Page 83 of More Than I Can Bear

“You.” She said that softly, bluntly, with a shy little look and then one not so shy. Those beautiful hazel depths felt deep enough to dive into and I wanted to drown in her. “That was never the problem. I wanted you the morning after. I wanted you the day after that.”

“And the day after that?” I asked, risking a small smile. She smiled too and for a second the bear settled inside me. I was on the right track. She was smelling so sweet. We had our mate and—

“Maybe not then.” Her brow creased for a second but she chased it away with a grin. “Then I was angry with you going to the damn media, but all the while…” She grabbed my hand and my fingers flexed around it on reflex, gripping it tight, right before she forced it to settle low on her pelvis. “I ached, right here.”

“I hurt you?” I asked, already starting to back away. I thought I’d beencareful. I didn’t lose control right up until the very end, but—

“Not in a bad way.” She willed me to understand as she stared into my eyes. “It was like I felt the ghost of you deep inside me, a reminder of where you’d been.”

Oh.

Some deep primal part of me fucking loved that idea, that she felt the echo of me inside her long after I was gone. I wanted to revel in that, but I pushed past it and focussed on her.

“The only place I’ll ever get peace,” I replied, smoothing my hand over the gentle swell of her stomach. “Being inside you…” I raised my other hand and used the fingers to trace the shape of that perfect mouth. “I’ve won grand finals, pulled shit out of my arse to turn a game around and had half of Adelaide cheering me on. But medals, honours, they’re nothing compared to you, Freya. It’s why I walked away from the medal count. That was just a foreshadowing of what’s to come, because I can’t think of a fucking thing, not footy, not work, nothing but you.”

I was standing there between the darkened trunks of massive trees, scrub and bush around our ankles and the cool air playing over our skin, but all I could see, feel, was her. It was all I’d ever be able to focus on.

“You want to see where things go? Let us take you home, show you what it would’ve been like if I hadn’t fucked everything up. Give us that tonight, Freya, and—”

She smiled as she pressed her hand to my lips.

“Yes. You told me to tell you what I want? I want that, Adam, give me that.”

She let out a yelp as I scooped her up and carried her out of the trees and onto the road.

“Get that fancy arse car here stat, Kaine,” I ordered my brother and didn’t that feel good. “My baby wants to go home now and I’m gonna make sure that happens.”

“Yeah, sure, you’ll do that,” Kaine snarked, but he got out his phone and put through the call, the town car appearing not long afterwards.

Freya’s lips got so damn swollen when she was kissed. I hadn’t noticed that last time but I did now. They were already plush and pink and oh so tempting, but as we all sank into the double backseat of the car and the driver started off, we each kissed them until they were ready to burst.

I started first, unable to stop myself from leaning down and brushing my mouth against hers, because the moment we reconnected? It was like taking long breaths in after running until my legs gave out; a cold bottle of water after a long run. I needed this, needed her, and I wanted to tell her that, over and over.

“Freya…” I had more to say, but my mouth found hers instead. “Freya…”

I was trying to get it out, the feeling that was surging in my chest, clawing its way out, ready to be free. But she grabbed my hair and tangled her fingers in it, pulling the hair tie out and then raking her hands through my hair before dragging me closer. She needed me, that sang in my heart, just like I needed her. Somehow her seatbelt was undone and I hauled her up onto my lap, dragging her mouth back down to kiss, when my brother cleared his throat.

The car had a double back seat, one side facing the other and my brother sprawled across his side, watching the two of us with cool eyes.

Actually make that three.

He nodded to me, then looked over at River.

My boy was holding himself back by a thread. If I could see it, so could she. An impish smile quirked her lips, right before Freya stared at the privacy screen for the third time. Then she gestured for River to come forward and that’s all it took.

I didn’t know what it’d be like to share my mate, but I’d thought about it a lot. Jerked my dick raw fantasising about it as a teenager, then pondered on the logistics when I was older. But what I hadn’t anticipated was the intimacy of it all. When River kissed her, I heard as they both drew breath, like divers about to throw themselves overboard and into each other. I felt her hair shift against my skin as he grabbed great handfuls of it, then balled it up against the base of her head. I heard her little moans and felt her body shift, against his and mine. My hands slid around her, wedging her tighter between us, hearing the hum of pleasure from her, then my eyes dropped down, taking in the creamy expanse of her neck.

The scar I’d left on her perfect skin was both a trophy and a mark of shame. I loved that she wore it, that it was in a place she’d never be able to hide, not even with the highest of turtlenecks. It made clear to other shifters, to the world, that she was mine and I was hers. But right now it taunted me. I’d made the mark in haste but now I had to prove myself worthy of calling her my mate. I pressed my mouth to that mark, promising with my kiss to do just that, and her whole body jolted.

I knew what I was doing, what it would make her feel. A mating mark was a whole other erogenous zone, able to set a shifter’s mate alight. When I flicked my tongue across the serrated mark, she let out a little groan of surprise, then her body rocked against mine. My hand slid down her flank, wedging her tighter against me. She let out a gasp when she felt how hard and ready I was to service her, her movements much more purposeful now, as I sucked on the mark in long slow pulses.

“It feels good, doesn’t it?” Kaine asked, his voice a sharp knife cutting through the thick air in the back of the car. River pulled back from kissing her to force Freya to answer.

“Yes…”

“You don’t want Adam to stop, do you?”

Her hips jerked, and I could feel the tension inside her wind tighter, as my hands ruffled through all those layers of floaty fabric, pushing them aside to get to her. Hot, slick, she was drenching her knickers and painting her thighs with her arousal and I couldn’t have been fucking happier. Fuck medals, I won everything right now.

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