Page 63 of Knot Your Karma
“Jesus Christ, Karma, your scent just?—”
“I know!” I whimper, because I can smell myself—vanilla and sea salt intensified to the point where it’s drowning out everything else, so rich and urgent it makes the air thick enough to taste. “I can’t think, everything hurts in the best worst way, and I’m pretty sure I’m about to say things that would make my grandmother roll over in her grave, but I require—please, I require?—”
“Hey, look at me.” His voice cuts through my spiral with authority that makes me focus despite the chaos in my head. “We’ve got this handled, okay? Step one: get you comfortable. Step two: take care of every single thing you crave. Step three: repeat until you’re completely satisfied and probably can’t remember your own name.”
Reed settles next to my disaster of a nest, and his ocean-breeze scent mixes with Declan’s in ways that make me take these deep, automatic breaths like my lungs just remembered how to work properly.
“So here’s the situation,” he says with that diplomatic calm that makes everything feel manageable. “You’ve got fullheat hitting like a freight train, three men ready to provide whatever care you require, and the most structurally sound nest I’ve seen outside of interior design magazines. Also, you look absolutely gorgeous falling apart like this, in case that wasn’t clear.”
Adrian’s sandalwood arrives last, earth and warmth that settles low in my belly. Together they create a blend that doesn’t exist in nature—a scent combination that makes every cell in my body purr with recognition.
Their combined scents create feedback loops—their presence making me respond stronger, which makes them respond stronger, until the air tastes like home and claiming and everything I’ve been craving without knowing it.
But it’s not enough. Nothing’s enough. I ache for skin, for touch, for being filled and claimed and marked until there’s no doubt who I belong to.
“Okay, so this is probably going to sound completely frantic and possibly anatomically ambitious, but I want all of you, like right now, in whatever configuration makes the most sense, and I know that’s probably greedy omega behavior but apparently heat makes me lose all sense of reasonable expectations?—”
My voice breaks as another wave crashes through me, making my skin hypersensitive and my thoughts scatter like leaves in wind.
“Easy, sweetheart.” Declan moves toward me with protective intensity that makes every instinct I have sing with recognition and relief. His palms frame my face, thumbs warm against my cheekbones, fingers gentle but sure. “Been wanting to take care of you like this since day one. Gonna make everything better now.”
When he touches my overheated skin, the contact sends electricity straight through me, so intense my back arches involuntarily. Every nerve ending has gone hypersensitive, and his touch feels like lightning and salvation all at once.
“Want you naked,” I gasp, already clawing at the buttons of his shirt with trembling fingers that shake so badly I can barely work the fastenings. “Want to feel you, all of you, want skin contact before I actually combust from hunger, which I realize probably isn’t medically possible but heat doesn’t seem particularly concerned with anatomy textbooks?—”
“Easy,” Declan murmurs, but his own hands are just as urgent, pulling my sweater over my head in one smooth motion. The fabric catches on my wild hair, and he works it free with gentle efficiency that makes my chest tight with more than just heat. “Let me help.”
My bra follows immediately, and when the cool air hits my overheated skin, I arch toward him with a broken sound of relief. His shirt joins the growing pile on my grandmother’s hardwood floors—expensive fabric discarded without thought because nothing matters except getting closer.
When he works my jeans down my hips, his knuckles brush against my hipbones, and the simple contact makes me gasp like he’s touched me somewhere far more intimate. Everything feels electric, hypersensitive, like my nerve endings have been rewired for maximum sensation.
“So beautiful,” he says, voice rough with reverence as he takes in my naked body. His jeans and boxers disappear in quick, efficient movements, and then we’re skin to skin for the first time, and the sensation nearly levels me.
When his mouth crashes against mine, the kiss is claiming and fierce and exactly what my heat-addled brain is demanding. I bite his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood and he groans, the sound vibrating through my chest and making slick gather with embarrassing intensity.
“That’s my girl,” he growls against my throat, mapping my overheated skin with reverent possession. That protective scent sharpens around me until I’m dizzy with it. “Look at you, so gorgeous, so hungry for us. Can smell how ready you are from here.”
“So wet,” I whimper, because it’s true—slick is coating my thighs, my body preparing for claiming with urgency that borders on painful. “Please, Declan, I want you inside me right now, want to be filled before I actually die from emptiness?—”
My words dissolve into broken sounds as he lifts me easily, settling us both in the center of my hastily constructed nest. The moment I’m surrounded by soft textures and his naked body, contentment roars through my biology. The scents of rain-soaked wood and urgent omega create a cocoon around us that smells like exactly where I belong.
“Tell me exactly what you want,” he commands, voice rough with barely leashed control, his blue eyes dark with hunger that matches my own. “Every detail. Want to do this exactly right for you.”
“Your cock,” I gasp, beyond shame or pretense, heat making honesty the only option. “Want you to fill me up, want your knot, want you to mark me and claim me and make sure everyone knows I’m yours and that I’m finally, finally safe with someone who won’t?—”
My voice breaks on the words, but he understands.
“Christ,” he groans, positioning himself at my entrance, and even that small contact makes me cry out with relief. “So fucking wet for me. You ready, omega? Ready for your alpha to take care of you the way you deserve?”
“Yes, yes, please—been ready since you walked into my shop with your ridiculous competence and your protective scent and your way of making me feel like I might actually be worth protecting instead of just tolerating?—”
When he thrusts into me in one smooth stroke, I scream loud enough that Mrs. Patterson is definitely filing a noise complaint tomorrow, but I can’t bring myself to care because he stretches me perfectly and my body is basically singing the hallelujah chorus.
My body accommodates him like we were made for this,slick making the glide easy despite his size, and he feels huge inside me, exactly what my frantic biology was craving. The stretch burns in the best way, filling the emptiness that was driving me insane.
When Declan fills me, it’s like every fear I’ve carried dissolves. His claiming doesn’t just satisfy my heat—it quiets the part of me that’s been afraid since Blake. Like finally having someone strong enough to carry what I can’t.
“That’s it,” he growls, setting a rhythm that makes the bed frame creak against the wall. “Every thrust, every stretch—you’re handling it beautifully. Show me you can take everything I’m giving you.”
