When the rough, coarse bark hit my spine, I bit my lip because after all this time, I’d started associating that little bite of pain with orgasms.

Even though we came out here to avoid disapproving looks from elderly relatives, it was powerful out here. Something in these woods resonated with me on a core level, so that even when it was midwinter, and even when it was snowing out, we’d still be coming out here, and I’d still be getting naked—even if it was for the fastest quickie the record books had ever seen because I figured tits and balls would freeze before anything else on the human body.

Science.

With my back against the trunk, I groaned when his mouth immediately went to mine. I closed my eyes, unable to stop myself as he supped from me, ever patient, ever calm, and so overwhelmingly delicious with how he savored me and tasted me that I was unable to do anything other than let him explore.

He started things this way often.

Lulled me into a false sense of security.

Letting me think he was this Korean gentleman, but that was just one part of his persona.

One delicious, loving part to a whole that was capable of a fire I’d never have imagined without having experienced it raking every part of my soul and drawing it to life.

His tongue licked my lips as he fluttered it there, letting it tease me, letting it urge mine out to play. With a heady sigh, I obeyed, and moaned when he tangled them together, fluttering the two along each other’s lengths as my breath started to sough from my lungs and my back arched against the bark as I began to wriggle against him. Wriggle into him.

Some days, I felt like I could climb into his damn skin and it wouldn’t feel close enough.

I groaned as he began to pull away, his mouth dropping tiny kisses against my jaw, down to my chin, and when I arched my throat, he let them fall there as well.

When he sucked down on my pulse point, the beat was fast, but the harder he sucked, the faster it soared, and then, he nipped me, and that was when everything changed.

He raked his teeth down over the flesh there, scraping it and drawing every nerve ending to life. I laughed a little, slightly punch-drunk from just his kiss alone as I writhed against the tree, needing to be closer, but knowing that was on his timeline.

He bowed his back so he could dip down and take one of my nipples into his mouth. But before he did, he traced his tongue over my chest, and I knew he was following the lines of veins and arteries that kept me alive.

Shuddering when his teeth raked down over my nipple, I felt the kumiho calling the hyena in me to the surface.

The kumiho didn’t appreciate the hyena, so I wasn’t sure why he always called on it, but maybe it wasn’t on purpose. I’d never asked, because, hello, I was busy, but the hyena always danced away, shying from the kumiho’s strength, and the fox always chased after it.

Pinning it down and doing things that two different species should not be doing to one another.

I groaned when he bit hard on the tip, and this time, there was a hint of fang that told me his beast was close to the surface. I loved that. I angled my head too, and when I nipped the side of his throat, he growled, long and low, and it resonated in my goddamn pussy, that was where the deep notes hit me.

Fuck!

Grinding his dick into me, I gasped, “Fuck me, please.”

“I’ll love you,” he rumbled, the warning clear, and I moaned.

“Always.”

“Always,” he growled, then he did as I asked.

In the blink of an eye, my pants were off. He did some weird kumiho magic with it, and even though I technically knew how to do that as well, my brain’s filing system wasn’t as adept as his. He’d had years to come to terms with his gifts, me? I’d had a few months, and in that time, I’d had things like getting boned hit the top of my priorities’ list.

When I was bare, when the fabric had simply dematerialized, and his clothes did as well, things like his phone and mine, keys, his wallet, it dropped to the ground with a thud I didn’t take much note of because his cock was right where I needed it. Stiff, weeping flesh against my hot, silken core. Robbing me of any awareness to the outside world, to anything other than what we were doing together.

“We’re going to make a baby tonight,” I whispered, unable to stop myself from letting the words fall.

Though he was more at peace with this than I was, the knowledge, that we knew ahead of time, messed with my head.

Like he knew and saw my wide-eyed wonder, he rumbled, “He’ll be beautiful.”

“He’ll be like Knight—they all poop too much.”

“Sabina loves him all the same.”

“Of course. Austin does as well, he just never changes the diapers.”

My love snorted. “I’ll change them.”

“All of them?”

He pulled back, and while his cock was hard and throbbing and my pussy was so fucking empty I wanted to scream, the gleam of amusement in his eyes only ratcheted the need up higher until I felt like I was on a tightrope. “All of them. For a price.”

“Blowjobs?”

A laugh escaped then. “No.”

“What?” I squirmed, his dick so close but too far.

“You have to sit on my face whenever I ask.”

It was my turn to laugh because he was serious, so I shook my head. “You’re a weird guy, Todd Choi.”

“You’re a weird woman, Lara Choi.”

I beamed at him. “Thank you for loving me anyway.” I winked. “I’m one hundred percent all in to sitting on your face whenever you ask me.” Then, something resonated, and I softened. Turning into mush. “Oh.” I buried my face in his throat. “Oh.”

I felt his smile against my cheek. “Oh?”

“I think the kumiho are the best.” Scenes drifted in and out of my mind, whispering inside my head like a motion picture. I’d come to learn that what I’d picked up on when I’d swallowed his fox bead—the infinite knowledge of the universe—was the memories of the past kumiho. His ancestors.

As cool as that was, it was also a little weird when it came down to sexy times, like now.

The kumiho worshipped their women.

Adored them.

Granted them nine wishes that were within their power to gift for the treasure that was their child.

And here I was, being a total and utter bitch about getting pregnant.

Even though I knew he wanted more time, it was culturally a vital moment in his life, and I’d been dissing it.

Ugh.

But, equally, oh.

I could feel tears prick my eyes at the thought, and I whispered, “You’d have changed all the diapers anyway, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course.”

I bit my lip. “Is it strange that I’ll change them now as well?”

He snorted. “No, my love. It’s not strange. It’s you.”

My lips twitched into a grin, and then he took my grin away by slotting his dick to my slit, and thrusting home.

I groaned as he filled me, nice and thick, deep and hot. I felt his cock inside me like a brand as his knot surged into being and it began to vibrate. Intense, pounding throbs that made me feel like I was going insane. I tipped my head back, letting him feast on my pulse point as he dragged me up the cliffs toward an ecstasy that wasn’t of this earth.

My heart began to pound in time with his, my body syncing up as we danced the same dance, to a timeless rhythm that was without end.