Chapter 26 – RAFAEL #2
Phoenix does, with a shout he barely manages to muffle against my shoulder.
His whole body goes rigid, muscles locking up as he spills over my fist, hot and thick.
I work him through it, gentling my grip as the aftershocks hit, until he's trembling and oversensitive and making these soft growling sounds that go straight to my own neglected cock.
When he finally goes limp against the headboard, I pull back to look at him.
Phoenix is a goddamn sight. Blond hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, lips parted and gasping, eyes glazed. The kind of thoroughly wrecked expression I've only ever seen on women before, and it does something to my brain that I absolutely do not have the capacity to process right now.
"Your turn," Phoenix says, his voice rough but determined.
I slide off his lap, my own cock bobbing obscenely as I move. Phoenix's eyes track the movement, and I watch him swallow hard.
"You don't have to—" I start, because suddenly I'm the one who needs an out. An escape from this thing we're doing that feels too intimate, too revealing.
Phoenix cuts me off by grabbing my hips and yanking me closer. "Lay back."
It's not a request.
I do it anyway, sinking into the mattress that still smells like Phoenix—pine and earth underneath Bells's overwhelming scent. My head hits the pillow and I stare up at the ceiling, forcing myself not to look at what Phoenix is about to do.
If I don't look, I can pretend this is just... friction. Just a body providing relief. Doesn't matter whose body.
Except it absolutely fucking matters.
Phoenix settles between my spread thighs, and the bed dips with his weight. I feel his breath ghost over my cock first, warm and making me twitch involuntarily.
"Raf," he says quietly. "Look at me."
"No."
"Look at me."
Something in his tone makes me obey. I tilt my head down to meet those blue eyes, and what I see there makes my throat tight.
Not disgust. Not reluctance.
Just... Phoenix. Looking at me like I'm something worth savoring instead of a desperate fuck in a hotel room while our scent match goes through heat next door.
"Okay?" he asks, and it's genuine. He'll stop if I say the word.
I should say it. Should tell him to use his hand like he offered, to maintain whatever shred of straightness I'm clinging to. Should—
"Yeah," I breathe. "Yeah, okay."
Phoenix's mouth on me is nothing like a woman's.
He's tentative at first, clearly figuring out the mechanics, but what he lacks in confidence he makes up for in sheer determination. His lips wrap around the head of my cock and I have to bite down on my fist to keep from making a sound that would alert the entire floor.
"Fuck," I hiss through my teeth. "Phoenix, that's—"
He takes me deeper, and whatever I was about to say dissolves into incoherent groaning. His tongue works against the underside, finding spots that make my hips jerk involuntarily. I try to hold still, try to let him set the pace, but it's impossible when every nerve ending is screaming.
One of his hands comes up to grip my hip, holding me down. The other wraps around the base of my cock, working what won't fit in his mouth. The combination is devastating.
But then again, Phoenix has always been good with rhythm.
I let myself look. Let myself watch this huge alpha male working me over with single-minded focus, blond hair falling forward to partially obscure his face. Watch the way his cheeks hollow with each pull, the way his throat works when he swallows.
It's obscene. It's beautiful. It's completely destroying every assumption I ever had about what I find attractive.
"Getting close," I manage to warn him, my voice barely recognizable. "Phoenix, I'm—you should—"
He doesn't pull off. Just takes me deeper, and that's it. That's the end of my control.
I come with a bitten-off curse, my whole body going tight as release crashes through me. Phoenix takes it, swallows it down, works me through every pulse until I'm oversensitive and twitching and pushing at his shoulders because it's too much.
When he finally releases me, I collapse back against the mattress like my strings have been cut. Every muscle has gone liquid, and my brain feels like someone scrambled it with a whisk.
Phoenix crawls up to lay beside me, and I turn my head just enough to see his face. His lips are swollen, flushed dark. There's a slight sheen to his chin that he wipes away with the back of his hand.
"That was, uh..." I start, but I don't know how to finish.
"Yeah," Phoenix agrees quietly. "It was."
We lay there in silence, both of us breathing hard, both processing what just happened. The scent from next door is still there, still driving every instinct wild, but the desperate edge has dulled. Not gone—it'll never be gone as long as Bells is in heat—but manageable.
My arm moves without conscious permission, draping itself over Phoenix's padded middle. He's warm and solid beneath my touch, and when he shifts closer instead of pulling away, something in my chest loosens.
"We should probably talk about this," Phoenix murmurs after a while. "About what it means."
"Later," I mutter, closing my eyes. "Right now I just need to... not think."
Phoenix makes a sound of agreement, and his own arm comes around me, pulling me closer against his side. I let him, too exhausted to maintain whatever distance I should probably be keeping.
This is temporary. Just two alphas helping each other through an impossible situation while their scent match suffers alone. It doesn't have to mean anything we don't want it to mean.
But as I start to drift—not quite asleep but close—I can't shake the feeling that we've crossed a line we can't uncross. That whatever we are to each other now, it's different from what we were before.
But it isn't regret.
Fuck, it isn't regret.