Chapter 21 #2
Through our bond, I feel Maya’s consciousness floating in a chemically induced haze.
She’s completely vulnerable, unaware of the violence unfolding mere feet away.
I need to get her out of here before that changes.
When Logan straddles the fallen Alpha and continues his assault on his unmoving form, I make a decision.
I’m going to get her the fuck out of here, Logan be damned.
I let out a small sigh of relief when the door closes behind us and no one follows.
If anyone we pass in the ballroom finds it strange to see me carrying Maya like a ragdoll, their comments are made out of my earshot, lucky for them.
The chaotic energy rises like a noonday sun in my gut and is desperate for an outlet.
Maya’s gentle snore vibrates against my skin where her face presses against my chest. I gather her closer with one arm so I can use the other to shove open the ballroom door and make our escape into the darkened hallway.
I have to admit to myself that I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing. Logan is going to be pissed when he realizes that I spirited Maya away, but I can’t bring myself to worry about his reaction, not when he seems so willing to traumatize our Omega.
Mine right now, the insidious voice in my head whispers.
This protective instinct I feel is just a result of the bond. I know that it isn’t real. But acknowledging that doesn’t stop me from feeling a desperate desire to put as many locked doors as I can manage between Maya and those covetous Alphas.
Then I stumble on a fold in the rug and the movement is enough to startle her awake.
Maya responds letting out a soft moan and licking a wide stripe across the sensitive gland in my neck.
My knees buckle hard enough that I almost crash both of us into the wall before catching myself. “Fuck!”
“Cillian,” she groans. Her hips shift so she can grind against the taut muscles of my abs and I feel the blazing heat of her. “I need you.”
It’s the bond and the blush, I remind myself. She doesn’t really mean it. The drug lowers her inhibitions, and the bond’s whisper becomes a scream when your mind isn’t your own. I know that from personal experience.
I force myself to put one foot in front of the other, struggling with every step not to think about the woman in my arms. Everything about her is intoxicating, her breath hot against my neck as she presses wet kisses along my jawline.
The blush has stripped away her usual defenses, leaving only raw desire in its wake.
“Please, Cillian,” she moans, her fingers fumbling with the buttons of my shirt. “Touch me.”
“You’re drugged,” I manage, trying to keep my voice steady while navigating the hallway to my room. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I know exactly what I’m saying.” Her teeth graze my earlobe, sending a shiver down my spine. “I’ve wanted you since my heat. So much.”
The bond between us pulses with her desire, making it nearly impossible to separate her feelings from the drug’s effects.
She might believe what she’s saying in this moment, but that won’t be the case when she wakes up in the morning and she turns to me with burning anger in her eyes.
I grit my teeth and push through Logan’s room and to the door of my closet, kicking it closed behind me, determined to get her safely to bed where she can sleep off the blush.
“You’ll hate yourself in the morning,” I tell her, as much to convince myself as her. “And you’ll hate me even more.”
Maya laughs, the sound both musical and dangerous. “I could never hate you. We’re the same, you and I. Logan’s prisoners.”
I set her down on the bed, but she clings to my neck, refusing to let go. Her pupils are still blown wide, the scent of strawberries and champagne so intense that I can practically taste her on the air.
“I need to get you water,” I say firmly, trying to disentangle myself.
With surprising strength, Maya shimmies out of my arms and shoves me backward. My back hits the wall with a thud as she follows, pressing her body against mine.
“You belong to me,” she tells me, her voice husky and commanding in a way I’ve never heard before. Before I can respond, she sinks to her knees in front of me, looking up with an expression that’s both innocent and predatory.
“Maya, don’t—“ My protest dies in my throat as her fingers work at my belt buckle.
“I know you want this,” she whispers. “I can feel it.”
She’s not wrong. My body betrays me, responding to her touch despite every rational thought screaming that this is wrong. The blush has made her bold, stripped away her inhibitions, but it shouldn’t be capable of creating desires that weren’t already there.
That’s both terrifying and exhilarating.
With trembling hands, I catch her wrists before she can go further. “Stop.”
Her face falls, hurt flickering across her features. “You don’t want me?”
“Not like this.” I slide down until I’m kneeling in front of her, our faces level. “When—if—this happens between us again, I want it to be your choice. Not because of some drug that you were tricked into taking.”
