into place out of literally nowhere. Or did something happen?”

“The last time I held a baby, he died in my arms.”

Madisyn winced, cursing herself for being so freaking stupid. “Oh, shit. I didn’t think of that. I’m so sorry.”

He cupped her jaw. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

“No, I sensed your panic, but I thought you were just nervous about holding a baby—guys often are.”

“For a few seconds, yeah, I panicked. I was thrust back to that day at the movie theater, remembered how it had felt when Hayden . . .” He swallowed. “My first instinct was to shove the baby at Ingrid. Literally. And then I thought . . . if I can’t hold a baby, what does that mean for us? But it only means what I let it mean, doesn’t it? What happened that day was tragic, but I couldn’t allow it to intrude on the best day of my life. Couldn’t allow it to make me fear something as amazing as you having my baby, our baby. Couldn’t allow it to make me feel like I didn’t deserve to have you, or this, or anything else.”

And then Madisyn understood something. “You’d been embracing the misery just a little bit, hadn’t you?”

“Not consciously, but yes.” He smoothed a hand down her back, muttering, “Self-inflicted punishment.”

“Huh?”

“Before I realized you were my mate, I was planning to go roaming for a while. Jesse told me it would be a self-inflicted punishment. But I didn’t believe I was trying to punish myself. Maybe I was. Maybe I even subconsciously did it by denying myself every piece of the bond.”

“You made the conscious decision to stop that today.”

“I did. And I’m sorry—”

She put a finger to his mouth. “Don’t. It doesn’t matter.” But she saw he was about to apologize anyway, so she said, “If you want to apologize for anything, you can apologize for killing my Fiat.”

“What? I didn’t do anything. It was old, and it had seen the last of its days.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Nu-uh. It was going fine, and then suddenly it mysteriously refused to work.” She was pretty sure he’d done something to either the battery or the engine—maybe even both—so he had a reason to buy her the new Audi that showed up in their parking lot the next day.

“Sometimes cars just go out like that.”

She rolled her eyes. “Sure.” As he stared at her, slowly tracing every detail of her face with his eyes alone, she asked, “What?”

“I like to look at you.”

“I kinda like looking at you too.” She kissed his jaw. “Ingrid’s right. You’re quite a dish.”

His mouth curled. “Yeah, you told me that a week ago.” The memory tickled him.

Her brow creased. “No, I didn’t.” And she didn’t like the little twinkle that had just entered his eye.

“Yes, you did. You said those exact words.”

“No, I really didn’t.” She was pretty sure she’d remember.

“You did.”

“When?” she challenged.

“When you were asleep. You also said I had the best ass in the history of ever.” He tucked her hair behind her ear. “Then you told me in the next breath, ‘No, I will not buy you any more fucking gravy boats—this bullshit is over.’”

She scrunched her eyes tightly shut, face reddening. “I still maintain that you make this crap up.”