Page 162 of Knot my First Rodeo

His nose drags along the curve of my neck, sniffing, scenting. He grunts, a sound of pure animal satisfaction, and then his mouth opens over the juncture of my shoulder and throat where the bond would take.

"Briggs." My voice is hoarse. "Wait⁠—"

He doesn't wait. He can't wait. The rut drives him, primal and unrelenting.

His teeth sink into the curve of my shoulder, and I scream. The pain is exquisite; a sharp, burning pressure that sends lightning through my veins. My back bows, my nails rake down his skin. But even as the pain crests, something else blooms beneath it: a warmth that’s electric, spreading from the wound through my chest, my limbs, my very soul.

I feel him. Really feel him. His hunger, his fear, his desperate, all-consuming love. The bond snaps into place like a taut rope finally pulled tight, and I gasp, my omega purring, satisfied, claimed.

He licks the bite, sealing it, and lifts his head. His eyes are clearing, the rut-fog receding, but the panic that floods his face now is worse than before.

"Autumn." His voice cracks. "Oh, fuck. I—I didn't mean to⁠—"

He tries to pull back, but the knot still holds us together, locked deep inside me. The bond thrums between us, new and fragile and ours.

I reach up and cup his jaw, feeling the stubble rough against my palm. His eyes are wide, wild, searching mine for anger, for rejection, for anything but what he needs.

Before he can argue, before he can apologize again, I slide my hand to the back of his neck and press my mouth against the side of his neck where his pulse jumps beneath my lips, and bite. My teeth sink into the muscle and tendon, the thin skin giving way with a resistance that makes my own body tremble. The taste of him floods my tongue: banana cream.

I drag my tongue over the indentations, soothing the sting, tasting the last of the blood that wells up in tiny beads. His pulse is wild under my lips, racing, matching mine.

"I'm yours," I whisper. "And you're mine."

The bond hums, echoing the words back at us, a promise sealed in flesh and blood and cum.

"Autumn—" he tries again.

"I'm not mad,” I cut him off.

He stares at me, searching for the lie. He won't find one.

"But Tripp and Clint are gonna lose their goddamn minds," I whisper.

Briggs closes his eyes, and rests his forehead against mine. "I know."

"You didn't ask for consent. You lost control."

"I know."

I stroke my thumb across his cheekbone. "I'm still not mad."

He lets out a shuddering breath, and for a long moment we just lie there. Tangled, slick, and trembling.

Chapter

Forty-Seven

Briggs

The bond thrums between us like a live wire, humming under my skin, through my blood, straight into my fucking bones. I can feel her, Autumn, every flicker of emotion, the warm pulse of her omega satisfaction curling against the edges of my guilt.

I should feel relieved. I've got her. She's mine. Bonded. Claimed. Knotted, filled, and marked so deep no alpha in the world could ever doubt who she belongs to.

My cousins, my pack, her other alphas, are downstairs waiting. They trusted me with her. That realization lands like a punch to the throat.

I pull out slowly, carefully, watching my cum leak from her body, smearing across her thighs, the sheets. The mark on her shoulder is raw and red, my teeth imprinted in her skin, a brand that will scar, that will stay. There's no hiding this.

I close my eyes for a second, breathing hard. The room smells like us, like sex, our scents, and permanence. Evidence of a line crossed that can never be uncrossed.