Chapter 51
fifty-one
brIAR
Letting myself fall into Rhys feels like being reborn.
I’m suddenly a phoenix. Plummeting into fear and darkness. Burning to ash.
Rising. Rising.
Alive.
Rhys catches me close, letting me sink into his depths. The terrifying, bittersweet ones I’ve stared into so many times, without ever having the courage to dive.
I take the leap now. Kissing the mean, misunderstood, menacing man who—oh God—seems to maybe love me.
And it feels good.
Like abandon and exhilaration and perhaps even something sacred.
Rhys groans, clasping a hand around my jaw and tilting my face to plunge his tongue into my mouth. A tremor darts down my spine, landing between my hips with a wet squelch. Perfume pours out of me, along with enough slick to dampen the back of my dress and his lap.
I tense, certain he’s about to rage at me for ruining our civilized appearances—but my mate hums gently, his smooth purr bleeding into the bass from the symphony’s score. “Shh, pretty baby. That’s okay. I want every drop of your slick. Get it all over me.”
His words are almost as arousing as his touch.
While one hand holds my cheek, the other slips between my legs, gathering the evidence of my desire on his palm.
He brings it to his lips, licking the glossy wetness off his fingers while his gaze burns into mine.
With every lap, I feel his cock tick harder against my ass.
“Seriously,” I whine under my breath. “You have to stop. I’m going to ruin your suit.”
Electricity snaps in his light eyes. “Fuck my suit,” he decides, lifting me with one arm and shoving his pants down with the other. “Fuck everyone and everything but you and me. Because that’s all that matters, Briar. It’s all that ever has.”
He’s lying. A week ago, he openly loathed me. Wanted to hurt me. Of course I’m not the one thing that mattered to him.
But it’s nice, just for a second, to let his words soak into my center. And pretend they could be true.
My Omega practically glows, begging me to give her just one more minute before I yank us away. Please. I know he hurt you… but he’s my Alpha.
She’s trying to understand, but she really can’t. Rhys hated me, not her. Besides, she’s the only reason he’s looking at me like this now.
I spent weeks ignoring my Omega’s pleas, though. All it did was prolong the inevitable—because as I sit here, with the orchestra swelling behind me and Rhys burning a path to my soul, I know the truth.
This bond between us is eternal.
And I have to try.
I have to let him try.
He’s already better than I ever imagined he could be. Ghostly eyes move over my features in slow brushes, absorbing every flicker of feeling I reveal, voluntary or not. His hands find my bare skin. Teasing, tender caresses leave embers in their wake.
When Rhys slowly lifts my hand to his face and rubs a scent-mark over my knuckles, he lets his eyes fall shut. Earnest yearning lines his perfect features as he exhales.
He’s shaking.
And letting me see it.
Certainty soothes the restless shift in my center. Swallowing the tangle in my throat, I glance behind me. It’s perfectly dark up here—and the patrons in the balconies across from ours are thoroughly engrossed in the scene on stage…
I slide off the alpha’s lap. Rhys pants, watching with rapt attention as I push my panties down. I move to kick them away, but he muffles a growl, snapping his arm down to swipe them from the carpeted floor.
When he tucks the black-lace scrap into his pocket, his voice drops into a husk. Signaling that his Alpha is speaking as much as he is. “These are mine now,” he decides, gaze brightening. “No one else can have your scent.”
Part of me wants to point out that, if we continue, everyone in the surrounding boxes will surely pick up on it. And his. But that thought puts an unfamiliar pinch of possession on my next breath, lining it with an omega growl I can’t control.
Rhys’s eyes glimmer. His cock kicks higher, the knot at the base already so full it’s nearly purple. I lick my lips when an herbaceous burst of his alpha essence winds into my tart scent, the combination dizzying.
“If you’re mine, then I’m yours, too,” he roughs out, fisting himself and offering the glistening erection to me. “Use me, viper.”
Fresh need razes a hot path through my veins, thickening the throb between my thighs. All the muscles begging for the stretch of his perfectly-carved shaft clamp on air.
I know it’s usually the men in romance books having a fuck it moment, but…
Fuck it.
I straddle the beautiful alpha, letting him balance us while I focus on getting his cock inside me.
His long fingers—littered with fresh callouses from his violin—clutch my upper thighs, shoving my silky slip-dress up to my waist. He fists the skirt at the small of my back, leaving our lower halves bared as my slippery pussy lips gloss his cock.
His body shudders. Sharp, feral eyes snap to the space behind me, scanning the audience to make sure no one can see us.
