Chapter 47 Patrick
Patrick
I lie there stunned, chest rising and falling in uneven breaths, the room still humming with the echo of everything that just transpired. My pulse hasn't settled — it pounds hard enough that I feel it in my fingertips, in my throat, deep in my stomach.
The air feels different now. Charged. Heavier. As if the walls themselves are holding onto the last half an hour, replaying them in the silence.
My body is warm and oversensitized, every nerve still tuned to the memory of her touch — the intensity of it, the way the connection surged between us like something alive. Even now, after the moment has passed, the ghost of it lingers inside me — a deep, aching pressure that feels like both a pull and a warning.
I shift on the bed, feeling the tug of Lottie's knot at my entrance, sending a ripple of pleasurable discomfort through me. A soft moan slips out before I can stop it, followed by a slow breath as I try to steady myself. As I try to understand how we crossed a line I swore I'd never cross.
My mind drifts back to my conversation with Dr. Marin a couple of weeks ago.
Her voice returns with startling clarity — calm, clinical, edged with warning: "You have a choice in how it happens, if you want to remain in control, accept the bond intentionally. Decide the timing. Set the terms as much as you can."
At the time, I brushed it off. Told myself she was exaggerating, speaking in hypotheticals. That she didn't understand my discipline. My control.
But now… Fated mates.
The words drift through my thoughts like smoke — impossible, unbelievable, and yet far too familiar. Too close to the truth I've been trying to deny.
I shake my head, refusing to let the idea settle. It shouldn't be possible. People talk about fated mates like folklore, like something that happens in stories — not to professors who've built their entire adult lives around walls and restraint.
And yet the mark burning at the back of my neck — that low, persistent heat that flared when her teeth pierced my skin — is undeniable.
I press my palm to it, feeling the warmth pulse beneath my fingers.
No matter how much I try to deny it… Something has already begun.
And I don't know how to stop it.
But the truth is simpler: I don't want to.
I can recite every rule, every consequence, every reason that this is reckless. I can pretend discipline will win. That logic is stronger than whatever this magnetic pull is.
But none of that changes the way my chest tightens when I think of her. None of it stops the instinct to reach for her even in her absence. None of it erases how, when we came together, the world felt like it tilted into place for one impossible second.
I want to explore this — whatever it is. This pull that defies reason. This connection that feels older than either of us, deeper than anything I've ever known. It's not something I can categorize or file away like a research problem.
It's visceral. Immediate. Undeniable.
I want to know what it means, how far it can go. Whether it could last — not just for a moment, but for a lifetime.
Could we last forever?
The thought is terrifying. And intoxicating.
It curls through me like warmth, like possibility — like a future I've never allowed myself to imagine. A future I shouldn't imagine. A future that breaks every rule etched into me since I started teaching.
But the wanting is steady. Persistent. Impossible to ignore.
Behind me, Lottie shifts, a soft, sleepy sound brushing against my shoulder. She's only resting — I can feel the faint tension still lingering in her body. Whatever happened between us hasn't faded.
It's only paused.
The heat beneath my skin confirms it — a low, steady pulse that refuses to dim.
I exhale and ease back until my spine rests against her chest, letting myself sink into the mattress. Tingles race through me at the contact. The sheets are still warm from where we were tangled moments ago, carrying traces of her scent — pine, snow, something unmistakably hers. It wraps around me like a whisper.
I pull the blanket over us. The room is dimly lit by the bedside lamp, casting long shadows along the walls. Rain taps softly against the window, a distant rhythm that makes the world beyond this room feel irrelevant. It must've started to rain when we were in the throes of our passion.
Her breathing steadies behind me, the rise and fall grounding and unraveling me all at once.
I close my eyes.
This isn't over.
Not by a long shot.
My eyes snap open, what could be minutes or hours later, to the sound of my own broken moan.
I'm on my stomach now. The knot has gone down — but she's only just begun. She's moving inside me again, slow at first, deliberate, dragging every inch of her dick through my still-sensitive body like she's reminding me exactly who I belong to.
A sharp breath catches in my throat.
Every thrust is deeper than it should be, but slower than I can handle. My body is still soft from the first time, pliant and overstimulated, and the friction sends sparks racing up my spine.
She must feel me tense, because her hands slide to my hips — firm, possessive — and she draws me up onto my knees.
The change in angle steals the air from my lungs.
She drives into me again, harder now. The sound of skin meeting skin fills the room, loud in the quiet. My fingers curl into the sheets as pleasure spikes through me, too bright, too much — and still not enough.
"Ah—" The sound tears out of me before I can swallow it down.
She doesn't give me time to adjust. The rhythm builds — deep, relentless, each thrust hitting that place inside me that makes my thoughts shatter. My back arches without permission. My body answers her without hesitation.
It's overwhelming.
My pulse roars in my ears. My nerves feel flayed open. Every drag of her length inside me feels like it's carving something permanent into my bones.
"Fuck, Patrick," she breathes, rough and wrecked behind me. "You feel so good. So tight. So wet. So mine."
The guttural rawness of her pleasure blankets me, and I clench around her instinctively. She groans at the reaction, fingers digging into my hips as if she needs the leverage.
The pace turns punishing as she chases her pleasure and pounds mine into me.
I can feel myself slipping — sensation overtaking reason, heat pooling low in my stomach and coiling tighter with every movement. I'm balanced on the edge of something sharp and electric, and she's pushing me toward it without mercy.
When she lifts my leg and shifts the angle, everything explodes.
She finds that precise, devastating spot — and keeps hitting it.
My vision goes white. My body goes rigid, strung so tight it hurts. Pleasure crashes through me in violent waves, stealing the strength from my limbs and the breath from my lungs. My orgasm spills from me in hot, trembling pulses, my mouth open on a sound that barely feels human.
I can't move. I can't think.
I'm nothing but sensation.
A moment later, she stiffens behind me with a guttural sound, pressing as deep as she can as the base of her dick swells again. The stretch makes me gasp — intense, undeniable — and then I feel her release, hot and unstoppable, sealing us together once more.
The reality of it flickers through my mind.
No barrier. No protection.
The thought sends a jolting awareness through me, but the thought dissolves as quickly as it forms. My body gives out completely, collapsing against the mattress, trembling in the aftermath.
This time, she follows more slowly.
Her weight settles against my back. One hand smooths down my side, no longer demanding — just feeling. A kiss brushes the mark at my neck, lingering.
"I love you, baby," she murmurs, voice softer now. "Mine."
The word lands differently than everything else tonight.
Mine.
It threads through the heat, through the fading tremors, through the haze of pleasure, and into something deeper. Something binding.
And as clarity begins to seep back in, dread coils low in my stomach alongside the lingering warmth.
"Lottie... what have we done?"