Page 126 of Fragile Heart

I strip her out of her clothes in record time—and that’s saying something. She forces my shirt higher as I drag my tongue across her clit. Her nails bite into my skin, but I relish the burn of it, the stinging ache it leaves behind.

“So do I?” I ask before pulling her clit between my teeth. Her hips arch into my mouth, her back bowing with her need.

Brielle moans. “Wh-what?”

“Do I eat you better than he did?”

Probably shouldn’t bring up that asshole right now, but the possessive need in me has to know. It’s what I’ve wanted to know since I first brought her to this meadow in June. And that protective, territorial part of me has to take every fucked up thing he did and make new memories right over the top. Just like I’m going to with that phoenix tattoo that covers the flowers.

She shudders, squirming under me as I blow on her clit. She mewls, her nails biting harder into my back. When I run my tongue along her skin, avoiding every single part I know will have her hurtling toward her release, she whines and whispers, “Y-yes. Holy God, yes, you do.” She tilts her hips. “Please, Caleb.”

“Good.”

I scrape my teeth over her clit, and she shatters, her legs tightening around my shoulders as she throws her head back on a desperate cry. Before she’s fully come down, I have my jeans low enough to free my dick and I’m easing into her. She grips me like a too-tight fist, and I groan into her shoulder.

“Fuck,” I mutter.

I keep a slow pace, trying to draw this out, trying to make it the best moment she’s ever fucking had. And yet, the release barrels toward me, the heat building at the base of my spine.

“I’m not going to last.”

It’s a whispered confession into her skin.

Her laugh is desperate as she twists her hand into my hair, keeping my lips pressed against her throat. I let my teeth scrapealong her collarbone, and she arches, her cunt clenching around me. I groan, the sound low and mournful.

“Mark me,” she whispers. “I want to know what it feels like.”

I drop any pretense of keeping things slow and sensual, claiming her body until she’s shaking under me, her cries echoing through the trees and her lavender perfume surrounding us. My orgasm races through me, stealing my vision and making me fingers fucking tingle. I bite her, right over top of that damn phoenix feather, as my knot swells.

Her scream is shrill. I wrap my hand in her hair, keeping her immobile, even as she pants and squirms against me. Her desire, her overstimulation, her love flood my chest, and I groan.

“Caleb,” she whispers. Her nails bite into my neck as he tightens again, a third orgasm ripping through her. “Oh God, oh God.Caleb.”

I kiss my bite and then trace the phoenix with my tongue, enjoying the fuck out of feeling her come down from the ecstasy of knotting and bonding.

“I love you,” I whisper, letting my lips brush the shell of her ear. She shivers and whines under me. “So fucking much, Omega. So fucking much.”

Her love rushes through the brand new connection, more intimate than any words she could ever whisper. She covers my hand with hers and kisses my temple.

“I love you, too,” she says.

Chapter Fifty-Five

BRIELLE

Phoebe presses her ears back as Ethan rides up beside me, so close he actually manages to palm my thigh. She shakes her head when he and Cottonwood don’t move, and he chuckles. I pat her shoulder before scratching her skin. She blows out a sigh and stomps.

“Ease up,” he tells the horse. “At least I’m not riding Minthe. And it’s not like I’m trying to shoe you right now.”

I can’t help but smile. I’d gotten to witness Phoebe’s detesting getting her shoes redone Thursday. Watching Ethan work in the Monroe’s private barn was an exercise in delayed gratification. He’d done it all with only a thin white shirt that clung to his chest and faded jeans, his hair tucked under a ball cap. Luckily, I’d had the sense to wear scent blockers, so he didn’t realize the extent of my obsessing over him until much later.

Even the memory of it now, three days removed, has me scenting.

Ethan breathes in, his nostrils flaring, before glancing around the open meadow we’ve just crossed into. We’ve spent the morning since family brunch riding through the Monroe Ranch, the lands that aren’t currently being used as pasture. This meadow is larger than the others we’ve visited. And it also holds more memories for me.

“I love this meadow,” I admit, tightening my hold on Phoebe’s reigns and adjusting in my saddle, my right leg going a bit numb.

“Daddy does, too,” Camden says from his perch in front of Caleb. “He has it on his shoulder, next to my blue bird one.”

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