Chapter 25 – Bells
BELLS
Rex's fingers are trembling.
I can see it as I close the distance. The fine vibration running through his hands where they hang at his sides, the way his jaw is locked so tight the tendons in his neck stand out like bridge cables.
I reach up.
Temple. Cheekbone. Jaw.
My fingertips find the first contact point and Rex flinches so hard his whole body jerks backward. His hand shoots up and catches my wrist mid-air, crushing it.
"Wait—"
"It's just me," I say. Calm. Steady. Like talking down a spooked horse. "It's just me, Rex."
His eye is wild. Blown wide, the ice-blue iris barely a sliver around the black of his pupil. His chest heaves. His grip on my wrist is just shy of painful.
"I know who it is," he snarls. "I said wait."
"Okay." I don't pull away. Don't fight his grip. Just stand there with my arm suspended between us, his fingers wrapped around my wrist, his pulse hammering against my skin. "Take your time."
His breathing is ragged. In through his nose, out through his teeth, the kind of deliberate combat breathing that means his body has gone full fight-or-flight and he's trying to wrangle it back.
He lets go of my wrist.
"Again," he grits out.
I reach up. Slower this time. Telegraphing every inch.
My fingertips brush the temple contact and Rex's whole body locks up. Not a flinch this time.
Worse.
Total freeze.
His eye goes flat and empty and far away, that dissociative void I've seen too many times, and his hands ball into fists at his sides.
"Rex. Stay with me."
Nothing.
"Rex."
His eye snaps back into focus.
And then he moves.
One second I'm standing in front of him with my hand on his mask. The next, his hands are on my shoulders and my back hits the industrial HVAC unit with a metallic bang that echoes across the rooftop.
The impact knocks the air from my lungs.
His body crowds against mine, one hand pinning my shoulder, the other braced against the metal housing beside my head.
He's breathing hard.
Every exhale is a growl, low and continuous, vibrating through his chest into mine.
His face is inches from mine. That single visible eye boring into me with terrifying feral intensity.
Holy fucking shit, he's going feral.
That's why he's been so fucking weird lately.
My pupils blow wide.
My thighs clench.
Fuck.
"You don't get to—" His voice is shredded. Raw. "You don't get to just reach for me like it's nothing. Like this is easy—"
"I never said it was easy."
"—like I'm not a fucking bomb you're trying to defuse—"
"You're not a bomb. You're an alpha having a panic attack. There's a difference."
His lip curls. "Don't manage me."
"Then stop pinning me to the HVAC unit and let me do my job."
He doesn't let go.
His hand is still on my shoulder, pressing me against the metal, his thumb digging into the muscle near my collarbone.
His hips are angled toward mine, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off him.
Close enough that I can feel his cock, hard and insistent against my hip through both our jeans.
He notices me notice.
His jaw clenches.
I kiss him.
I lean up and press my mouth to the exposed side of his. The left side, the good side, warm lips against cold fog-damp skin.
He goes rigid.
Stops breathing.
Then his mouth opens against mine and the growl that comes out of him vibrates through my teeth.
He kisses me back like he's drowning.
His hand leaves my shoulder and finds the back of my head, fingers tangling in my hair, tilting me up to deepen the angle. His tongue sweeps against mine and I make a sound I'll deny later, my hands fisting in the front of his shirt, pulling him closer even though there's no closer to get.
His hips grind forward and his mouth drags down my jaw, my neck, teeth grazing the collar I wear to hide my scar.
His hands are everywhere.
My waist, my ribs, sliding up under my hoodie. His palm finds the binder and he hesitates for half a second before his hand slides lower instead, gripping my hip hard enough to bruise.
I yank at his belt.
"Here?" he growls against my throat. "On the fucking roof?"
"Unless you'd prefer the utility closet."
He makes a sound that's almost a laugh. Almost.
Then he's spinning me, walking me backward across the rooftop until my back hits the wall beside the fire door.
Better surface. More cover from the fog rolling past the rooftop edge.
Not that anyone can see us up here, but Rex's body language says he needs the wall, needs the containment, needs something solid behind me so he doesn't feel like we're exposed.
His hand finds my zipper.
"The—" I hiss as his fingers work my jeans open. "Prosthetic. Hang on—"
I reach into my pants and yank the silicone cock free, tossing it blindly behind me.
Rex watches it arc through the fog.
It lands somewhere on the tar paper with a wet slap.
"Graceful," he says flatly.
