Chapter Twenty-one
Cross
He's gone now. I can feel him thinking, but he's gone back to the recesses of our shared mind and soul. I thought he had accepted that I wasn't going to claim her. I knew he didn't like it and that he's angry but I really thought he'd accepted it. But I was wrong.
She smelled so good. So fucking good. Her taste is still on my tongue and I can't help rolling it around inside my mouth, savoring it.
Parker.
I need to find Parker.
Fuck me, I'm angry. All I can think about, all I can imagine right now, are the faceless males who fucked her through her heats. I almost can't breathe through the inferno of rage burning through me.
To make everything that much worse, there is also a parade marching through my mind of the memory of the female wolves I burned through when I was in rut.
The shame of that is almost as overwhelming as the rage.
These are his emotions. His reactions. My wolf finally resurfaced and brought chaos with him.
I'm hard. Painfully hard with the urge to go back to Genie and pin her to the ground and fucking take her. Fucking erase every memory of other males from her body and replace them with me. I want her goddamned saturated with me.
But I can't fucking touch her.
Because I rejected her.
And she hates me.
Try harder. She told him to try harder.
Where the fuck is Parker?
I need to calm down and he's the only person who can help me do it. I have to think. I have to release some of this anger. I need to run. I need to shift and run.
An echo of my wolf's laughter pulls at me and I know he's not coming back out for a simple run. I have the distinct impression that he won't be making another appearance unless it's to take what's his.
“Parker!” I yell when I get to the hallway where our rooms are located. His scent is all over this area, but the strongest trail leads to my door and I punch in the code so hard that my finger bows. I shove the door open and slam it shut behind me.
He sits straight up on the bed and rakes his eyes across my face and down my body before drawing in a sharp breath. “Fuck.”
“Yes,” I snarl.
“What happened?”
I shake my head. I'm beyond explanations right now.
“What do you need?”
I can't tell him I need Genie. I definitely can't tell him that I need to do something to relieve the coiling anger and throbbing need rushing through my blood in equal measures because of her words and her scent and taste.
It's not fair to him. He doesn't deserve that.
But I have to do something before I do something.
“Breathe,” he says, his tone even and warm. “Just take a few breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth. With me.”
I watch him do the ridiculous and useless breathing exercises and I try to mimic them, but all I can really see is his mouth. His lips. Her lips. Flitting back and forth in my mind's eye just to torture me. It's too much.
I shake my head hard, squeezing my eyes shut. “No.”
The bed squeaks when he gets up and his feet are soft on the floor when he walks to stand in front of me. He puts his hands on my hips to steady me, but that one touch is the tipping point.
“I'm sorry,” I whisper harshly, then grab the back of his head, fisting his hair between my fingers, and slamming my mouth over his.
I don't give him time to think or breathe or process what's happening.
I drive my tongue into his mouth, sliding it over his and along his teeth, groaning at the taste of him.
He pushes back for a moment, but gives in when I bring my other hand up to cup his jaw.
I'm trying to be gentle, but I can't. It's been too long since I've had him, or anyone else, and I've never had her, and I think I'm going to die from this need.
I'll pick it apart later and figure out how much of it is true need and how much of it is unmet possession and anger, but not now.
The kiss is urgent and aggressive and goes on until I'm breathless, but it isn't enough.
Using my grip on his hair, I jerk his head back, arching his neck deeply so that his throat is pronounced, then I lick up the front of it.
There is still a trace of Genie's taste in my mouth and the combination, however faint, is delicious.
Both.
I want them both.
I swirl my tongue over the center of his throat again before moving to his collar bone and he groans for me, low and rough.
“Yes,” I growl. “Again.” I suck a mark on the juncture of his neck and shoulder, raking my teeth across the salty skin, and he gives me another sound made of gravel and want.
“Cross,” he murmurs. “Cross wait. Let me catch up.”
I drag my tongue back up his neck and nip the shell of his ear the way I know he likes and push my thigh between his legs so I can feel his dick get harder and harder under my attention.
I need to taste more of him. I want to leave marks.
I want to claim him the same way I want to claim her.
I want them both covered in the proof that they belong to me.
Yesss, my wolf growls from the dark. Mark them. Claim them. They're both ours.
A warm wave of relief washes over me. He still wants Parker.
Both, he insists. Both are ours.
Now that I know he wants Parker as well as Genie, my need races hotter. I let go of Parker long enough to rip his shirt down the middle and yank the remains down his arms. “Ours,” I growl, sinking my fingers back into his hair.
Parker stares into my eyes, blinking rapidly, and sighs into my hold on him. “Yours. Always yours.”
I tighten my fist again. “Mine.”
Then I shove him back onto the bed.
I fall onto him, pressing my full weight against him, pinning him to the mattress the way I wanted to pin Genie to the ground. His erection is as hard as mine is and it digs into my abdomen deliciously as he tilts his hips towards me. Goddess, it's been too long.
