Page 29 of Scorched
She knows what the head-catch means now. She knows what follows—the short strokes, the building pressure, the way the fire magic ramps until she can't think. She knows the knot is coming. She learned it on the forge floor with her face pressed tostone. She learned it again when I carried her through my halls with my cock locked inside her. She learned it a third time from my mouth on her cunt.
She doesn't want to ask. It's in the set of her jaw, the way she bites her lip bloody rather than open her mouth. Her pride is extraordinary. Even pinned to my bed, wrecked, dripping, coming on every thrust—she will not give me the words.
I slow down.
"No—" The word tears from her. Her hips surge up. "Don't you dare slow down?—"
I stop. Buried to the hilt. The head swollen, catching deep, the fire magic pulsing through the ridges into her in a steady rhythm that keeps her hovering on the edge of an orgasm she can't reach without more. Without the knot.
"Ask," I say.
Her jaw clenches. Her eyes are wet. Her cunt is squeezing me in pulses she can't control—her body asking what her mouth won't.
The slick is running from her in streams, soaking my sheets, golden-hot where it meets my fire magic. She's so close. She's right there. All she has to do is ask.
"I hate you," she says. Her voice cracks on the second word.
"I know. Ask."
Her hands are fists above her head. Her legs are shaking. The brand at her throat pulses with my fire magic, connecting us—a live thread of heat from her throat to my cock to the place in her belly where the Bloodwork heritage sits dormant, waiting to wake.
"Knot me." A whisper. Wrecked. Furious. "Knot me, you fucking?—"
The base of my cock swells.
She screams. Not the controlled scream of a woman bracing for it—the raw, shattered scream of a woman who asked forsomething she knew would wreck her and got it. The knot expands inside her, pressing outward in every direction, dense with fire magic, and her cunt stretches around it.
Her back arches so hard only her shoulders and heels touch the bed. Her hands fly from my grip and grab my arms. Her nails draw blood. I don't feel it.
I feel her. The full clench of her cunt around the knot, around every ridge, around the swollen head buried so deep there's nowhere further to go—and the sensation hits me in a wave that wipes out every other thought. This is what I held back for twenty minutes on the forge floor. This is what the rut has been building toward for five days. The knot fully seated inside her, her body locked around mine, the fire magic pouring through the ridges into her in slow unstoppable pulses. I feel the fire magic in every ridge connect with the fire magic in the knot and the brand and the specific low metallic hum of her Bloodwork heritage that she cannot hear and I can.
She comes. Violently. Her body locks around me and the orgasm hits her in a wave that starts in her cunt and reaches her throat. The scream turns into a sob.
I press my forehead to hers—not from tenderness. From the need to be closer to the sound she's making. The sound of a woman being destroyed and rebuilt at the same time. The sound Bloodwork metal makes when it finds its forge.
I release.
The head deflates first. The swollen crown softens, easing the deep pressure inside her. She gasps—one sharp breath of relief. Then my cum floods the space the head left. Golden-hot. Burning sweet. Fire magic in every drop. It fills her, marking her from the inside, the brand at her throat flaring bright as the claiming magic does its work.
She makes a sound. Small. Lost. Her hands are still gripping my arms. Her nails are still buried in my skin. Her cunt is stilllocked around the knot and every pulse of the fire magic through the ridges makes her twitch, makes her hips roll against me in movements she isn't choosing.
"I hate you," she says. Her voice is gone. A rasp. A thread.
"Yes."
The knot holds us together. I settle my weight to the side so I'm not crushing her. She turns her face into the pillow. Her shoulders shake.
I can't tell if she's crying from the intensity or from the grief of what she's become. Both, perhaps. The brand at her throat glows steady and hot. I touch it with my thumb and feel the forge-work pattern under her skin—my mark, permanent, a thing that can't be undone.
She sleeps.
I don't. But not from guilt. I've never lost sleep over a correct decision.
The knot eases slowly. The fire magic drops from a roar to a hum, the ridges cooling inside her, the swollen base gradually softening over the next two hours. She sleeps through most of it. Her body has been pushed past what it can process.
Her face is slack and her mouth slightly open. Her black hair is spread across my pillow and the brand at the base of her throat pulses gently with each exhale—my fire magic, settled into her skin, permanent.
She fits.
