Page 113 of Pin My Alpha
His eyes are closed. His head tips back, curls brushing his shoulders as he rocks down on me again, taking every thick inch with deliberate care. The column of his throat works, the line of his jaw tight with concentration, and I can’t stop staring at the way the tendon there flexes each time he bottoms out. My hands stay on his hips, thumbs pressed to the hollows above his hipbones, feeling the roll of muscle and bone as he moves. The space between my palms and his skin feels alive, electric. I don’t squeeze harder. I let the nearness of touch do the work, let the wanting coil tighter in my chest until my next breath comes ragged.
“This is ours,” he says.
My hands spread over his back.
“Our bed,” I say.
He nods, breathing hard.
“Our bar.”
Another slow roll of his hips. “Our life.”
The knot starts to swell before I’m ready for it, pulled up by the raw, impossible tenderness of him. I grip his hips a little tighter, feeling the exact moment the base of my cock begins to catch on his rim.
“Shay,” I warn, voice low.
He opens his eyes.
“You want it?”
“Yes.” No hesitation. “Knot me.”
I kiss him as I thrust up, and he takes it with a broken little sound, clenching around me. The knot pushes in slowly, stretching him wide. Shay’s nails rake through my hair, his body trembling as I hold him close and ease him through it. The line of his jaw is right there—sharp, clenched, beautiful in its effort—and I drag my open mouth along it without quite kissing, letting my beard scrape while he shudders and sinks the last fraction of an inch.
“Good,” I tell him. “You’re doing so good, sweetheart.”
“Don’t stop,” he pants. “Please, don’t stop.”
“I’ve got you.”
The knot locks us together.
Shay shudders in my arms, then folds over me, his face buried at my neck. I can feel him crying, barely. Not sad. Not scared.
Just too full of everything.
I rub his back while my release pulses deep inside him, and Shay comes with a muffled cry against my shoulder, his whole body clamping down around me. I hold him through it, tied to him, skin damp, nest tangled around our legs, the almost-touch finally, finally replaced by the press of his chest to mine and the steady thump of his heart against the place where mine used to feel empty.
For a while, neither of us says anything.
We don’t need to.
The partnership agreement sits on the nightstand beside the green bar towel, signed and waiting for morning.
Shay’s breathing evens out against my chest. His purr starts low, almost hidden beneath the sound of the fan, but I feel it everywhere.
Home.
I pull the blankets over us and press my mouth to his claiming mark.
“Love you,” I whisper.
Half-asleep, Shay curls closer.
“Love you too,” he says.
Then he falls asleep tied to me in the middle of the nest, and for the first time in a long time, I let myself do the same.