His skin is soft under my tongue as I lick and kiss across his chest. Parker likes it when I bite his nipples, so that's what I do.
One, then the other, licking the sting away after each nip, until his hands find their way to my head to push me away from the sensitive flesh.
“Too much,” he mumbles, and I kiss him again while my hands start ripping at the button on his jeans.
After what feels like hours, I get his jeans off and drag them down his legs along with his boxers.
I drop onto my hands and knees over him, breathing in the raw scent of him as I look up into his eyes.
He nods and I grip the thick base of him and lick a wide path across his head.
He gasps my name and throws his head back.
I lick him again, swirling my tongue, before sucking it into my mouth.
“Fuck,” he breathes. “Yes. Fuck, Cross.”
I growl around him, sucking him deeper, using the ring of my fingers to pump the lowest part of his shaft. Within minutes, he's urgently thrusting into my mouth and my own jeans are rubbing against my aching cock painfully. I don't care. It almost feels good.
His fists tighten against my scalp and he groans. “Too soon.”
I pull back until my lips are just brushing against his swollen head.
“Give it to me.” Then I sink down on his length as far as I can without gagging.
He doesn't like that. I remember. He likes gagging on me, but not the other way around.
He hisses and the muscles in his thighs bunch and the sound of his toe popping makes me smile around his dick regardless of his impending orgasm.
I remember when he broke that toe and I love hearing it pop right before he cums. I stretch my ring finger down to brush against his tight balls and then he seizes, back bowing, breath frozen in pleasure.
Then his release splashes across my tongue and I swallow every drop of it.
He's breathing hard when I kiss his stomach and rise to my knees.
“One minute,” he breathes, and I laugh.
It's been so long since I've had this, since we've had this. I feel infinitely calmer. My dick is still made of throbbing granite, but I'm able to breathe now.
He starts to sit up but I push him back down and straddle his hips.
A look of regret tightens his features. “I need a longer minute than that.”
I laugh again. “You can fuck me next time. Right now I need to mark you.”
“What?” he asks, brows slamming down. “Cross, you can't. It won't – ”
“Shh,” I hush him. “Not a bite, not yet, anyway. Lay still.”
Parker has given me hundreds of hand jobs.
He's had my cum all over him for one reason or another many times over the years.
But never deliberately. “I want to fuck you, but I'm afraid I might hurt you right now.” I wrap my fingers around myself and stroke a drop of precum from the tip and swipe my finger across it.
Leaning forward, I smear it across his lips, and he immediately licks it off.
A satisfied rumble vibrates my throat as I go back to stroking myself.
“I'm going to cum on your chest. On your stomach. We're going to rub it in. You're not going to wash it off. Everyone will know you're mine. Understand?”
“Yes,” he whispers.
“Everyone will know you belong to me.”
“Yes.”
My grip tightens and my fist moves in faster, more shallow strokes. “Mine,” I hiss as my balls start to draw up.
“Yours,” he says, raising his arms above his head, making himself more vulnerable to my intent, and that's all it takes to tip me over.
My release rushes from me violently, nearly doubling me over with the intensity of it, but every drop lands on Parker's skin.
It's everywhere. All over his chest, his hips, his stomach, his neck.
Then we do exactly what I said. We work together to rub it into his skin.
He is completely saturated with me. I might as well have put a real mating mark on him.
It will only last a couple of days, but until it fades, my ownership of him is undeniable. My wolf loves it as much as I do.
We will mark her soon, he tells me. Do not deny me.
Once we catch our breath and I'm able to think rationally again, Parker gives me a strange look.
“You've never done that before,” he tells me.
“I know. Do you hate it?”
He shakes his head. “No. I like wearing your marks, whatever they are. What happened, Cross?”
I take a long breath and then explain what happened. All of it. Genie. My wolf. Her taunts. My threat. Everything.
His expression is carefully blank when I finish and I know I've fucked up.
“You marked me because of her,” he says quietly.
“Not because of her, but she was the catalyst for the episode.”
“But you wouldn't have done it if not for her.”
“Not like it happened, but I will always put my mark on you, one way or another, as long as you allow me to.”
“What if I wash it off?”
“Don't.”
“What if I do?” he insists. “What then?”
A low, rolling growl rattles my chest and I can't stop it. “Don't.”
He sighs. “I won't. But I don't like leftovers, Cross.
I need my own attention from you that has nothing to do with her or anyone else.
I can share, but I won't be a second thought and I won't clean up someone else's mess.
You have to find a way to balance it, because this doesn't feel good. I can't do this anymore.”
“I hurt you,” I say, linking my fingers with his on the bed between us. “I'm sorry. I'll try to be better.”
He turns his head to face me. “Try harder.”