Chapter 33
Julian
Insistent buzzing, like a bug knocking against my ear, wakes me. I groan and swat the slab of muscle at my side to deal with it.
By the grace of Goddess, he pieces together the problem without me having to speak. I bury my face in the pillow while he stretches over me to grab the phone. Finally, the noise stops.
The mattress bounces as Aiden slumps back down, and then everything is as still as it was a moment ago. I’m drifting back under when the buzzing starts again, and practically drags me back to full consciousness by my ankle.
“Aiden!” I groan, sliding my pillow over my head. This is precisely why I don’t have a phone.
“Sorry,” he rasps, fumbling to answer the call. “What?”
The pillow muffles most of the reply, but it’s impossible to not hear the “CONGRATULATIONS” that someone—namely Emitt—shouts from the other side, before something like confetti popping.
I frown, wondering what on earth Aiden needs to be congratulated for, until my senses circle to the fresh mark sealed over my right shoulder. Sleep forgotten, I carefully slide the pillow away to look up at my mate.
Aiden’s already looking at me, and though he’s a tousled mess with bags beneath his eyes, there’s no missing the way his lips tug up into a picture-perfect smile as he registers it at the same time.
“I’ve got to go, Emitt,” he says, sliding the phone from his ear to hang up.
He tosses it somewhere over his shoulder and shifts down until he’s lying beside me again. I pull him an inch closer, and my heart beats faster as that small smile of his blooms into a full-fledged grin.
“Morning,” he whispers. He leans in, tentative, until I meet him halfway for a gentle kiss.
“Morning,” I murmur. I try to bite back my colossal smile so I don’t look so … childishly happy, but I am, so I probably still do.
“How are you feeling?” he asks as my feet shift between his, a small echo of the way I’m vibrating on the inside.
“I’m fine,” I say before his concern becomes my own. “How are you?”
“I’m good,” he replies without pause, a quiet hopefulness in his eyes. I recognise it because it’s what I feel right now.
“I’m good too,” I whisper. “It’s a good morning.”
He laughs, and the sound is lighter than I’ve ever heard it. “Yeah, it is a good morning, Jewels.”
His gaze drops to my mark, and it’s almost like he’s touching it with the way I shiver.
I still can’t believe it. That we’re mated, that we actually did it. And that I liked how we did it so much.
Truth be told, I’d been nervous about the logistics of it all, even knowing which roles we’d take. Sure, I liked Aiden on top when we were making out, but I wasn’t too sure that would translate when we actually had sex.
As it turns out, it translated very well.
Any initial discomfort I felt was forgotten once we got into it, and then …
I shudder, my stomach clenching at the memory of Aiden thrusting into me, stretching me open, filling me with his cock.
Then, as if that wasn’t enough, he marked me and accepted mine in return.
“You’re grinning like you’re trying to seduce the tooth fairy, Jewels,” Aiden purrs.
“I’m happy,” I answer simply, because there’s no reason not to be honest with Aiden. I sigh as I sink into his arms. “I’m really happy, Aiden.”
His gaze softens enough that those beautiful irises seem to swirl with something golden as he rests his head against mine and lets a breath shudder out of him.
“I’m happy too, Jewels,” he confesses, sounding a little hoarse. “You-” he pauses. “You make me so happy.”
My heart flutters and tumbles, and I let it fall. I hope he can feel it—the way he lights me up from the inside. I hope he knows how deeply he’s cemented into me, how much I crave him now, flaws and all, and how he owns my heart in every single way.
When my eyes find his again, I think he does.
Our lips meet in a lazy kiss, and when Aiden’s length slides up against my stomach, my toes curl with anticipation.
This is our last day here, and we’ll have to start the journey back soon. But maybe … maybe there’s still time for the second half of the promise he made me. First, we’d make love, and then—
“What’s wrong?” Aiden asks suddenly. I blink at him, caught off guard, until a haughty smirk twists his mouth. “One perk of us being fully-mated—I can feel what you’re feeling. And you really want something, don’t you, Jewels?”
My face flames. I part my lips, but blank on a response that won’t make me sound like such a degenerate.
“Does it have something to do with this?” Aiden’s hand lowers, circling my half-hard cock, and I gasp as he strokes me.
“No,” I hiss, swatting his hand away as I inch my hips back out of reach. And because I am, in fact, a degenerate in hiding, I make a beeline for the bathroom.
“Julian,” he calls after me, laughing.
“Julian can’t talk right now,” I shout back. “Julian is going to take a shower.”
