CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Ryu tensed as he felt the impressive length harden further beneath his leg. It was clear that Kentario realised the exact moment he noticed what was going on downstairs. The man pulled back abruptly, his face turning beet red. “Shit, I… Sorry. I didn’t mean…”
Ryu couldn’t think of a single thing to say, a dismal failure after a lifetime of tutoring in diplomatic conversation and politically-correct small talk.
But the stark vulnerability on Kentario’s face mirrored his own sudden longings, things buried too deeply for far too long suddenly surging to the surface.
Just like that jump from the roof, Ryu knew that if he gave himself even a moment to think twice, he’d back out and lose his courage, so instead, he did the only sensible thing he could think to do.
He leaned forward, one arm sliding around the back of Kentario’s neck, and kissed him.
Hard muscles beneath his hands simply melted. Warm lips became pliant, and he felt Kentario’s hands tighten their grip on his arms. There were plenty of complications still standing between them, but that was enough for now. He hadn’t been wrong. Kentario felt at least something for him in return.
Ryu pulled away, breathing fast, not quite able to look Kentario in the eye. Instead, he buried his face in his neck, inhaling the musky scent he found there. Okay, so he’d shown him how he felt, quite unequivocally. Now what?
“Ryu, I…” Kentario pressed him back a fraction, tilting his chin up to look at him. “Why…?”
Ryu floundered for the words to explain what was going on in his head.
“You’ve always been there for me. For as long as I can remember.
And you listen to me, in a way that no one else does.
And you tell the truth, even when you know I won’t like it.
” He shrugged helplessly. “So I… I love you.” It was spoken softly, anxiously, as he feared that Kentario was simply going to tell him that this could never be.
“What about your soulmate?” Kentario hadn’t tried to move away. If anything, he’d shifted closer, hands sliding around Ryu’s back and stroking tender lines down his spine.
“To hell with my soulmate,” Ryu snapped, suddenly angry – not with Kentario, but with the rest of the world. “To hell with royal protocols and rules and tradition and the whole damn lot! Someone tried to kill me tonight. So I am done with following the rules.”
Kentario’s hands were shaking. “I’ve dreamed of you saying that to me for so damn long…
” One hand slipped down, fiddling with the edge of the sheet.
If he tugged it down just an inch or two more…
“That’s why I’ve spent the last few years hoping no one popped out of the woodwork declaring they’re my soulmate. I don’t want anyone else.”
Ryu felt a rush of elation… followed rapidly by another wave of apprehension as reality once more tugged as his consciousness. “We’re going to get in so much trouble for this.”
“Don’t care,” Kentario breathed, nuzzling Ryu’s neck. His lips nibbled at his scent gland, sending tiny shocks of pleasure to his groin. “I’d give my life for you. What more do they want?”
“But you’re an alpha,” Ryu pointed out. “And so am I.” Even with all the recent social advances – omega rights, and beta fertility treatments, and the Goddess pairing up more and more unusual couples – this one thing remained a taboo.
Alphas did not marry other alphas. Aside from anything else, the physical aspects of the relationship could create problems, with neither one of the couple wanting to take the submissive route in bed, but as well as that, an alpha’s natural aggression tended to see other alphas as rivals, rather than potential mates.
What the hell was wrong with him, Ryu wondered, that it could feel so natural to fall in love with a powerful alpha?
“And you’re my bodyguard,” Ryu went on, trying to distract himself from his own uncomfortable thoughts.
“And you’re an Amagarda, for the Goddess’s sake.
My parents will have a fit when they find out…
” The words petered out, and he shrank in on himself, reality once again knocking the wind out of him.
His parents, in all likelihood, were dead, and they’d never get the chance to find out about this.
“I don’t think this was what they had in mind when they tried to get me to choose my own partner,” he said, a hint of desperation in his voice.
“Shh,” Kentario said, pulling his head in against his shoulder. “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to work this out.”
“I can’t do this alone. If my parents are dead, then I’m the king. I need you with me, but the media would start a riot if I married someone who wasn’t my soulmate.”
That got Kentario’s attention, and he pulled back sharply.
Ryu cursed his own foolish mouth. The media were certainly not known for being sympathetic, and the public attention on their relationship could make things extremely difficult.