"Shut the fuck up, Rex," I growl, nipping at his mouth, his throat, everywhere I can reach as his hand shoves into my open jeans. Past the waistband. Past the thin cotton underneath. His fingers find me and I hear his breath catch when he discovers how wet I already am.
Omega wet.
Years of suppressants did fuck all about that.
"Fuck," he breathes.
"Yeah." I grab his belt with both hands and work it open. "About that. There's something I need to tell you—"
"Don't," he growls. "Save it."
"Rex."
He ignores me as if he knows exactly what I'm trying to tell him and he isn't ready.
As if he just needs a distraction right now.
It takes some maneuvering. Jeans shoved down enough to work. His cock freed from his zipper, heavy and hot in my hand. The scar spiraling down his shaft catches on my palm and he winces, that familiar flash of pain chased by a snarl.
"Careful," he growls.
"I know." I ease my grip. Stroke the underside where the skin is smooth and unmarred. He shudders, his forehead dropping against mine.
He lifts me.
Just grabs my thighs and hauls me up like I weigh nothing, my back sliding against the wall, my legs wrapping around his waist. The position puts us eye to eye and the naked want on the visible half of his face makes my chest cave in.
"Tell me to stop," he grits out.
The head of his cock presses against my entrance, slick and hot.
"No."
"Bells—"
"No, Rex. Don't you fucking dare stop."
He pushes in.
My head cracks back against the wall.
Stars.
Actual fucking stars.
He's so big it burns, that stretch of being filled completely, every nerve ending lighting up at once. The scar on his shaft drags against my walls and he makes a broken sound, a half-feral growl, his fingers digging into my thighs.
"You sure?" His voice is wrecked.
"Don't—don't fucking check on me. Just fuck me. Just—AH!"
He thrusts and the world whites out.
Rex fucks like he fights. Brutal, aggressive, every snap of his hips driving me up the wall until my shoulders scrape brick and I don't care, can't fucking care, because he's hitting something deep inside me that turns my vision to static.
"Fuck—Rex!"
His mouth finds my throat. Teeth scrape the leather collar and a snarl rips through him, animal and raw, vibrating against my pulse point. His fingers are bruising divots into my thighs where he's holding me pinned, my legs locked around his waist, my back arched off the wall to take him deeper.
He drives in again.
Hard.
I bite down on his shoulder to muffle the scream.
"Don't," he growls against my ear. "Let me hear you."
"We're on a roof—"
"I don't give a fuck."
He punctuates it with a thrust so deep my vision goes black at the edges. The sound that comes out of me is obscene. High and broken and nothing like the voice I use onstage, nothing like Bells, nothing male or controlled or composed.
Just me.
Just omega.
Rex doesn't stop. Doesn't slow down. His pace is relentless, punishing, every thrust rocking me against the wall with enough force that I can feel the grit of the brick scratching my skin through my hoodie.
His cock drags against that spot inside me again and I clench around him involuntarily. He groans—low, guttural, ripped from somewhere primal—and his rhythm stutters.
"Do that again," he snarls.
"Do what—"
"That." He shifts his angle. Drives deeper. Hits it perfectly.
I clench again and his whole body shudders.
"Fuck!"
His hand leaves my thigh. For one terrifying second I think I'm going to fall and crack my head open, but his other arm bands around my waist like a steel cable, holding me effortlessly while his freed hand shoves my hoodie up. Past my stomach. Past the bottom edge of the binder.
He doesn't try to get under it. Just presses his palm flat against my ribs, right below, fingers splayed, feeling me breathe. Feeling me shake apart.
Something cracks behind his eye. Whatever leash he's been keeping on himself—and there was a leash, I can see that now, can see the restraint he's been exercising even while his eye burns with half-feral light—snaps.
He pulls almost all the way out.
Slams back in.
I scream.
His hand claps over my mouth. Not rough. Just there, muffling the sound, his palm hot and calloused against my lips. His eye bores into mine, wild and blown, that single blue iris swallowed almost entirely by black.
"Thought you didn't give a fuck," I manage against his palm, nipping at his skin.
"Changed my mind." But his hips don't slow. If anything they speed up, each thrust jolting through my entire body, his cock stretching me so full I can feel him in my teeth. "You're not… you're not a fucking beta."
I swallow hard and laugh nervously. The laugh is cut off by another cry as the head of his cock slams into something sensitive and throbbing I'm pretty sure is my godsdamned cervix.
"I tried to tell you—"
"You're an omega." His voice drops to something feral and dangerous. "I can smell you."
Shit.