I gasp, gripping his shoulders as he bites down just enough to make my knees falter.
I whisper his name. It’s the only thing I can manage with my head tilting back and my chest rising to meet his mouth again.
I don’t even notice when my jeans are tugged halfway down my thighs until his hand is between them. His knuckles brush over where I’m slick and open, and he groans like he’s been waiting years for this instead of days.
“I need to taste you again,” he says against my skin, and then he drops to his knees on the forest floor like a man ready to worship. My foot knocks over a twig.
Rusty barks in the distance, chasing something up the trail, but I can’t focus on anything except the way Elias parts me and presses his tongue to my clit like it’s a secret only he’s allowed to learn.
I grab a fistful of his hair, and he hums, the vibration shooting through me. I can barely stand upright. I lean back against the tree, thighs trembling as he devours me with an unrelenting rhythm that has my eyes fluttering shut and my mouth falling open.
His tongue is greedy and reverent, and I grind against it, losing myself. My orgasm hits so hard my legs threaten to give out, and he catches me before I slide to the ground.
He rises slowly, mouth wet with me, and looks at me like he’s memorizing this moment. He tugs his shirt off, then pushes his jeans down with a single hand, freeing his cock.
It’s thick and ready, flushed at the tip, and I lick my lips as I reach for it. He grunts when I stroke him, his hand overlapping mine.
“You want me to?” he asks, voice rough, wild.
“Yes,” I whisper, eyes locked on his. “I want everything.”
He grips the back of my thigh and lifts me effortlessly, pinning me to the tree as I wrap my legs around his waist. His cock presses against me, not yet inside, just teasing. My nails dig into his shoulders.
“Then you’re going to get it.”
He pushes in, the stretch deep and slow, and it punches the air from my lungs.
He holds still, kissing me hard, letting me adjust to the sheer size of him before pulling back and thrusting again. Each stroke is brutal and perfect.
He sets a rhythm that has the tree shuddering behind me, bark scraping my back and making me gasp. Every part of me is alive. Slick and heat and skin and the weight of his body claiming mine again and again until I’m shaking against him.
“You’re mine,” he growls, voice dark with something ancient. “This… this bond… I’ve fought it. I told myself I was being smart. That it wasn’t time. But Cora, I can’t wait anymore.”
I moan into his mouth, nodding frantically. My body is pulsing, my release building again, faster this time. Elias’s rhythm stutters, and I feel the first pulse of his knot beginning to swell. His pace grows erratic.
“Cora… I need?—”
“Yes,” I breathe, holding his face. “Please.”
The moment his knot pushes into me, I cry out, everything tight and slick and perfect. His hips slam into mine as he locks us together, his arms holding me like he’ll never let go.
The warmth spreads, thick and consuming, as he finishes deep inside me, shaking against me as I come apart again with him grinding deep with every pulse.
We stay there for a long while, pressed together against the tree, our breath mingling, his cock inside me as his knot keeps us fused.
The air buzzes with silence and energy and something that’s not quite words. Something older. I stroke the back of his neck while he cradles me, his forehead against mine.
“Why can’t I stop?” I whisper after a while, running my thumb along his jaw. “When it comes to you. To Noah. To Julian. It’s like I try to stand still in a hurricane.”
His eyes find mine. His lips brush against my cheek, then lower to my throat.
“Because you were made for it,” he says quietly. “For us. You weren’t built for half-measures or safety nets. You were built for wild things. For connection that burns. Your body knows what your mind still tries to deny.”
I swallow and rest my head against his shoulder, listening to the sounds of the forest, the birds and wind and the soft whimper Rusty makes somewhere nearby.
“I thought it would feel wrong. I thought I’d be ashamed of what’s happening between all of us,” I murmur. “But I’m not. I’m terrified… and yet more myself than I’ve ever been.”
He shifts slightly, the knot still anchoring us. “You think I’m not terrified, too? You think I’ve done this before? I’ve had a mate, yeah, but never like this. Never one who made me want to lose control just by looking at her.”