Page 168 of Knot in the Wedding Cards

She does. She rides harder, meeting me thrust for thrust, the slap of skin on skin turning sharp and rhythmic.

I’m close—closer than I want to be—and the knowledge that I’m about to lose it again after two full rounds already should embarrass me. It doesn’t.

It only makes me hungrier.

“Shit—Amber—” I curse, the warning rough in my throat.

I haul her up and off me just in time.

The first thick pulse of my release stripes across her stomach, then another, then a third that lands high enough to paint the underside of one breast.

My knot flares full and heavy the second the last of it leaves me, the pressure so intense it borders on pain.

She doesn’t miss a beat.

One hand drops between us and wraps around the swollen base, massaging in slow, firm circles that draw another broken sound out of me.

I lean in, forehead to her sternum, and press my mouth to the warm skin just above her heart.

“We’re going to make it to the altar,” I whisper against her flesh. “So I can knot you properly. The way I’ve been dreaming about for five years.”

She stills. I feel the surprise in the way her breath catches, in the way her fingers pause on my knot.

When I lift my head, she’s looking down at me, eyes wide and searching.

“We don’t have to wait, you know,” she says softly. There’s a question under the words, careful and hopeful and a little afraid.

I know she’s referring to me knotting in her.

Sealing the deal.

Making up for the lost time of us waiting for that faithful day…only for us to be the cowards who run away, leaving her alone.

I shake my head.

One hand comes up to cradle her chin, thumb stroking the soft line of her jaw until her eyes meet mine and stay there.

“No. We do.” My voice is quiet but absolute. “I’m not securing that knot inside you until our ring is on your finger. Not the temporary one. Not a borrowed one. The real deal. The one that says you’re ours, we’re yours, and nobody gets to walk away from it again.

She nods slowly.

I can see the war behind her eyes—the part of her that wants to believe and the part that spent five years learning not to. She’s trying not to get emotional, trying not to let the hope show too clearly on her face. I don’t blame her.

Hope is a dangerous currency after the kind of bill we handed her.

I mean every word.

She’ll understand that in time.

Until then I can only keep saying it, keep proving it, keep laying one solid stone after another until the wall between us is strong enough to stand forever.

I press a kiss to her forehead, soft and lingering.

“You want to shower?”

She thinks about it for half a second, then the grin that spreads across her face is pure mischief and pure Amber.

“Fuck yeah. But are we just showering?”