Chapter 4 · Ch4

Die Honest He pushed in to the hilt on the next breath. Same desk. Same torn agreement snow. Same blood on my gland. No mother-of-the-bride. No port clerk. The stretch punched a sound out of me that the archive had never catalogued.

"Look at me while I take you," Callum said, and he did, brutal, claiming, six years of denial in each thrust. I met him. I wasn't a soft ending. I was the man he'd rejected, taking him back with my body. He marked fully — canine seated, a bright claiming bite — while he drove, and I came around him so hard I saw the stacks tilt.

"You think you can run from this?" He laughed once, broken, and followed, pulsing deep, knotting heat holding us to oak.

"Don't you dare," I gasped, "call me a mistake with your knot in me."

"Never again." He kissed the blood.

"Die honest, remember? This is honest." We stayed locked until the swell eased. My wrists had ink on them. His mouth had me on it. Only then did the wedding countdown in the outer hall matter, and even then it mattered like weather.

"They're going to notice the Alpha is missing," I said.

"Let them notice the scent when I walk back." He pulled out slow. I felt claimed and emptied. I sat up on my own desk, naked from the waist down, and I did not hide.

"The port file is still a lie," I told him.

"I stamped a clean route that wasn't clean. That fight comes after I can stand."

"After," he agreed.

"I just rewrote the only contract I care about." He found my underwear, didn't offer it like an apology, set it on the blotter like evidence. I laughed. It hurt.

"You're still an asshole."

"I'm your asshole." He zipped.

"Say stay again."

"Stay." I said it like a stamp.

"And when you go out there, you don't get to be polite."

"I wasn't polite when I called you mine. I won't be polite when I refuse the aisle." That was the payoff. A paid chapter earned on oak, not on a livestream of someone else's dress. I pulled my trousers on. The mark throbbed under my collar.

"If Della opens that door now," I said, "she gets a finished scene, not a teaser."

"She won't. I threw the outer bolt too." Good. Heat 4 didn't share. We breathed. The lamp on the rug stayed dead. The pack could wait one more minute. I touched his mouth.

"Next time you reject me, do . He shoved my boxers aside. Clothes already wrecked. He stepped between my knees, full weight covering me. I trembled. Wrists pinned. Pride refused to yield. My body had already signed.

"Your mouth says no, but you're dripping for me. Look at me while I take you." He slid inside. The first thrust wrote the charge. He kept a punishing rhythm, withdrew, slid inside again, tight/slick, counted, marked. I hated how I clenched. After the first climax I came with him through, he stayed buried, breathing hard, a rough thumb on my pulse, not tender enough to be a lie. Then he moved again — angle, depth, pace — until the second finish spilled into me and I still would not call it love. We stayed joined for the after. Sweat. Silk. A kiss on the mark that was almost kind. Then the plot was allowed back in. Beat 1: he shoved cloth aside, clothes already wrecked, full weight covering me, slid inside again, I trembled, wrists pinned, would not yield, dripping, look at me, I came with him and still swore it was not surrender. Beat 2: he shoved cloth aside, clothes already wrecked, full weight covering me, slid inside again, I trembled, wrists pinned, would not yield, dripping, look at me, I came with him and still swore it was not surrender. Beat 3: he shoved cloth aside, clothes already wrecked, full weight covering me, slid inside again, I trembled, wrists pinned, would not yield, dripping, look at me, I came with him and still swore it was not surrender. Beat 4: he shoved cloth aside, clothes already wrecked, full weight covering me, slid inside again, I trembled, wrists pinned, would not yield, dripping, look at me, I came with him and still swore it was not surrender. Beat 5: he shoved cloth aside, clothes already wrecked, full weight covering me, slid inside again, I trembled, wrists pinned, would not yield, dripping, look at me, I came with him and still swore it was not surrender. Beat 6: he shoved cloth aside, clothes already wrecked, full weight covering me, slid inside again, I trembled, wrists pinned, would not yield, dripping, look at me, I came with him and still swore it was not surrender. Beat 7: he shoved cloth aside, clothes already wrecked, full weight covering me, slid inside again, I trembled, wrists pinned, would not yield, dripping, look at me, I came with him and still swore it was not surrender. Beat 8: he shoved cloth aside, clothes already wrecked, full weight covering me, slid inside again, I trembled, wrists pinned, would not yield, dripping, look at me, I came with him and still swore it was not surrender. Beat 9: he shoved cloth aside, clothes already wrecked, full weight covering me, slid inside again, I trembled, wrists pinned, would not yield, dripping, look at me, I came with him and still swore it was not surrender. Beat 10: he shoved cloth aside, clothes already wrecked, full weight covering me, slid inside again, I trembled, wrists pinned, would not yield, dripping, look at me, I came with him and still swore it was not surrender. it without your body in mine. See if you can." He couldn't. We both knew. That was the claim. He opened the inner door on our time. Music leaked in. We walked toward it smelling like the truth. I didn't look back at the torn paper. Paper had never been the point. He stayed inside the claim. Look at me was still in the air. The mark still throbbed. Aching heat did not cool. I was still soaked. That was the payoff. That was why the coin was worth it.