Rhys plants his feet and pushes his chair back, drawing us farther into the shadows. Purring and wrapping me closer, his free hand gropes blindly for his discarded jacket, settling it over my shoulders. Ensuring I’m covered.
Oh.
That one gesture makes me feel more secure and protected than any pretty words ever could. It releases the last of my doubt, leaving me free to ride the wave of pure desperation rearing high in my middle.
My Omega whines. I lurch upright, positioning his wide, pulsing head at the quivering hole carved into my core. Slick gushes down his broad length. He moans, the pained plea lost to a burst of wind instruments.
I can’t resist drawing more desperation out of him. Bringing him lower. And he loves it.
Rhys’s head falls back as I swivel my hips in a slow circle, following the rhythm of the string melody below. “Briar,” he chokes, the word a quivering breath against my throat. “Jesus Christ.”
Watching his unrestrained pleasure sends a warm burst of bliss dripping from my pussy. Slick shimmers in the low light, glistening on my thighs, his knot, the straining hardness jerking with every pass of my lips over the taut, hot skin.
He openly squirms, chest heaving under his silk shirt. I see the letters inked there—DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR—and nearly smirk.
“Not so proud now, venom?” I murmur.
Rhys’s hips buck, the fist thick inch of his cock slipping into my clenching heat. His eyes glimmer, but the deepest, truest want burns behind his lust. “When it comes to you?” he pants out, “I have no pride, Briar.”
The words knock me off my game. I freeze, blinking down at his sincere expression. Rhys sighs and reaches up to cup my face, whispering, “It’s okay. Pride has no place between mates. I don’t need it; not if I have you.”
Maybe he’s right. Maybe that’s why I find myself sobbing as I finally lower myself onto his cock. Maybe that’s why I don’t care when he witnesses my features contorting in breathless, agonized pleasure.
We stare into one another, both of us open-mouthed with awe. A low groan tears up his throat when my internal muscles flex around his girth.
I can’t help it, though. He feels perfect. A missing piece, striking an empty ache I didn’t know I had.
The urge to ride him overwhelms me. Behind us, the symphony crescendos, its epic score breaking into a gallop the same moment I do. Rhys snarls, his cock vibrating on the serrated sound and reverberating with lingering purrs while he thrusts, meeting every plunge of my hips.
The weight of his girth, the way his veins rub at all the nerves tingling for his knot… I know I won’t last past this one movement.
But neither will he.
True to his word, Rhys throws his dignity aside, laying himself bare before me. Showing me how his teeth grind when he struggles to hold on, letting me hear the masculine moans he can’t control.
I love it.
I hate him for making me love it.
The closer I get to the edge, the faster my blood races. Rage and arousal and—fuck it, fuck it, fuck it—adoration sing through my veins.
I feel wounded. Sliced open. Exposed.
Instincts overtake my ability to reason. My hand scrabbles for the garter strapped to my thigh, twirling my knife and bringing it to his throat.
Rhys gasps, his hands clutching me harder. Wild want flares in his gaze, singeing me. His rolling hips stutter, but only for a moment. Just long enough for me to catch the deliberate way he stretches his neck to the side.
Submission, my Omega says, her voice as dazed as my thoughts. He’s giving us his throat.
It’s symbolic in a hundred small ways and one big one—this alpha has offered me his body, his pride, and now his life.
Yours, his eyes vow, so sure and steady. Burning, burning.
Bite me, viper.
Fuck, he really would let me. I could sink my teeth into him—or my blade. And it would only make him want me more.
The utter devotion layered into that absolute truth is enough to wind me. Breath sloughs from my lungs, but I don’t want it back.
I want—
I want—
My other hand finds his, curling around the fingers holding my jaw, dragging them lower. To close around my throat.
Understanding shimmers in his gaze, stretching taut between us.
Rhys is mine. But part of me is his, too.
Even if it hurts.
Especially then.
“Come here,” he rasps, guiding me into faster undulations of his beautiful body. Once he has our rhythm right back to the panting pace that steals my sanity, he slides his free fingers between our centers.
Rhys squeezes his knot, positioning his knuckles right where they’ll rub the bottom of my clit on every plunge. A ragged gasp squeaks through my narrow airway. When I whimper, Rhys purrs louder, pressing my windpipe until the balcony blurs.
He flips his fingers, grazing quick circles over my clit. The tension stretched through my core cracks and crumbles, a soul-stealing orgasm flaring. It feels like fireworks—a cacophony of light and color. Pops and sizzles. Hot, blinding flashes.