Maya’s expression softens, though her eyes remain unfocused. “It is my choice.”
“That’s the blush talking.” I brush a strand of hair from her face, resisting the urge to rub it between my fingers. “Tomorrow, when you’re yourself again, you’ll remember this differently.”
I pull Maya up from her knees, steadying her as she sways on her feet, her eyes still wide and dilated.
“Come on, let’s get you into bed,” I say gently, guiding her toward the mattress.
But Maya has other ideas. Before I can react, her hand slips into my pants with startling precision, too fast for me to stop her. Her cool fingers wrap around the hardened length of me, and I freeze, caught between desire and duty.
“I knew you wanted this,” she says with a triumphant smile, her voice a husky purr. Her grip tightens slightly, and my breath catches in my throat. “Your body doesn’t lie, Cillian.”
“Maya…” I plead, my voice lacking any hint of conviction even to my own ears. I’m not a fucking monk here. “C’mon, baby.”
She strokes my length with a wicked smile. “What do you want me to come on?”
I don’t have it in me to stop her. Not when her free hand works at my belt with an amount of skill that completely belies her level of intoxication. Not when she pulls me out and stares at my cock while licking her lips like a kid seeing a giant lollipop in a store window.
My fingers tangle in her hair as Maya wraps her lips around the tip of my cock.
I’ve lost all ability to resist her. Whether it’s the blush or the bond or even, the hopeful part of me wonders, some legitimate desire that she keeps buried deep, it doesn’t fucking matter.
I’ll take what she’s offering because refusing her is simply no longer an option.
I’ll worry about being disgusted with myself for this later.
“God, Maya,” I groan as her tongue swirls around the head of my cock. The sensation is exquisite torture. My hips buck involuntarily, seeking more of her wet heat.
“This is so much easier without a knot getting in the way,” she hums, her voice husky with desire. Her fingers wrap around my shaft, stroking with just the right pressure.
The reminder of how Logan has used her should cool my libido, but I can’t focus on anything aside from the velvet feeling of her mouth on me. “I’m happy not to disappoint.”
She pulls back slightly, looking up at me with dilated pupils. A wicked smile plays across her lips, just before she takes me deep enough that her lips brush the taut skin of my belly.
“Fuck!”
The thrum of her chuckle while I’m still down her throat makes stars dance behind my eyes. The feeling is indescribable—hot, wet, perfect. Through our bond, I feel her satisfaction at my response, her own arousal building as she pleasures me.
She pulls back with a throaty breath, staring up at me with an intensity and focus that I’ve never seen from her before. She trails her tongue along the underside of my cock, smiling wider when my hips jerk in reaction.
“No knot,” she muses with a wicked smile. “But I wonder if the same tricks still work.”
Before I can draw breath to ask what she means, Maya takes me down her throat again, and I momentarily lose the ability to speak.
My hands, caught up in the violet mass of her hair, curl into fists with enough force to leave little half-moon marks in my palms. I feel the urge to pull harder, to use her hair like a leash and yank her closer.
My muscles tremble with the urge to become a true brute, even as I dig my fingers into her scalp in a silent entreaty to take me deeper.
A sober Maya might pull away in indignation, but this one only hums with approval, and that vibration is nearly enough to send me over the edge.
I feel her hand shift down, fingers gently cupping my tightened balls before drifting further. In the split-second it takes for me to realize her intentions, it’s already too late.
One of her fingers traces the puckered ring of my ass before pushing past the tight ring of muscle. She immediately hooks the digit to massage the spongy bit of flesh inside me, as if she already knew exactly how to find it.
That’s all it takes. I come with a strangled cry, every nerve ending on fire with pleasure and heat. Maya doesn’t pull away, swallowing everything I give her with clear satisfaction.
When she finally leans back, eyes dilated black and hazy with drunken pleasure, she gives me a smile that is practically predatory. “I guess Alphas and Omegas aren’t so different, after all. A man is a man.”
I swing Maya up in my arms, intending to give back every ounce of pleasure she just gave me.
Her lips are still wet and swollen, her eyes hazy with blush and desire.
But before I can lay her back on the bed, she surprises me by rolling us both over, pinning me beneath her as she curls her full weight onto my chest.