Chapter Twelve
Darby was standing on the balcony taking in the view of both the Mississippi and the estate she would now call home. She shook her head. She was amazed at how much things could change in such a short time. She remembered the desperation they had felt when the edict from the Ruling Council had reached them. They had tried to get away, but to what?
She felt his presence even before he opened the door. She turned around to face him, leaning against the ornate balcony railing.
“Planning another escape, beloved?”
She smiled. “The only running I plan to do is straight into your arms whenever you leave me for too long,” she said as she launched herself across the room.
He caught her up and kissed her hungrily. “I missed you too. Are you happy to be home?”
“How could I not be? I have a gorgeous man who keeps me happy and sated. And I’ve been accepted into a well-respected and thriving pack. I was just wondering what it was I thought I was running from?”
He kissed her gently. “I think more from the unhappiness of your past than toward anything in your future.” He saw doubt creep into her eyes. “What?”
“Nothing,” she said, smiling brightly.
He swatted her backside twice with considerable heat. “What did I tell you about lying to me?”
She shook her head and kissed him. “I’m sorry. I just don’t want to add to the load I know you carry as alpha with my silly concerns.”
“Your concerns are never silly to me. Do you want to amend your answer now or do you need to have a well-soaped mouth and bright red backside before you share them with me?”
She giggled. “I think I’ll choose to amend my answer. I want to be a good mate to the alpha of our pack. I was only kind of kidding when I told Gretchen I’d probably fuck it up.”
“Gretchen fucked it up plenty of times,” he said, chuckling. “Do not worry. One of the tenets of our pack is that unless someone dies, we can fix it. Do your best; ask for help. Never fear that anyone here will judge you. And anyone who is not of our pack does not have an opinion that matters.”
“I do want to please you. God, I can’t believe I just said that, not to mention that I meant it.”
“You do please me, ma choue. I am happier than I have ever been. There is no one who has seen us together who would dispute that. You complete me. I have been waiting for you my whole adult life.”
Tears welled in her eyes.
“I do not tell you this to upset you.”
“I know,” she said quietly. “I just don’t feel as though I’m worthy. You needed a Skylar—a woman who has been mistress to a great pack. One who is gracious and smart and kind. I’m only smart… and even that one is iffy at times.”
He swatted her again. “You couldn’t be more wrong. There wasn’t anyone downstairs who didn’t see how gracious and kind you were to Gretchen. You would have been well within your rights to ask to have her punished for the way she spoke to you. Instead you made her laugh, defused any tension that might have been forming, and offered to be her friend. If any of them had their doubts about my rogue-wolf bride, you allayed their concerns.”
“What about yours?”
He laughed. “My only concerns about you have always been how to keep you safe and prevent you from running away. I do not think I need worry about the latter anymore.”
She shook her head. “No, beloved. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me. And as soon as you get us both naked and that knot I can feel deep inside me, you’ll be stuck to me.”
“You are a most naughty mate.”
She giggled.
“There will be some kind of celebratory dinner this evening. If you wish to attend, I will wait to bury my knot in you. If not, I will attend to your desire to be mine completely.”
“Will they think badly of me if I prefer to spend my first evening in bed with my mate?”
“No, they will think your mate the luckiest of men. Is that what you prefer?” She nodded. He released her and walked to the phone, calling the general manager of the plantation. “Vachon? Your mistress and I will not be joining everyone this evening. Please let Geoff know. I’m not sure if JD will be in attendance either. Have Claudine send someone up with our meals until further notice. Thank you.”
“Oh, God, they’re all going to know why we didn’t come down tonight,” she said, only slightly exaggerating her embarrassment.
He chuckled as he pulled her back into his arms. “They would have known anyway when they saw how happy their alpha was. Nothing quite keeps an alpha happy and focused as being able to knot and tie his true mate on a regular basis.”
“But, until further notice?”
He tucked a long strand of her blonde hair behind her ear. “Yes, ma choue. I mean to claim you repeatedly.”
She looked at him and saw the smile in his eyes and the grin on his face. “I see. You’re so sure I’m going to like this whole knotting and tying thing?”
“I am,” he said with confidence. “I will ensure that you desire it above all things.” He nuzzled her neck and whispered in her ear, “As do I.”
“Then what are you waiting for?” she asked as she kissed him, slipping her tongue into his mouth and coaxing his tongue to come and dance with hers.
He led her to their bed and drew back the covers. “Do you want help getting naked for me?”
She giggled. “I’m beginning to think you like the fact that I have so few clothes so I’m either in one of your shirts or naked.”
He smiled. “It does have its advantages.” He began to undress her. She closed her eyes and shuddered in response. “Relax, ma choue, there is nothing to fear.”
“He hurt me every time he did it to me. I never found any joy or pleasure from it.”
“I know, beloved, but I promise you that you will find great amounts of both from our joining. The pain will be brief but the pleasure intense and long. Would you prefer to wait a bit longer? I have no desire to pressure you.”
