Page 166 of Knot in the Wedding Cards

I fist his collar and pull him down until his forehead's on mine, and there's no exit left for either of us to take.

"I can," I tell him.

His whole scent changes on the words — the pepper flaring bright, the bourbon going warm and dark and pleased, the magnolia opening up until it's the only thing left in the whole black yard I can smell.

His hand slides back into my hair. His grin drops close enough to share breath.

Whatever the courthouse used to say about nights like this one, the session's adjourned, and I'm the one who banged the gavel.

Sawyer laughs, low and dark and thrilled, the magnolia blooming so thick between us it drowns out the smoke and the marsh and the whole rest of the world.

"We'll see about that."

CHAPTER 32

The Last Stone

~BECKETT~

Alow groan tears out of my chest the second Amber’s mouth sinks back down around me.

She’s already taken me twice tonight.

Once against the wall the moment we hit the bedroom, my hands under her thighs and her back arched off the plaster while the house creaked around us.

Once slower, deeper, after I’d laid her out on the bed and learned every new freckle five years had put on her skin.

Both times I’d emptied myself into her until my vision blurred.

I should be spent or better yet, half-asleep with her tucked under my arm, the way we used to end nights before the world went sideways.

Instead my cock is still hard, thick and aching, and her clever mouth is working me with the kind of focused, filthy precision that makes a man forget his own name.

One of her hands is wrapped around the base, fingers stroking and squeezing the swollen knot that refuses to go downall the way. The other braces on my thigh, nails digging in just enough to keep me from bucking up into her throat.

Five years of holding every damn thing in check, and the second she’s within reach my body decides it wants to make up for lost time all in one night.

The realization hits me like a slap.

I’d convinced myself the drought had dulled the edge; that a man could go that long without and come out the other side quieter, steadier.

Turns out all those years of clenched fists and cold showers just banked the fire higher. Now the opportunity is here,warm, willing, smelling like sun-warm apricot and garden roses and the salt of her own earlier pleasure, and every restrained inch of me is paying the price.

I watch the way her lips stretch around the thickest part of me, the way her cheeks hollow on the upstroke.

She’s always been good with that mouth of hers.

Directing vendors, ending arguments, talking three stubborn Alphas into softer versions of themselves.And this. Especially this.She takes me deep enough that the tip brushes the back of her throat, then eases off with a wet, deliberate pull that leaves a shiny trail of spit and the last of my earlier release down her chin.

Her mouth comes free with a softplop. A thin string of saliva stretches between her lower lip and the flushed head of my cock before it breaks. She doesn’t wipe it away.

Instead, she leans in again and drags the flat of her tongue in one slow, thorough line from the base of the knot all the way up to the slit, collecting every drop.

“Fuck, Apricot,” I rasp. My voice sounds wrecked even to my own ears. “You’re going to kill me.”

She looks up through her lashes, hazel eyes gone dark and pleased. Her lipstick is long gone. Her curls are a wild halo frommy hands. There’s a faint red mark on the side of her neck where I’d sucked too hard earlier, and the sight of it makes something possessive and proud kick hard in my chest.

I can’t think about the shape of a future that doesn’t have her in it as our Omega. The idea alone is a cold knife under the ribs.