Page 63 of Broken Arranged Mate
My cock is already hard as I take her by the hips, turn her around, and push her into the mattress.
“Oh,” she gasps, grabbing a pillow and hugging it to her chest, and I push at her sleep shorts, pulling them down to her knees. “Yes.”
I slide a hand up the length of her, and, finding her already wet, slide inside, a loose, long groan breaking free from my throat at the feeling of her around me. I can’t believe I left last time, gave up a week ofthis—having Ash again and again, then sleeping as my knot empties inside her, only to wake up and do it again.
She rocks her ass back into me, wanting me deeper, so I grab her legs and force them apart, angling my hips to push into her further, and the sound she lets out into the mattress is garbled at first, unrecognizable, until I realize it’s my name.
I reach around her, grab her hand, and plant it on her clit, touching her over the top of her own fingers, desire building in me as I follow along with her tight circles, tracing the paths of her desire.
“Harder,” she demands, and I comply, driving into her with so much force that the mattress shifts in the bed frame. When that’s not enough, she adds, “Faster, please—fuck, Oren, fuck me,please.”
Ash isn’t a delicate flower, as much as I want to treat her like one. And every time I touch her, she asks for more, more, more, until her skin is bruising from the pressure, until she’s coming apart, pain mixed with pleasure until it sends her over the edge.
Maybe it has something to do with her heat—painful and pleasurable, all at the same time.
The sounds of our bodies fill the room, her moans, grunts rising up from my throat. With my other hand, I hold her hip, pull her into me as I thrust forward, chase that feeling of wholeness, completeness, of getting myself fully inside my mate.
When I reach up, tangling my hand in her hair and drawing her head back sharply, I feel her tighten around me for the first time, a sign that she’s about to come.
“I’m going to—” she starts, and I let out a pleased moan, something almost like a laugh, at the way she closes in around me, her pussy pulsing around my cock.
It sends me over the edge, and I collapse forward, pressing my stomach and chest against her back as I release. There’s nothing like it, an ascension, something fucking transcendental. When I touch Ash, when I find myself inside her, it feels like I’ve found my real destiny, the one thing I was put on this planet to do.
I grab her, pulling her in, tucking her up against me. My knot is still stuck inside her, releasing the rest of me slowly, but I just don’t feel close enough.
I never do.
“Hey,” she says, just as I’m about to drift off with her in my arms.
“Yeah?” I ask, bleary and worn out.
“I love you.”
She says it so casually, like it’s something we’ve always done, and it makes a smile form on my face as naturally as the dunes form in the wind. Pushing her hair away from her neck, I lean forward and kiss the back of her neck, whispering the words against her skin like I have so many times before.
Only this time, I make sure she can hear me, loud and clear.
Epilogue - Ash
“Okay,” Kira says, both hands on the handle of her stroller as her purse falls to the crook of her arm. “You didn’t tell me there would be fabric vendors here.”
I laugh. “If there’s something you can buy, there’s a vendor for it.”
Around us, the downtown market pulses with life. The sky is a clear, pale blue, a color that I’ve come to associate with the Grayhide lands. With home. Around us, the adobe buildings climb into the sky, the sun above us bright and clear, that hazy, almost white quality of it different than the warm glow I’m used to.
But still just as good.
“This is sofun,” Emaline says, appearing beside me with a drink in one hand, the other one gesturing up at the colorful banners lining the sidewalks, the flowering vines growing up the sides of many of the buildings. “I never thought I’d be having agoodtime in this city. Someone should talk to Dorian about starting one of these back home.”
I glance sidelong at her—I know Emaline has had some bad experiences in this territory, so it’s especially high praise coming from her that she’s having a good time. Oren and I have been working on a lot of things together, but this market was something of a singular project for me. I kept it a secret until opening day a month ago, then held his hand as I led him over to the vendor with the little whittled carvings. His mother was there, and she’d cried, hugging him and insisting on buying us both ice cream.
“Can I look at those dresses?” Sarina, Veva’s oldest, taps her on the shoulder and gestures to a vendor across the way,bright blue and turquoise dresses flapping in the breeze, a few other women outside, touching their fingers to the shimmering dresses.
Sarina looks just like Veva, with the exception of that trademark Argent copper hair—something Sarina shares with Kira and her dad.
There was a time that Veva wouldn’t let Sarina out of her sight, no matter where they were, but especially not here, in this territory. Now, Veva just nods, waving her off, telling her not to touch anything while she’s over there.
Emin appears behind them, catching Sarina by the arm. “Wait,” he says, then digs into his pocket and produces a bill, handing it to his daughter. “In case you end up liking them, you won’t whine later about how you didn’t have the cash on hand.”