She shook her head. “No, I want to be yours completely. Not only do I understand that it is painful for you to continually suppress your knot, but that it isn’t good for you to do so. I want desperately to give you that, but still…”
“I know, beloved. But I am, in this regard, a patient man. I want you to be as desirous of our ultimate joining as I am and will wait until you are.”
“But I am. I don’t just want it for you. I want it for me too. So please, Jean-Michel, claim me completely.”
He kissed her gently, but with a wealth of passion behind it. “I will, my beloved, and you will forget that you ever feared it.” He finished undressing her and then quickly removed his own clothes before sliding between the sheets next to her.
Jean-Michel pulled her to him. He was happy to see that her concerns weren’t too deeply seated as she was as soft and compliant as he had come to expect. Her body molded perfectly to his and she responded to his touch with a fiery passion of her own.
He cupped her breast in his hand and squeezed it gently. She moaned in appreciation. He lowered his head to take her nipple in his mouth. She cradled his head in her hands and pushed her tit deeper into his mouth.
Jean-Michel ran his hand down between her legs. He stopped for a moment to rub her clit, causing her to buck her hips in response. He released the nipple on which he had been suckling and transferred his attention to the other. His hand moved down to test her level of arousal. His mate was very, very wet and her labia felt swollen. He pressed two fingers into her wet channel and felt her pussy clamp down on them as she came.
“Jean-Michel,” she called quietly.
“Yes, my beloved?” he said, gazing into her face while he began pumping her pussy. He could feel her body quickly ramping back up to another climax. “It would appear, my sweet, that you have been too long without your mate’s cock doing the job of my fingers.”
“Yes,” she moaned. “Please?”
“I think you are not quite ready for me.”
“Yes, I am,” she demanded.
He removed his fingers from her core and swatted between her legs with more than a bit of sting.
“Shit. That hurts.”
“Yes, but deserved when a naughty mate forgets her place and tried to demand instead of ask. Would you prefer I go back to fingering you, or does your pussy prefer to get the same treatment you bottom does when you misbehave?”
She sighed. “Please don’t spank me there. I’ll behave, it’s just I want you. I need to feel you fill me up, to stroke me so that all that exists is you and me. Please don’t keep me waiting and don’t make me beg.”
He nuzzled her and smiled at her once more, taking her nipple deep into his mouth. He sucked hard and she cradled his head. His hand stole down her body and began to play again with her clit, causing her to undulate her hips in response. As her breathing quickened, he moved from swirling his fingers around her clit to pressing his thumb against it and slipping his fingers back within her pussy.
This time her response was to spread her legs wider and her pelvis tilted upward as if to present her pussy to him for his use.
“There’s my good mate,” he crooned. “Look at me, Darby.”
She opened her eyes and held his gaze.
“Who am I?”
“My fated mate,” she said with a sigh. “The guy who takes fiendish delight in denying me what we both want desperately.”
He chuckled. She giggled and nuzzled him.
He moved down her body stopping to kiss, lick, and suck as he went. He spent considerable time pleasuring both of her nipples until they were so hard they bordered on painful. He kissed, licked, and sucked his way down her body. Finally, he had his head between her legs. He nuzzled her clit, causing her to begin to once again move her hips. He swirled his tongue around her and then sucked her swollen nub into his mouth where he nipped and suckled it. Darby’s hips began to move with more strength and speed. Jean-Michel responded by using his tongue as he had his fingers and plunged it in and out of her. She bucked wildly against his onslaught. He felt her pussy clamp down on his tongue and she called his name as she came for him again.
Jean-Michel raised up and began to kiss his way back up her body. As he did so, he slipped two fingers back into her channel and began to slowly move them back and forth as his thumb pressed against her clit. Her body once again began to ascend to its peak and he settled himself between her legs. He brought both of his hands up to take a firm hold of her hips. He felt her stiffen in anticipation of the pain.
“It will be all right, Darby,” he said in a soothingly seductive voice. “Try to relax, sweetheart.”
He knew that any further delay would only give her more time to be become anxious. His mouth descended onto hers, capturing it as he surged forward, growling low and deep within his throat. He only vaguely felt her body try to deny his entrance. The strength of his thrust ensured that his knot was forced up inside her.
He could feel her pussy tighten as the knot stretched her and heard her sharply inhaled breath. He knew that for them to experience the intimacy and sensuality of the knot and resulting tie, she would experience pain at his hands.
He held her tight and stilled within her. He could feel her channel clamp down on him in response to his invasion as he kissed her and murmured words of love and encouragement to her. Slowly, she began to relax and he felt her pussy accommodate his knot. She quit struggling but seemed unsure of what would come next.
“That’s the worst of it, sweetheart. It will be all right, love. I promise the pleasure that is about to begin will obliterate all thoughts of your discomfort.”
Slowly, but surely, he felt the pull of her sheath drawing him forward and down into the floor of her pussy. He watched her face as recognition set in that he was no longer causing her pain. That recognition led to wonder as the knot began to swell and lock her body to his.
