40. Naomi

Naomi

Good?

Confusion began to replace my gratitude. "What…?"

"That's right, Flower. What? " Wild began moving his mouth down my neck with soft kisses, but his voice became hard as he asked, "What did I tell ye would happen if ye ran?"

I froze, a crack of icy dread splintering through my heart.

"That you'd catch me," I answered nonetheless. On a whisper. "That Sea wouldn't protect me. That the two of you would take turns."

"Good, good, Flower," he said as if I'd answered a trivia question right.

But instead of rewarding me, he hitched his hips back, cruelly removing his heavy length from my mound.

His lip grazed but didn't quite kiss my swollen breasts or the dark brown nipples that were rock hard and distended with need. "What else did I say? "

I wished I had no idea what he was talking about. But the answer to this question also came out on a shaky breath, "That in the end, I'd beg you to take me."

"So, you understand." Wild was at my lower tummy now, just above my mound. "Ye fully know why I must punish ye for what you did."

I did. And I didn't.

"Please, Wild," I pleaded without him having to ask me to — pride was a distant value I could no longer access. "I'm begging you. Please."

But if Wild heard me, he didn't show it.

Instead of removing his clothes and taking me like Lorcan, and then Ronan took Amanda, he kissed the inside of my thighs, sending another shudder of desire through my body. Without sating it. At all.

"Wild, please…" I begged some more, squirming on the bed.

"Tell ye what, I'll give ye my fingers." A new pressure invaded the drenched space between my legs. Rough and blunt. "How does that feel, then?"

Better than my own hand. My sex greedily clenched around his fingers as new sensations began to crackle through my body. But still…

"Not enough!" I cried out. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

An overwhelming urge to apologize seized me. To Amanda for not understanding what had come over her. To Sea for misleading him with that kiss. To Wild for running despite his explicit warnings. My voice cracked as I repeated, over and over again, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry. "

"Aw, that's a sweet apology, ain't it?" Wild answered with a cruel smile in his voice. "But I'm afraid yer torture's only just begun, Flower."

Unfortunately — for me — his use of the word "torture" wasn't a case of Wild being overdramatic.

Instead of taking me, he placed light kisses on every single bit of my exposed skin.

Instead of sucking either of my breasts into his mouth, he held me down, pinning my hands above my head as he blew hot, useless air against my distended nipples.

Instead of saving me from being denied by Aidan, the ruthless male made me beg even harder until tears burned in my eyes. "Wild, please…"

"Please, what?" Wild whispered in my ear instead, without letting any part of him settle against my desperate, clenching mound.

I choked on panic. Then it occurred to me to call, "Sea! Sea, please . Make him stop torturing me!"

I cried out for help, even though I couldn't see the other Irish King.

Only hear the clomp of his feet pacing back and forth in the vicinity of the bed.

The clomping stopped abruptly. But then, Wild looked over his shoulder and said something that sounded downright vicious in Gaelic.

And no answer to my plea came from Sea.

Wild had been right. The Diplomatic King wouldn't save me.

The Wild King was in charge now.

"Ye beg so sweet, Flower." Wild finally, finally , settled his length against my mound. "Let me give ye a little bit of relief."

My heart soared with hope when Wild released my hands from above my head and rocked against me a few times, giving the swollen nub the attention it craved.

The tight rope of need inside my belly loosened… only to release a few sad sparks.

"It isn't enough!" I sobbed as the pitiful embers of the insufficient climax got swallowed back into my ocean of need. "You know it isn't!"

The tears weren't just burning at this point. They streamed down my face. "Wild, please . I'm begging you! I'm begging you."

Wild's hard expression softened at my tears. For a moment, the eager wolf glow returned to his eyes.

But then it flickered back out.

Like something ruthlessly extinguished.

"What are ye begging me for?" he asked in a hard, mean croon. "I want to hear the words out ofyer pretty little runaway mouth."

"Please claim me," I gasped.

"I've already done that," he pointed out in an infuriatingly reasonable tone. "Every wolf in both the Sea and Wild kingdoms knows who ye belong to, don't they?"