Maybe he should just stop pointing out all the downsides to this…
But Kentario’s shock wasn’t due to any sudden doubts about their situation. “Marriage?” A wry smile settled on his face, even as sorrow and fear fought for their place alongside the expression. “Did you just propose to me?”
Fuck it, Ryu thought, feeling ecstatic and reckless at the same time. “Yes,” he declared. “Marry me. Soulmate or not, you’re the only one I love.”
“You mean it?” Instead of joy, there was consternation on Kentario’s face, his brow creasing in concern.
“Yes. I do.”
“Then yes, I’ll marry you.”
“Seriously?” Now it was Ryu’s turn to looked shocked.
“Seriously. I don’t care about the media, or the monarchy, or what Captain fucking Landis has to say about it. I love you. I have done for years.”
Ryu felt all the tension leave his body in a rush.
He wrapped his arms around Kentario’s neck, hugging him tightly as a way to block out the rest of the world for a while.
But he’d somehow forgotten, in all the conversation, that he was still sitting on Kentario’s lap.
The man gave a faint moan, and then his hands found Ryu’s hips, shifting him just a fraction closer.
The thick length beneath the towel prodded Ryu’s thigh.
Kentario tilted his head, nudging Ryu’s chin out the way to nuzzle his neck again, and it was impossible not to notice the way his hips rolled forward as he inhaled a long, slow breath, his nose pressed up against Ryu’s scent gland. “Goddess, you smell good…”
Ryu didn’t quite know what to make of that.
Was it possible that his scent was having the same effect on Kentario as his bodyguard’s scent had on him?
Could that mean that he wasn’t defective after all, with his strange mix of alpha and omega tendencies?
Then again, he doubted there were many alphas in the world who went around sniffing one another.
Perhaps the pheromones released from the glands had always had an effect on other alphas and people just didn’t get close enough to each other to find out.
“Do you want to…?” Kentario stopped before he finished the question, pulling back to look at Ryu with an uncharacteristic hesitation.
His hand dropped down to rest on Ryu’s thigh, through the thin sheet.
“Sorry, I…” He pulled his hand away, just as Ryu’s brain caught up with what he’d been going to say.
They were both all but naked, after all, and…
Daringly, he eased a hand down between them, setting it lightly over the bulge in the towel. “Do you want…?”
“Hell, yes,” Kentario groaned. “But I don’t want to rush you into anything.”
“I’ve wanted to do this for ages.”
Instead of pulling him closer, Kentario shifted him off his lap and further onto the bed.
But rather than pulling away, he moved closer, tossing the towel off the bed as he slid in under the sheets.
Then he leaned over, switching off the bedside lamp.
“We need to be quiet,” he said, lowering his voice.
“Oris doesn’t need to know about this yet. ”
Ryu nodded, shuffling backwards to allow Kentario more room on the bed.
Then he gasped as he felt naked skin against his thigh.
Kentario was breathing quickly, the muscles of his abdomen standing out in sharp definition as he tensed.
His hair was wet, hanging almost to his shoulders, making him look roguish and untamed.
“You’re amazing,” Kentario muttered. “Goddess, I want you so much…”
Ryu silenced him with a kiss, then willingly tumbled back onto the bed as Kentario pressed him back.
A tentative hand stole down his side, teasing his ribs, lingering at the dip of his waist, then Ryu arched his back as warm, calloused fingers closed around his erection.
He bucked his hips upwards, impatient and needy.
He let his head fall back, exposing his neck, and felt Kentario’s lips teasing at his scent gland.
“I want you to bite me,” he said, his voice a husky invitation.
At the blatant request, Kentario’s jaw went slack.
He stared at Ryu’s neck, disbelief and longing warring on his face.
It was a bold suggestion, a reckless one that would change both their futures irrevocably.
Before finding one’s soulmate, the glands were pale in colour, the skin slightly raised.
Biting one’s soulmate’s scent gland was considered a sacred part of making love for the first time, and with the breaking of blood vessels as a consequence of the bite, the gland would turn dark, a permanent stain that signalled to any competing suitors that an alpha or omega was taken.
If they took that step, there would be no hiding their relationship from the palace, no denying that something illicit had gone on behind closed doors.
For traditionalists, the mark was considered even more binding than any official marriage ceremony.