Page 36 of Protector

“Just breathe,” he murmurs, stroking up under her nightgown along her trembling thigh until her muscles reluctantly relax once more. “That’s it. I’ve got you.” He runs his hand down her leg to her ankle before he hikes her knee over his hip, allowing her time to adjust before he shifts his weight to his right elbow.

She doesn’t resist when he repeats the process with her other leg—only stares up at him as he lets his weight settle in the cradle of her pelvis.

“Fuck.”

The heat of her is nearly enough to break through his repulsion at forcing her—even through his fatigues and her cotton underwear, she feels like the fucking sun against his straining cock. Memories of her pussy clutching on him, of the tight, slick slide into her innermost, burns in his mind, and he groans and rolls his hips on instinct alone.

Pleasure zings through his nerve endings, throbs through his pelvis, and burrows deep into his muscles.Stars above,he’ll never get enough of her. Even this—it’s more sensation than he can contain.

Moaning, he rubs his cock against her again, and again, and again, electricity buzzing through him with every gasped“oh!”she releases into his ear as he grinds on her clit. When her legs tighten on his waist and she wraps herself around him, arms constricting around the back of his neck in her efforts to get closer still, he loses himself fully to the instincts.

“That’s it. That’s it.” He moans the words in her ear, rubbing his nose against the side of her neck and burrows into her hair, inhaling her in greedy lungfuls. His mate. His anchor. The center of all he’ll ever be. There is only bliss in her embrace.

Her mewls turn syrupy, pleasure thick in her cries, and he knows she’s almost there. Can feel it in the tidal wave mounting in their bond and in the way she rocks her pelvis back against his, all her fear and trauma momentarily lost to primal urgency.

“Good girl. That’s it. Good girl,” he gasps into the shared air between them, as eager for her release as he is his own. Ecstasy burns up his hamstrings and throbs through his cock every time he rolls his hips, and he’s close—so fucking close!

She takes hers, first. Her hands fists in his shirt, her thighs clamp around his hips, and then she arches up against him—andbreaks.

“Oh, fuck,Jacob!”

Even if he hadn’t been hanging on by a thread, the fine tremor playing across her features as she comes for him would have gotten him there.

He lets out a roar pulled from the depths of his being, and slams his pelvis to hers hard once, twice, three times.

The release is fire so intense it’s nearly painful, but all he can sense is mind-numbing relief. His cock throbs with each surge, and there’s an ache at the base where his knot threatens to swell despite the lack of penetration. She is fuckingeverything.

He is only halfway aware of pressing his mouth to her jawline, her ear, her forehead while he rocks slowly against her, trembling with the aftershocks and high on the pleasure of this one, perfect moment.

She still has her arms around him, but her grip on his shoulders and hips softens until she’s simply holding him. As if they’re nothing more than sated lovers.

She buries her nose in his neck and breathes in his scent before looking up at him with pleasure-dazed grogginess. A single tear trails down her temple, but there’s no anguish in their bond. Only relief.

When she falls asleep underneath him a few minutes later, he simply stares at her in wonder. For those brief moments before sleep takes him too, for the first time in his cursed existence, AX2 can’t bring himself to hate her.

It feels so good that the question of who the fuck Jacob is floats to the back of his mind and flickers into foggy bliss.

SEVENTEEN

ADDIE

I awake, warm, and entirely relaxed.

It’s such a disorienting sensation, I just lay there for a while, blinking into the pillow.

A low rumble sounds from all around me, vibrating into my bones, and the warmth seems to center behind my ribs ashisawareness floods through me.

There is a curious lack of panic when realization strikes. Somewhere past my cocoon of luxurious relaxation, I know I should be kicking and fighting to get away from the man resting heavily on my back, not submitting to the instincts murmuring about how he’ll take care of me. I just can’t seem to muster up the willpower. I don’t remember the last time I felt safe like this.

He rubs his nose along the side of my neck, drawing a hum from me I didn’t intend to make. Embarrassment tries to pierce through my calm, but the heat of his soft lips on my jaw quickly diverts my attention. I’m not prepared for the flicker of fire down low, but my small gasp and brush of unease makes him rumble that soothing sound into my ear that has my body jellifying.

“Shh. Good girl,” he murmurs, his voice hoarse with sleep. Slowly he slides a warm hand down along my side to where my nightgown is bunching around my hips. “I’ve got you.”

God, why does my abdomen clench when he calls me a good girl? A memory of him groaning those exact words last night sharpens in my brain, and this time there’s no holding back the flood of embarrassment—nor the rush of wetness dampening my underwear.Shit, what am I thi?—

My mounting panic is cut short when strong teeth clamp around the back of my neck, triggering the pressure points located there. Without my conscious decision, my entire body goes lax, and my thoughts float off to hazy nothingness on a rush of endorphins.

His large, warm hand strokes back up along my side, then down again, a caress that makes my skin hum with awareness even though he’s keeping his touch on top of my clothes. Again and again he strokes me, and it takes me several moments to even realize when he releases his grip on my neck.

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