Page 24 of Mated to the Kingpin

He holds there.

He pulses.

And he explodes with a growl that echoes in my bones.

I feel it—feel him—hot and thick, endless. My body clenches again like it’s trying to pull him deeper, trap him there forever. His hands cage my head, his body wrapping around mine to lock us in place as he comes undone inside me with guttural, broken sounds.

Even after, we don’t separate.

His breath shakes against my throat, his lips dragging kisses across the mark he gave me like it steadies him. My body still trembles with aftershocks.

My hand lifts, brushing his hair back from his forehead, and finally he lifts his face from my throat, eyes blazing.

“I own you now, mo chroí,” he says, voice low, full of dark promise. “No more running. No more hiding. You were mine before you ever knew it.”

I should be scared.

Instead, I smile. Because deep in my bones, I know he’s right. I belong here: beneath him, beside him, marked and filled and completely his.

His weight settles over me through the aftershocks, anchoring me to the earth with every inch of slick, sweat-drenched skin.

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak.

Just presses his forehead to mine and breathes, like he’s trying to remember what it feels like to be human again. His mouth is against my neck, buried just above the bite he gave me, the air around us thick with the scent of sex and sweat and blood and pine.

I belong to him now. Not just in name.

In body. Bone. Soul.

My fingers thread through his hair, slower now. The violence is spent from both of us, but the heat between us still hums like a low current threaded through the dark.

His voice comes rough against my skin. “Claire. Are you okay?”

I nod, still pinned beneath him, legs trembling, bite throbbing in time with my heartbeat. “I told you,” I whisper against the curve of his jaw. “You’d have to earn me.”

He lifts his head at that—just enough to meet my eyes.

And then he kisses my temple. Different from everything before. Gentle. Full of too many things he can’t say all at once.

“I never intend to stop,” he murmurs, gravel-soft.

We stay like that for a long time. Limbs tangled on the forest floor. Breathing in sync. Our bodies cooling just enough to make the night air prickle across damp skin, the moon now lower in the sky. The burning pulse of the bond hums along the edge of my senses like a second heartbeat.

Eventually, Liam shifts again—this time only in position, not form. He slides an arm beneath my back and another under my knees, lifting me as if I weigh nothing. I don’t resist. My head drops onto his shoulder, one hand resting against the expanse of muscle between his pecs.

His heart pounds under my palm, solid and real.

We don’t speak for a while.

He walks barefoot over the soft moss and broken leaves, carrying me back toward the manor. It feels like a fever dream. A procession. A turning point in a story older than either of us.

Then his voice breaks the quiet, low and hoarse. “I never kept it.”

I lift my head slightly. “Kept what?”

“The video,” he murmurs. “I deleted it the same night I took it from them. You were safe. Even then.”

My throat tightens.

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