"Please mate me," I clarified.

"I gave you my pledge. Did you not hear it?" he answered in a sandpaper-dry tone that made me want to rip his non-glowing eyes out.

Oh, God. "Please fuck me." I debased myself for the cruel wolf on top of me. "Fuck me, Wild. Please ."

"I will give ye the fuck ye're desiring. I promise ye," Wild crooned, filling my chest with relief. But then he said, " After I'm done punishing ye."

I had never known such anguish as I did in that moment.

"Wild?" I cried out brokenly.

"Yes, Flower?" he answered.

As if my misery was something delicious he was eating for breakfast.

"Please," I breathed out.

"Please, what?" he asked.

"Please…" This time, I cupped his face in both my hands and begged, "Please, don't make me hate you."

I kissed him on the mouth, as he'd refused to kiss me below. Tangling my tongue with his.

Then I pulled back to look him in his eyes and whispered the pledge I'd made him as clearly as possible. Considering that I didn't know Gaelic, and I was a weak, emotional wreck.

"Fuck!" Wild yelled out before I was even halfway through.

He pushed my hands away from his face and lifted off of me, but somehow, I managed to keep on going, whispering the words to the ceiling.

Like a prayer. With the feeling that something was breaking inside of…

Wild suddenly fell on top of me. Naked, his hips already pistoning .

He wrapped my leg back around his waist and entered me with one heavy shove.

My mouth fell open on a choke, and just like that, my virginity was gone in a blaze of hard invasion.

"Wild…" I breathed out, my mind grasping to understand…

Being filled like this…

The physics of it…

The sweet stretch of my slippery sex around his thick invasion.

I immediately began coming.

There wasn't any build-up of fire this time. Only the release — me clenching around his shaft while Wild rutted like an animal on top of me.

As calm as Wild had acted before, it turned out he was on the razor edge, too. His hips suddenly hitched, and he roared as a jet of seed rushed into my womb.

Strangely, this sent me into another orgasm just as I was coming down from my first.

And maybe that would have been okay. I liked the liquid pleasure, cresting over me the same as an ocean wave.

But suddenly, Wild began to swell, his shaft becoming impossibly large inside my most intimate space.

My heart stuttered.

What in the… what in the…?

Have you really never heard of knotting?

The memory of Sea's question slammed into my mind, answering the one I couldn't fully form in my thoughts .

He was stretching me to my limit. Hurting me. I screamed and writhed beneath him, trying to escape the new discomfort.

Until suddenly something else replaced uncomfortable feelings. Something thunderous and crazed.

A building pleasure that started in my toes.

Tingling… tingling everywhere…

Then…

Lightning.

STARS!

My muscles seized, unable to fully conduct the exploding suns of pleasure, as every color in the known universe burst inside of me, and my body became an electrified field of pleasure.

"Thank you," I whispered to the wolf who'd knotted inside of me.

"Ye're welcome," he answered. Not out loud. But inside my head.

I gasped, my head woozy with awe.

We were mated. Wild and I.

"We'remated!" I exclaimed to him over our newly formed mental bond, my inner voice filled with awe. "You're officially inside my head ."

Those were the last thoughts or words I was able to form before darkness sucked me under.

Only to wake up alone on the bed to the strange sensation of my core once again clenching air as the smell of my heat hung thick as a cloud above me.

Someone was growling low in the distance.

No, not someone. Something .

My stomach squeezed, and my wolf whimpered when I raised my head to find a creature straight out of a fantastical myth standing at the far end of the bed.

It had the head of a red wolf but its naked body was human. Tall and thin, yet heavily defined with wiry muscle.

It had one hand braced against the bedpost, and the other hand was running a vicious fist up and down its long and thick human length. A pearl of some kind of viscous liquid had gathered at the tip, but despite the creature's violent efforts, it wouldn't drop, causing the beast to let out a high-pitched, keening cry of frustration.

What in the world?

It took me several blinking moments to realize who was underneath the wolf head.

"Sea?"

The creature stopped jerking his hand abruptly.

And started snarling at me.