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Where is he?

A twig snaps to my left. I spin around. Nothing there.

Then two huge hands land on the trunk on either side of my head, and Holt is right in front of me, blocking out the moon.

“Caught you,” he growls.

I squeak. He laughs and kisses me, and it’s not polite like the porch. His tusks bump my lip ring. His nose goes straight to my throat, right on my pulse. He breathes me in like he followed that scent past every tree.

“Found you,” he growls. His mouth opens under my ear, right on the tattoo. Night air brushes my hot skin, and the bark digs into my back.

He tears my uniform shirt open. Buttons fly into the ferns. I don’t care. I’ll sew them back on later.

I grab his nice shirt in both fists and hold on. “I ran so you could catch me,” I say. “So catch me. Right here.”

I kick my boots off. He yanks my pants and panties down, and I step out of them. The cold finds my bare skin. His cock presses hot against my stomach, and I’m so wet already.

“Okay?” he asks. His voice is rough, but his hands stay steady.

“Yeah,” I say. “Lift me up. I want you against this tree, and I want it now.”

He lifts me, and I lock my legs around his waist. The torn shirt slides off my arms and lands in the ferns. Bark scrapes my shoulders, and I pull him closer anyway.

He pushes his cock into my pussy. I’m wet, and he doesn’t go easy, so I breathe through the stretch. No bed tonight. I signed the contract, and then I ran so he could find me in his trees.

“Harder,” I say. He fucks me against the pine, deep and steady, and his rumble hits my chest and goes straight to my clit. I bite his shoulder. He groans, so I do it again.

“You’re mine,” I say into his skin. “You found me. I caught you back.”

“Mate,” he growls. “My mate.”

“Yours. Forever,” I say.

His knot starts to swell. He goes still, and I know that look. He’s about to ask me.

I beat him to it. “Knot me,” I say. “I know what it is now. I want it. Give it to me.”

He drives in, and the knot stretches me wide and locks. I come first, laughing his name into the pines. Then he roars, and he comes, holding me against the bark.

His knees hit the moss. He lowers us down, still locked, until my back hits the cool ground under the big silver moon. I keep my legs around him. I’m not running anymore.

Afterward, we spend twenty minutes on the moss, still locked together. There’s no roof over us, just pine branches and moonlight. My uniform shirt is somewhere in the ferns. I don’t think I’m going to find all the buttons.

Cool air hits my shoulders, and I shiver. Holt pulls his shirt over them and tucks it close.

“I’m unpacking my suitcase tomorrow,” I say. “Every last sock. You’re about to find out how many I own.”

“I’ll clear you two drawers,” he says. I kiss his cheek and pull his shirt closer.

“How am I going to explain to Prue that I lost all my buttons on my first night as a permanent officer?”

He laughs, and I feel it all the way through me.

“Tell her the squirrel did it,” he says.

I smile into the moss. Up above us, the moon is shining through the pine needles, and somewhere far to the north, in a bowl where nobody else will ever go, the moths are tucked safe in the moss, waiting for the dark of the moon.

I’m home.