Page 116 of The Orc's Captive Bride
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” No hesitation. No doubt. “I’m sure.”
He entered her slowly, watching her face for any sign of discomfort, but he found only pleasure. Her body rippledaround him, hot and tight and absolutely perfect. She wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him deeper and the world narrowed to just this. Just her. Just them.
He started to move, a slow, deep rhythm that built a fire in his blood. Each thrust sent waves of pleasure through him as she arched against him, her hands moved restlessly over his back, her nails scraping lightly against his skin.
It was too much and not enough. He wanted to go faster. To bury himself so deep inside her they became one being. To claim her so thoroughly no one could ever doubt she belonged to him. But he didn’t want to hurt her. Couldn’t bear the thought of hurting her.
“More,” she demanded. “Don’t hold back. I want all of you.”
Her words shattered his control. His movements grew faster, harder, more urgent. His cock driving into her as his mouth found hers again in a desperate, devouring kiss that left them both breathless. She met him thrust for thrust, her hips rising to meet his, her body taking everything he gave her and asking for more. This fierce, brilliant woman who’d faced down a High King without flinching. Who’d seen a weapon and chosen to see the man.
His knot began to swell, stretching her further, and she cried out, her body clamping down on him as he drove into her one last time, and came with a hoarse cry, his seed flooding into her and his body shuddering with the force of it, as his knot locked them together.
He felt the mate bond snap into place with a sense of absolute rightness.
She was his. He was hers.
“I felt it,” she gasped, and he raised his head to find her face wet with tears and a radiant smile on her face. “I felt the connection.”
“The mate bond,” he purred. He wasn’t sure if it came from him or his Beast, and he was too filled with satisfaction to care
“And it’s permanent?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” she whispered, then wiggled against him.
“Stay still.”
“I’m trying.” She wiggled again. “But you’re still inside me and it’s… distracting.”
“Distracting how?”
“In a good way. A very, very good way.”
“Then let’s see if we can make it even better.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Thea had never been particularly good at living in the moment.
Her entire life had been spent analyzing the past or planning for the future. Examining ancient texts. Decoding dead languages. Building hypotheses about civilizations that had crumbled to dust millennia ago.
The present had always seemed somehow less interesting than what came before or what might come after.
But this—lying in Khorrek’s arms in a hidden cave while the world outside continued its relentless march toward chaos—this she wanted to hold onto.
His breathing had evened out, deepened, not quite sleep but close.
She could feel him. Not just the physical warmth of his body wrapped around hers, not just the steady rhythm of his heartbeat against her back.
But him. His presence. His emotions.
The mate bond, he’d called it.
Her academic brain was fascinated. She wanted to analyze the situation and understand the mechanism by which two individuals could become so fundamentally interconnected.