Maybe then I could think of something besides this new appetite Aiden awoke in me. I can’t even blame the heat anymore because its lingering effects had been smothered out the moment Aiden’s teeth sank into my skin, finally claiming me the way I claimed him.
So this—I look pointedly at the erection trying to poke my eye out—isn’t the heat at all.
You wish for what was promised, Alex drawls lazily, almost yawning as I wrap a towel around myself to hide the evidence. Me, personally? I would ask it of Aiden. He is ours now. Soon, I will ask it of Maximus, and he will give it to me with all his might.
I make the choice to sidestep that alarming confession.
It’s not that easy, I grumble in response.
It’s not that hard either, Alex retorts rather uselessly. Hey! I am trying to help.
“This does not look like showering.”
I turn and meet Aiden’s gaze as he steps into the bathroom. Keeping it is harder, given the fact that there’s not a stitch of clothing on his body. He’s naked. He is so gloriously naked, and I am weak. My eyes drop, and my cock twitches behind my towel.
I swallow as I force my attention upward. “I was getting to it.”
“Need a hand?” he offers, his dark eyes brightening as he shamelessly looks me over.
“Yes,” I mutter before my brain logs back on. “I mean no!”
Aiden chuckles as he stops right in front of me.
“What’s going on, Jewels?” His voice is kind, not teasing. “I was going to be all romantic and make us breakfast, then you ran out on me.”
I shift, feeling guilty and horribly naked even though I’m not the naked one here.
Words aren’t usually this hard, especially not with Aiden, but how do I explain that, while last night was incredible, I’m slightly disappointed he hadn’t seen his promise through to fuck me afterwards.
And not fuck me as in normal sex. No, he was supposed to fuck me as in not make love to me.
Two different things, as he’d explained so nicely.
So now that we’ve “made love,” I want the other thing.
Need it really, because I’ve been secretly dying for it ever since he said those words to me.
When it didn’t happen last night, I thought I’d wake up to it, but he was fussing about breakfast instead of pouncing on me.
Yeah. Is there any possible way of saying that without sounding like a total psychopath?
“I don’t know,” Aiden says, blinking owlishly at me. “Just then, you definitely sounded crazy.”
I freeze, refusing to move, let alone breathe.
Was he just talking nonsense, or had I actually said that all out loud?
“You didn’t say it out loud. I just heard it,” Aiden replies. This time my heart truly threatens to give out as he taps his temple. “Did someone forget to give you the ‘bonded’ talk?”
“Oh my Goddess!” I cry, trying to back away from him, but he follows me with a grin.
“I feel what you feel. Once we mark each other, a mental channel opens through our bond so—”
—If you leave your mind open, I can hear your thoughts, he finishes in my mind.
I sort of gasp and scream, then slap my hands over my head as if that would stop this. Meanwhile, Aiden laughs like I’m his personal jester.
For all my parents’ failures, I did get the talk about what happened when a mate bond is completed, so of course, I knew.
I’d even done a bit of training on my own to be able to close that link when the time came, but all that practice disappears as if it didn’t exist. Even now, as I try desperately to shut him out, I can’t …
because this is Aiden, and I want him in every way I can have him.
Sadly, that means I’m forced to live my worst nightmare.
“Worst?”
“Kill me now!” I groan, burying my face in my hands. “I can’t stop.”
“Hey,” he murmurs sympathetically, all teasing fading as he tries to ease my hands away.
“Don’t,” I warn. I’m not in the mood for a speech about why I shouldn’t be embarrassed when I'm already dying from it.
He nods, giving me space as I turn away from him. But the bond goes two ways, so even with the physical space, I can feel his upset threading into me, along with the anxiety that builds as the seconds pass by.
“I didn’t do anything because I thought it was too soon,” he says quietly. My head snaps up. Our eyes meet in the mirror, and even though I’m flustered, he’s the one who struggles to hold my gaze. “We had sex for the first time last night. I thought you’d be in pain.”
“Why would I be in pain?” I ask, incredulous.
“Because that’s what the websites said usually happened after!” he defends, and I turn to face him.
“Websites?”
“Yes, websites. I did research to prepare,” he says boldly enough to make my eyes widen. “What? You thought I was just going to wing our first time?”
“So, you did research?” I ask instead of answering. It makes sense, I suppose, but in the moment, I’d just thought Aiden was really good.
“I wanted you to feel good, so obviously I did,” he says, looking away as my blush transfers to his face. “And anyway, I thought your body would need time to rest.”