That rough edge was the thing that did it: he drove in as deep as he could, and came harder than he ever had in his life. His climax was like a firestorm of pleasure, overrunning his thoughts, his vision, his hearing. He couldn’t say if he made any noise, because all he could hear was the roar of blood in his ears as he filled Lynn with himself.
It seemed like a long, long time passed before he was aware of anything else. Eventually, he blinked his eyes open and realized he’d collapsed on top of Lynn. He went to extricate himself, because having that many pounds of sweaty man on top of her couldn’t have been pleasant—but she made a protesting noise as he moved, grabbing at his waist and refusing to let go.
So he settled back in. He certainly wasn’t complaining. His mate was the best pillow he could’ve asked for.
They lay there together for who knew how long. Ken listened to Lynn’s soft breaths, feeling the rise and fall of her chest. Eventually, the soft skin of her shoulder looked too inviting to ignore, so he rested his fingers on it, stroking softly over a spot that seemed particularly smooth. Lynn made a contented noise, and he kissed her collarbone.
She still tasted like sex, he thought lazily, but now it was exhausted, wrung-out sex. The taste of the moment right before you needed to go get a glass of water, when everything was still hot and damp and saturated. When you felt like you’d smell like each other forever.
He hoped so.
***
Lynn wondered if the bar for best sex of my life was just going to keep going up, from now on.
She’d been so sure that when they’d made love out in the woods, that that was the best she could possibly feel. That she’d reached the highest heights of pleasure, and there was no way anything could possibly be better.
But she’d clearly been wrong, because the way Ken had devoured her in there, like he was dying of thirst and he needed to wrap himself in her to survive, had been—it was some strange combination of the hottest thing she’d ever seen, and something that left a deep, sharp feeling inside her chest.
Mate, she thought wonderingly, feeling his weight on top of her like a blessing, a gift. That’s what having a mate is.
Eventually, they had to move. Lynn breathed deep as he finally sat up, stretching out her achingly tired muscles. Well, if there was a better way to end a long, long day like this, she didn’t know what it could be.
Ken was looking down at her with a soft warmth in his tawny eyes. The look gave her a pleasantly squirmy feeling in her stomach, something she didn’t quite know how to deal with.
Instead, she just looked back, letting the squirmy feeling stay there, and thinking that she might still be self-conscious, she might still feel uncertain and strange at the idea that he really felt this way about her, that he was really here to stay, forever—but that was all right. She could live inside that feeling, and it wouldn’t hurt her.
And there was nothing to compare with the feeling of realizing that it was true, that she didn’t need to be uncertain. She looked forward to a lot of that in the coming weeks and months.
And years. Maybe by the time it had been years, though, she wouldn’t feel it any more. Just a simple confidence in his love. Peace with the knowledge that he’d always be there for her.
That was something to look forward to, for sure.
She finally broke the silence with, “Thank you for doing this, tonight. Coming with me to get Stella.”
“I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else,” he said with absolute certainty.
“I know,” Lynn said, and she really did. “But I’m still grateful. Or—maybe that’s the wrong word.”
He sat quietly while she figured out what the right way to say it was. That was another thing she liked about him. He could joke around and make light of a situation, but if the moment called for quiet seriousness, he didn’t flinch away from it.
“It’s not that I’m grateful, like I think you were doing me a favor,” she said finally. “Like there was a possibility that you wouldn’t have been there, and so I’m grateful that you were. Instead, I’m just grateful for you. I’m glad that there was a Ken, to come with me and help my family. I don’t know if I could’ve done it by myself. Or not the same way, not so easily.”
He leaned down to kiss her softly. Lynn let any serious thoughts go and just breathed the kiss into her body like it was air.
After a long minute, he sat up again and said, “I’m grateful, too. That there was a Lynn who needed my help, and so I could show her what it was like to have someone who could come with her, who could stand by her side and support her. Who could take the lead if she needed it.”
Lynn smiled helplessly at him. “God. I really can’t believe this.”
He grinned, and the twinkle was back now. “What?”
“That I’ve become the sort of sappy lover who says these kinds of things. Who likes them, even.”
The twinkle kept going. “What, like, I love you forever?”
“Exactly like that.”
“Like, I’d do anything to make you happy?”