I was buried inside him and I felt it for the first time, I knew that James loved me back. That was before he said the words. Staring into his eyes, I smiled, and kissed him adoringly. He looked so nervous. Didn’t he know that I had meant it the whole time?

“I love you too, James. I’m sorry I was drunk the first time I said it, but I meant it. I mean it now. I want you, I want this.”

He was pregnant. We both knew, and I wanted to raise that child with him.

The look on his face was well worth the sober emotional honesty.

“You mean it?” he whispered. “Truly?”

Even though he was quiet, I didn’t just read his lips. I heard him. I thought maybe my ears were attuning to the frequency of his voice.

“Yeah,” I admitted, and then chuckled softly. “‘Truly,’ I guess.” Sometimes his word choices just reminded me of how well-bred he happened to be, and how I’d learned that didn’t mean anything at all.

He groaned.

“I want your knot,” he murmured, “Maybe we should go to the couch, after all.”

I couldn't resist a suggestion like that. With a smirk, I wrapped my arms around him and carried him all the way into the living room, laying him down on the couch, with me on top. But he pushed at my shoulders.

"No, not like that," he insisted, a mischievous look in his gorgeous hazel green eyes. "I want to ride you."

I groaned in excitement and let him up, switching positions. I laid on my back on the couch, gazing up at my beautiful omega.

"Do I really get to keep you, baby? Will you marry me?"

He climbed on top of me, straddling me and pushing down onto my swollen cock once more. I cried out in pleasure and bucked up into him, my knot lodging right against his ass.

"Of course. We'll have to get married before the baby is born, won't we?" he said with a smile, and my eyes widened.

"Wait, you're serious?" I tried to ask, but then he drove himself down even harder, and took my whole thick knot deep inside of himself. I had to muffle my own cry, not wanting to wake Tommy. It was good practice, probably, for when we had our own kid.

"God, James," I whispered. I reached up and stroked over his body, but he grabbed my wrists and pinned them above my head, reminding me of a time when he'd been so afraid of me he couldn't let me touch him. I groaned softly, squirming playfully. It was still such a turn on to be pinned down, under my omega's control.

He bounced on my cock, ruthless with himself and with me, working up a sweat between the two of us. Neither of us had slept in too long, and this was the first time we'd spoken in over a week. James himself had been through a fight, and was still healing from his injuries, his skin no longer unmarred but covered with healing scratches and bites. Shifter claws and teeth were one of the few things that could actually scar us.

I let my gaze slide over those scars and growled softly, feeling possessive.

"You're mine, James."

He nodded, biting his lip to muffle his own cries as he fucked himself harder, faster.

"And you're mine, you're mine forever," he growled in return.

I couldn't deny it. It was simply the truth, and I nodded with enthusiasm and started to buck up into him, my knot pulsing.

"James, James, baby, I'm coming, fuck!"

He had the good sense to lean down and kiss me hard, muffling the noise as I filled him, pumping him full of my cum, and this time it was intentional. He groaned in delight, right against my tongue, and I felt his hot come spill over me as he squeezed me tight inside himself, milking my knot.

I couldn't take it. Trying to catch my breath, the world spinning around me, I couldn't believe how perfectly things had turned out between us. We just had to get Stefan back, and maybe, maybe we'd actually have a chance at a life together.

"I never thought I could be with one person for the rest of my life," I admitted quietly, gazing down at him when he collapsed, resting his head on my shoulder. He let go of my wrists, so I pet through his soft auburn hair. "But I don't want to be with anyone but you. Please don't leave me."

He shook his head. "I won't, but I meant it. You're going to marry me. As soon as all of this shit with Stefan is dealt with, before I get too fat."

My heart was pounding, and not just from the sex. That sort of ultimatum, the way he told me exactly what he wanted in no uncertain terms, should have terrified me. With Julia, it had sent me running off to sabotage the relationship however possible, I had ended up in bed with her secretary, of all things. But when James did it, I just smiled. I wanted him to keep me locked up forever, safely his. He seemed to want the same. Something had changed.

"Of course, baby," I promised sincerely, and then joked, "I'm pretty sure you're still paying me, after all."

He laughed and smacked my chest lightly.

"Shut up."

After a while of floating together in bliss, he climbed off of me, and my shrunken knot slipped free from him. I shivered a little and tried to find my clothes, strewn throughout the apartment. I was tugging on my pants when my phone rang. It was the lawyer, James' lawyer, who had represented all of us.

"They'll drop the criminal charges for a 1 million settlement out of court," he told me. I winced. That was a lot of money, and I found it hard to imagine that even James could swing that. I asked the lawyer to give us a minute and muted the phone.

"James, they'll let Stefan go for one million. If you can't, you don't have to--"

"What are you talking about?" James asked, running his fingers through his hair to fluff it back into place, his shirt still open over his chest. He had gotten so much more confident. Facing Cal, maybe, had been good for him. Or I had. "Just do it," he insisted. "Whatever they want, get him out of there."

I sighed in relief. James seemed to understand that everything Stefan had done had been because we'd feared for James' life.

I put the phone back to my ear and spoke to the lawyer.

"Do it. Send him home."