Page 22

It was all it took for him to swell the final bit, his knot locking down into place, and they were stuck there, suspended, both of them trying to breathe as they shook through their orgasms.

Harden came down fast, slumping and slamming against his chest, chin bouncing off his neck.

“Mate, I’m so sorry. Did I hurt you?”

Brayden had to laugh a little bit, hands up and down Harden’s back. “No love, you didn’t hurt me. Maybe when you clamped down on me like that it stung a little bit, but that was just because I came so fast that my balls hurt.”

Now Harden chuckled with him, licking the salt off his skin. “I don’t know what came over me, but I felt as though I needed to come find you, and then you were flying, and I could not resist.”

“I’m glad. I’ve never felt so wondrous in my life. I feel mated, utterly mated.”

“You do? I—I would be your mated one, Brayden, if you would have me.” Harden’s words fluttered against his throat.

“I’ve felt that way since I first met you, Harden, and that hasn’t changed. It’s only intensified.” He stroked that amazing hair, loving how the light played on the dark and shadows of it.

“I was not sure I dared to hope, but I wanted the same thing.” Harden glanced up, meeting his gaze. “That is why I asked you to move here with me. I thought if you were around me all day every day, it would make you understand that we were mates.”

“It certainly helped me be able to admit it to both of us.” He wrapped his arms around Harden and let him lie on his chest. He wasn’t that heavy for all that he was a big dragon. Tyr had told him and his brothers more than once that they were all huge, unnaturally so. But maybe in the human world alphas had to grow bigger because they had a much harder job protecting themselves and their mates.

“Or maybe you were made large to hold me. I am not a small dragon. I am huge for an omega, and I thought… I’d never have a mate.”

“Nonsense. We’re made for one another. You are my mate, my beauty, my heartbeat.”

Harden leaned up to kiss him, set off all sorts of things in his lower body, sending sparks shooting up his spine. Smoke came out of his nose and he laughed at blowing it away.

“You are well mate?” Harden reached up to touch his face, pressing against the side of his nose a little bit.

“I am. When you moved it, well, it interested me more than it should after what we just did.”

He threw back his head and laughed. “I am far from done with you.”

“I love that promise, thank you.”

Harden’s pretty eyes twinkled. “Well then—” That sweet body squeezed his knot, making him growl in pure need. “Let’s do it again.”

Chapter

Seven

Harden was exhausted.

All they did was go out, feed the animals, come in and make love. That’s all he wanted to do.

After three days, maybe four, it could possibly be five — he wasn’t really sure — he realized that at some point they were going to starve to death. There was very little food in the larder except for some cheese, some cream, and milk, which he always had on hand. So they needed to go to the market.

He was hungry. Very, very, grindy hungry.

He wandered into the great room of the house where Brayden was working a piece of leather, cutting it into long strips. “We need to go to the market. I’m hungry. I want some of those honey cream pastries.”

Brayden glanced up. Those mismatched eyes were sparkling. “I could eat too. I think we need to bathe really quick. We are redolent of our earlier activities.”

Oh, Brayden did make him laugh. He couldn’t help it. He laughed so hard that his belly hurt. Then he slowly sobered. “You’re probably right, but we should rinse off separately. If we go in there together…”

“That would be disastrous if we actually want to get out of the house and go to the market.”

He stood there and bobbed his head, keeping a dragon’s length between them. “I’ve never wanted anyone like I want you.”

He swore he could see Brayden’s nostrils flare. “I understand⁠—”