“I am fine.”
“Bullshit.”
Instincts demand I shut down and move away from him, but our joined hearts guide me to stay as I am.
“I am sore, but I am fine.”
“Don’t do that! You look just like you did when you hit the floor. I can’t have you suffering alone. You have to fucking speak to me, Anastasia. I can sense your pain through our bond. Don’t shut me out again.”
His emotions give me whiplash, the overbearing Alpha flipping to pleading lover only for his iron will to harden his voice again.
He’s right, though. I locked down on my pain the moment I felt it, falling back on habits I’d thought were necessary to survive and protect others.
I lift a creaky arm and caress his face, loosening my jaw and sending comfort into his heart.
“Be patient with me, Jumoke.”
His expression softens even as his lip pulls up in a silent snarl.
“I want to knot you so hard right now. When your face goes stern but your soul goes soft, I want nothing more than to sink my cock so far into your pussy you forget where you end and I begin.”
His lips descend on mine, engulfing my pain in molten lava and disintegrating every ache with pleasure.
I suck in a breath, dizzy and disappointed when I miss the opportunity to hold him close. He already stands halfway across the room with fists tight at his sides and jaw grinding his teeth together before I lift my hand.
His large pupils and turgid cock display his desire for me, but my stomach’s rumbling lends credence to his restraint.
“Build a nest, Anastasia,” he growls, the weight of command urging my body to move.
He lightens his control when I pull my invisible comfort away from his heart, and he shakes his head a bit as though he didn’t realize he’d put so much power into his words.
The moment I look away from him and focus on our bedding, the rest of the world fades away.
I need to provide this comfort for my lifemate and my unborn babe. It consumes me, urging me to work the kinks out of my joints by moving every scrap of fabric off the bed. My bruised shoulder sends throbbing into my chest, so I keep my elbow tucked to my ribs, but otherwise move freely once I’ve begun.
One soft sheet belongs on the mattress, but once I pull the last corner in place, I tear it off with a few agitated jerks. Wrong.
Flipping it over so the other side faces up, I tuck the first corner under the mattress, the seam pointing up towards me. The oddity strangely calms me, and I move to the next, eager to see the other corners finished. An annoying tag near the foot of the bed makes me snarl. A quick tear and toss and it’s gone.
The fuzzy blanket from before finds my hands, the one I’d planned to use as the foundation, and a lump forms in my throat as I realize Jumoke noticed my attachment to it and kept it when he cleaned the room earlier. I spread it out, loving how it makes the mattress feel like a puffy cloud.
Two pillows must be crammed into each corner, but when I snatch up a blanket to create the first layer to cover us, I hate it.
Too uniform, too even, and too simple for the Alpha standing behind me to be stuck in for hours, I growl and fling the blanket to the floor. Plucking a pillow from three of the corners, I toss them toward the head of the bed, falling on them and kneading them this way and that, demanding they act as one large cushion.
Satisfied with their placement, I snatch up the blanket only to grab another. When I try to make a smooth layer, the corners won’t lay how I want them. An inexplicable anger rises, my movements turning more manic than I intend, but animalistic urges demand I build the most comfortable nest for myself and my lifemate. I rip the blanket off, turn, and fling the ball of inadequacy across the room.
Not caring where it lands, I open the other and angle it so its corners will cover my lifemate’s feet and head. It looks uneven, but brings me the vision of a star with many points. I snag another piece of fabric from the pile and layer it in a different direction, continuing the odd formation, enjoying the analogy of a star in the heavens.
This will be the heaven my family rests in, the security surrounding my child as it grows, the love in which my Alpha basks.
A few more layers completes the multi-pointed star, but more must be done.
I am not satisfied.
More pillows need to buffer the edges, so I crawl over the top of my nest, happy to see my hand and knee prints spring up when the softness denies their stay.
I finish pressing a pillow into the crease between the mattress and the hard surface surrounding the sunken bed before rising to stand and looking at my masterpiece.
All it needs is myself and my family.
Warm arms wrap around me from behind, his purr soothing the ache his chest causes as he presses against my back. My sore shoulder relaxes as I let him support my arms, his right hand splaying across my lower abdomen.
His fingers trace the raised scars lining my stomach, but any inadequacies I may carry have no chance to take root. His soul hugs the lost children in my heart as he purrs and nips my ear.
“Beautiful.”
He guides me to the table by plastering himself to my back and urging me to move with his muscular thighs and chiseled body.
Every touch by him still sends a shiver of bittersweet awe through me, the unaccustomed sensation of flesh upon my own stunning in its purity.
He pulls me backward as he sits, using an arm around the front
