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Sterling pulls me towards a large boulder peeking out from the water’s surface, hoists me up and sits me on top of it. I shiver when cool air hits my wet skin. He dives, his feet and tail sticking out of the water before he glides across the surface, three shark fins peeking above the waterline.

He’s majestic. Gorgeous. And all mine.

There’s a peacock who lives in the village park. I’ve seen him do this dance where he fans out his tail feathers and shakes them, flaunting his beauty. I laugh when I realise that’s what my monster is doing. Showing off. Courting me.

When he surfaces again, he pushes his body up in one swift movement and covers me with it. Instantly, I’m warm, his body heat and fur driving away the cold. Sterling pushes his tongue into my mouth and I open for him. Surrendering. He deepens the kiss. Hungry hands trail over my body, claws leaving nips of pain in their wake, and I whimper, shamelessly grinding my hips against him. The rock is rough on my back, but the pleasure building at the base of my spine makes it worth it.

“Stay still, human,” Sterling commands, drawing a path of kisses down my neck and stomach.

“Yes, Sir,” I mumble, my hips disobeying him to chase the friction my cock needs. He growls, pinning me down with one large hand. And then he’s lifting my legs and his tongue is on my hole and I have never in my life felt anything like it. My hands reach for something, anything to grab onto, to ground me and stop me from flying off this rock and back into the sea. I find purchase in his hair, his bun messy, strands falling around his face. He hums as his tongue delves inside me, licking at my channel, his beard scraping against my cheeks and hole, adding to the heightened sensations.

“Sterling.” I don’t know what I’m asking for, but maybe the thing about having a fated mate is that I don’t need to know, because he does. He spits on my hole, then looks up at me and, eyes locked on mine, sucks a finger into his mouth. When the digit is covered in his saliva, he slides it down my crease, then slowly works it inside me. I suck in a breath, baring down as he fucks it in and out of my hole before adding a second. His movements are impatient as he stretches me, fingertips grazing my prostate, making my cock leak and my body writhe.

“I need you now, my mate,” he says, climbing back up my body until our lips meet and I can taste my musk on him. Then he’s guiding his cock inside me, the movement smooth thanks to the slippery pre-cum his body produces. The pain is sharp as my rim stretches to accommodate his girth, and I bite his lip as he pushes deeper until he’s all the way inside. His movements are hurried, the head of his cock catching on my rim as he pulls all the way out and then thrusts back in. He bites my neck, laves his tongue over the mate mark and fucks me harder. One clawed hand wraps around my cock and he strokes me in time with his thrusts.

“Come for me, Caspian. Milk me with your tight body.” I moan, arching my back off the rock. Heat pulsates in my core, building like an inferno in my lower body. I feel alive. Coiled tight like a spring about to snap. “That’s it. Good boy. Let me knot you. Breed you.”

Oh fuck.

I come. Pleasure so intense it steals my breath, washes over me as my cock erupts and thick sticky cum covers the both of us. Sterling doesn’t stop moving inside me as he works me through my orgasm, and then I feel it. The pressure against my rim and my channel. Ribbed skin pressing to my walls and his large cockhead relentlessly bruising my prostate. He cries out as he fills me with his cum. Sterling presses up onto his hands, peering down at me. His eyes are dark, his lips parted. He thrusts. Just once, but it’s enough to have me gasping, my cock twitching as I come again. Eyes locked with mine, he rotates his hips, fucking me slowly, his knot catching, pulling, pressing, bringing me pleasure I did not know was possible. When he growls and I feel heat fill me again, I peer down at the space between us, at the cum on my skin and the bulge in my belly. He tracks the trail of my eyes, smiling as he presses a hand to my stomach.

“So full of me, sweet mate.”

I whimper when he moves, batting at his chest.

“Enough. I can’t take much more.”

He stops moving but covers me with his body to keep me warm and we share gentle kisses until his knot deflates and he pulls out. Then he guides us back to the beach, where he dries me and helps me redress.

I lie on the blanket, with my head on his lap, his claws scratching my scalp.

“It’s just a fantasy, right? The whole ‘breed me’ thing.” I tip my chin and peer up at him. “You can’t actually…”

He shakes his head. “I don’t believe I can, no.”

“Okay.” We fall silent for another moment, the sun now almost completely gone from the sky. Another question pops into my mind as I bask in his warmth and affection.

“Would you want me to be like you?”

Sterling tenses, and his hand stops moving in my hair.

“Yes. But that is the selfish part of me. The part that never wants to let you go.”

I don’t have to overthink it. My heart has known the answer since I fell for him the day I realised he had been eating my scones, despite being a carnivore.

“I want it. To be like you. One day soon.”

Sterling kisses my nose.

“Anything for you.”

“I love you, Sterling.”

“And I you, human of mine.”

We stay like that for a while longer until the sun has completely dipped behind the horizon and the sky is a sheet of navy blue filled with diamonds.

I feel it the moment everything changes. The air thickens and Sterling pushes me off his lap, jumping to his feet with a sense of urgency. His eyes widen and I follow his line of sight up the beach to the farm on the hill.