“Oh, my God,” she sighed in pleasure. She looked into his eyes and he could see the love and desire he had for her reflected back to him. She wound her arms around his neck and raised the upper portion of her body to his to kiss him and rub her hardened nipples against his chest.
He chuckled, enjoying her wanton response to his possession. The thought that he would have no trouble convincing his mate to be knotted on a frequent basis flashed through his mind. He gathered her close and then stretched her back down in their bed. He began to move his hips in the rhythm of love. Sealed to her as he was, the movement was more of a rocking nature than a true stroking.
He watched her eyes roll back in her head as she gave herself over to his passion. She climaxed repeatedly as she dug her nails into his back. She called his name as her pussy spasmed around his cock and its knot repeatedly. He could feel his cum rolling up from his balls and through the knot as it targeted the back wall of her core and began spurting out in great ropes. Her body arched and molded to him and she cried out for him, lost in her own desire. His cock continued to pump his seed deep into her body. Finally, he had emptied himself in her and was still.
He settled himself on top of her and kissed her gently. “Are you all right, ma choue?”
She gazed up at him lovingly. “All right doesn’t even begin to cover it. That was amazing and this? This is, I don’t even know how to describe what this is, but I like it too.”
He smiled, enjoying her response. “This is the most sensual and intimate act you will ever experience. And given your response, I think my mate will experience it on a very regular basis.”
She smiled and nodded as she kissed him passionately and wound her legs with his… in essence locking her to him as surely as his engorged and sealed knot bound her to him. They began to share the stories of their childhoods, which were in sharp contrast to one another.
Jean-Michel had experienced an idyllic childhood here on the plantation. He had been raised, alongside JD, Geoff, and several others, in the pack to which he now stood as alpha. His father had been alpha before him and happily mated to his mother until she had passed.
Jean-Michel said with a wistful sigh, “He didn’t want to live without her. He willed himself to die and was gone within six months.”
“I’m so sorry, my love.”
“Don’t be. I was sorry that they were gone, but happy that they were together.”
Darby’s upbringing had been in a small farming community with a small pack that could barely keep its head above water. They might have done better if her weak-willed father hadn’t been a compulsive gambler who got into heavy debt. That debt had been to another hard-scrabble pack’s alpha who wanted her father’s pretty blonde daughter to breed future generations of his line. The fact that he was never able to get her pregnant was a constant source of irritation to him. He had knotted her whenever a knot began to form but not in a way that would have ensured she would conceive. Several times Jean-Michel growled in response to her ill treatment.
She found that sharing her story with him allowed her to release the anger and pain that had always accompanied it. His loving response to her pain allowed her to put it in the past and focus instead on soothing his ire and opening her heart even more to him.
Jean-Michel laughed when she began to quiz him about how often a knot would form and how often he would share it with her.
“As often as you will have me. I have no desire to share it with anyone else. And you no longer worry that when I want to bury myself deep within you it will hurt?”
She giggled. “Don’t get me wrong, your forcing that thing in me is incredibly painful. But Skylar was right, what’s waiting on the other side of that brief flash of pain more than makes up for it. So, no, mate, I no longer fear anything about you or your mighty knot.”
Jean-Michel told her stories of their pack’s history and accomplishments. Some were inspiring, some humorous, and some showed the great strength the pack had always had to stand as one and survive. Finally, the knot began to dissipate and he eased himself from her.
She had been dozing and made a feeble protest.
“Shh, ma choue. Sleep. I will be close by.”
He could hear her breathing deepen as sleep overtook her. He glanced at the clock and realized he had been tied to her for a bit more than three hours. It wasn’t dark yet, but the sun was beginning to set. He held her close as she slept and allowed her body to rest and recuperate. He knew she would be sore from taking his knot and being tied to him for the first time.
A few hours later, he heard a discreet knock on their door. He eased himself from their bed. Opening the door, he smiled as he found the tray laden with food. He brought it in and set it down on the end of the bed.
As he lifted the cloches from over the dishes he could see Darby’s heightened sense of smell kicked in and led her back to wakefulness. Drowsily she sat up and reached first for him, kissing him lazily but deeply.
“What is all of this?”
He chuckled. “This is Claudine’s idea of a light repast. You will find our chef never wants anyone to be hungry. Specifically, this is shrimp etouffee, jambalaya, gumbo, and her special crab cakes. There are also various side dishes and her peach cobbler as well as hummingbird cake.”
“She doesn’t expect us to eat all of this tonight, does she?”
“No. This is a bit much even for Claudine. I suspect as she doesn’t know your tastes she wanted to ensure there was enough to feed you to allow you to recover from the ordeal of being mated to me.”
“If she thinks it’s an ordeal,” she said, sitting up, wincing, and then crawling across the bed to the food, “she’s obviously never fucked you.”
“Darby, watch your language. Do not think just because you provide me with the ultimate pleasure in this life, that I will not spank that pretty bottom when it’s needed.”
She stuck her fingers into the peach cobbler, taking a bite for herself and offering him the rest, which he willingly sucked off her fingers. “And I suppose you’re the one who decides when it’s needed?”
“The one and only.”