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I'd never been in love. Didn't know the first thing about having feelings for someone that wasn't blood-related. But I was beginning to suspect it felt something like this. Like falling when there was nothing beneath you, knowing you should be afraid of the landing, and not giving a damn.

Rosalind let out a helpless cry, but I knew she was anything but. Her claws dug into the dirt beneath us as I established a relentless rhythm. I curled my fingers inside her, stroking her sweet spot with every upward sweep, watching her pale eyes roll back as her body buckled under the ruthless friction.

"Gunnar—" she choked out, her hips rolling against my hand, begging for the edge.

"I caught you, Rosalind," I rumbled, keeping her pinned under my chest while my fingers worked her mercilessly toward her climax. "And I'm giving you exactly what you need."

Rosalind gasped again, a breathless, desperate sound as her sheath stretched around my fingers. I worked her mercilessly, stroking her through the sensitivity, opening her up, making sure her body was completely ready to take all of me without a single trace of pain. I slid a fourth finger in, feeling her body yield, expanding to accommodate the stretch.

I hovered over her, taking a moment to just look down at my wife. In the pale moonlight filtering through the pine canopy, her chest was heaving, her dark hair tangled in the damp moss. I leaned down, resting my forehead against hers, my thumb gently wiping away a stray tear from the corner of her clouded, unseeing eyes. I didn't want to be the brute who broke her. I wanted to be the man who held her together.

I parted her thighs wider with my knees, positioning my heavy, weeping head at her slick entrance.

"Look at me, Rosalind."

I waited until her pale gaze tracked my shadow, until I knew her focus was entirely on me. I traded my fingers for my dick. With four fingers, the size was almost comparable to my cock head.

Rosalind's whole body went taut. Her inner muscles clenched reflexively against the stretch, her thighs tightening around my hips as her nails dug into my back. The tendons in her neck stood out as she tipped her head back, every muscle braced around the overwhelming fullness.

I didn't move.

Slowly, her grip on me loosened. Her shoulders dropped. The tension left her thighs, then her belly, and finally those tight inner muscles began to relax.

Only then did I move. As I pressed into her slowly, inch by aching inch, I leaned down and sank my teeth into the meat of her shoulder. Rosalind cried out, but this time from my teeth, not my cock. The sting of the bite was just enough to distract her nervous system from the blunt pressure of my size. I took the opportunity to sink all the way into her.

I expected her body to recoil from the pain. That was the reflex. Get away from the source. Create distance.

Rosalind did the opposite.

She caved into me. Her arms locked around my shoulders, nails digging into my back as she pulled me closer. Not away from the pain. Toward me. Like I wasn't the thing hurting her. I was the place she went to when something hurt.

The sharp prick of my teeth, paired with the slow, relentless stretch of my cock filling her, sent her over the edge. Her entire body seized beneath me. Her sheath convulsed around my shaft in hard, pulsing waves, gripping me so fucking tight I felt every contraction from root to tip. Her thighs locked around my hips. Her nails scored my back. Even her stomach went rigid beneath mine as the orgasm tore through her, each helpless clench dragging another brutal surge of pleasure through me.

My teeth sank deeper into the soft meat of her shoulder. A moan ripped out of both of us, hers high and broken, mine dragged up from somewhere deep in my chest. I felt every tremor running through the small body trapped beneath mine.

Fuck.

She was coming around me. Clinging to me. Squeezing me like her body wanted to pull me deeper, even though there wasn't another fucking inch of her left for me to fill.

Once again, it felt like I was falling. And I'd finally hit the bottom. It was her.

Rosalind beneath me. Rosalind wrapped around me. I'd chased her through the woods, thinking I was the predator. Caught her. Pinned her beneath me. Put my mark on her and claimed her as mine. But somewhere along the way, she had turned the whole fucking thing around. She'd claimed me.

I was in love with Rosalind Blackwood.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

ROSALIND

Iwanted him. But wanting Gunnar and accommodating all of Gunnar were two very different things. I'd already come apart twice. My body felt boneless and oversensitive, wrung out from pleasure, and still I wanted more.

Because he'd caught me.

There was nowhere left to run. Gunnar surrounded me, his weight above me, his arms bracketing me, his scent filling every breath until there was nothing beyond copper and peppermint and him. I had spent the night slipping through his fingers, finding every opening he gave me and taking it, delighting in the certainty that he would follow.

Now there were no openings. No escape. I was impaled on that massive cock of his. I wasn't going anywhere. And I wanted more.

I curled my arms around him and held on. My wolf settled inside me for the first time since the chase began, no longer urging me toward the trees. We'd run. He'd followed. We'd made him work for every inch.