Chapter 17
Watching water bead on Brenya’s tan skin might be Jules’s second favorite pastime. The way it ran over her perky tits, droplets dangling from her nipples… delightful.
In all the days and nights they’d shared the Red Room, not once had he intruded on her in the bath.
His wife had needed her space while she was healing.
Needed to know she could relieve her body and bathe without a man rushing in to use her.
Was learning that every time they were naked together, it didn’t have to be sexual.
It could be intimate.
It could be playful.
After all, Jules had studied the footage of Jacques’s particular bathing rituals with their shared Omega—the perfect primer to recondition Brenya.
Armed with that data, he would differentiate his body, his intentions, his lust from the Alpha’s—who’d been pushy, demanding, and rough when he’d bathed the sweet Omega.
Treated her like a paid whore, with orders to wash him, to bend over, to suck.
To perform.
When Jules’s fingers had gone to pull down the zipper of her jumpsuit, his wife’s reaction had been outrage.
She had not forgiven him for the morning.
Yet her affront was snipped, all that energy redirected, when he’d rushed toward the bathroom after a wink, stripping off his bloodied shirt, laughing, while a baffled Omega had been too distracted by his antics to be furious or horrified. “Race you!”
Her jumpsuit hanging open, the look at her face flummoxed, she’d stood there a solid minute after he’d already climbed into the shower and began to scrub. Knowing his darling would fall for his ploy and creep in out of startled curiosity alone made his grin authentic.
Knowing she’d see his shoulder and would be compelled to fuss, pleasant.
The bite mark looked awful. As it should.
But she didn’t know that it was perfect.
Brenya had no idea that her mark was flawless and deep. One any male would show off with pride. And one he had earned unexpectedly.
Of all the moments Jules had engineered to produce a specific reaction, Brenya sinking her teeth into his shoulder had never been part of his carefully constructed caretaking.
Her bite had been instinctive—a plea, and an Omega’s enforcement of her standing.
Proving that the best laid plans offered hidden rewards.
Deep down, she knew she belonged to him. That he would always take care of her.
And this was only the beginning.
Then there she was, padding quietly into the bathroom, curious and unsure. Peeking from the door to spy him under the spray, Jules exhaling loudly, playing up the relief of a warm shower as suds carried traces of blood away.
Careful not to pose for her. Cock flaccid, harmless.
The shower was just a shower. At least today.
Without a glance at her, Jules bowed his head under the spray to rinse his hair, announcing, “I’ll wash your back, if you like. But I’m almost done if you want the space to yourself. I just need one more minute.”
“But your shoulder…” The click of the shower door opening, timid, naked feet stepping onto the tile. A beguiled woman treading into a carefully crafted web, as she muttered, “You didn’t wash it. Doesn’t it hurt? It’s very swollen.”
Jules gave a small start when she prodded the weeping bite, a little hiss as if her touch had hurt. It hadn’t hurt at all—pain didn’t register the way it had before the Undercroft—but his Omega responded with those wide doe eyes, their link tinkling with female concern.
Dipping his shoulder so she would have better access, Jules lowered himself, allowing her to view the forever impression of her teeth in his flesh. And it worked. Brenya rolled up onto her toes, the female worrying her lip as she saw how deeply she’d forced her bite into his shoulder.
Face repentant, she found more of her justified horror over the Omegas in Central transforming into guilt over her earlier violence. “Mine… the one on my throat, I mean… grew infected. Your skin feels hot. You should…. Can I wash it?”
“That would be sweet of you.” Sweet and very welcome, Jules pleased as he handed her a clean cloth prepared just for this.
Oh so gently, she dabbed at the oozing wound, patting it.
And Jules acted the part of wounded soldier. Every hitched breath timed, every long look of adoration placed at the proper moments. Until she felt he was safe in her care, that there would be no reprisal. That he could be vulnerable with her.
She’d be such a good mother.
Another pass with the cloth, Brenya worrying over nothing. “You should see a medic.”
Every urge to breed his mate tamped down hard so she could sense nothing through the pair-bond but his relief to be cared for. “I am a medic, Brenya.”
“Oh. Right.” He could practically see the workings of her mind as she studied her mark, as she found herself drawn to it the more she tended, the sweet girl licking the edges of her teeth without any idea she’d done so.
Right before honey eyes began to dart around his flesh on a hunt for another mark.
Seeking to find the telltale sign that another Omega might have bitten him first.
That instinctive alarm, Jules put to bed quickly. “She never bit me, Brenya.”
“Why?” Adorable surprise, total disbelief that his first wife had not enjoyed such a thing with her husband.
“Perhaps she didn’t love me enough.” Jules felt no shame in such words, though they were not true. Rebecca had loved him, just not… not like Brenya would. Besides, this moment in the warm shower was not about Rebecca; it was about Brenya and what she needed.
And how much Jules adored that she was offended on his behalf. How cute it was that his mate tried to hide it—but the pair-bond didn’t lie. She could hide nothing from him, especially when he had oozed so deep inside her there was no cutting him out.
Not that Brenya had fully forgiven him for the morning, nor the afternoon. “Lucia made it sound as if Omegas bite for control. Maybe Rebecca never needed to control you.”
Careful not to startle her, Jules gently began to wash her arm, making no big deal out of it. “Do you want to control me, Brenya?”
“I wanted you to stop.” Fingertips slipping away from his shoulder, Brenya muttered a sore, “I was scared.”
Soothing, suds-covered hands moved to her other arm, Jules calm. “I know.”
Nothing more needed to be said. No back and forth that he was right and she was wrong. Because he had done it for her. He’d do even more for her.
Give her her perfect world.
“I’m going to leave the shower now.” Pulling his touch from her limbs, Jules offered an easy smile.
“Take your time; stay here all night if you want to. You have a few minutes before Jacques and Lucia begin. I won’t disturb you if you want to be left alone.
Or… you can join me in the nest, where I’ll teach you how to have sex where the goal isn’t a quick orgasm or escape from Jacques.
It can be very intimate, very pleasurable, if we take our time.
We can also play. Have fun…. Yes, sex can be fun.
It doesn’t have to be only duty or the means to an end. Do you know how to play, Brenya?”
Innocent confusion, her blush bright, and her eyes bashful. “No.”
“Oh, that’s sad. Do you want to play?” Just to show her he could, Jules seeped deep into the bond, filled her, surrounded her, stroked her thoughts and desires, and then pulled away the tentacles of his influence like the tide rolling out, lips brushing her ear as he spoke low and dirty, “Or, do you want me to chase you? Did you enjoy that last night, being my sweet lamb while I was the wolf? Shall I prowl and corner and bite?”
He snapped his teeth, her reaction to overt flirtation completely charming.
How she froze, worried her lip, even backed away a step.
But Jules had accounted for that, not just pulling away his influence, but stepping out of the shower totally as he purred. “No, we’ll leave all the biting to you today. Tonight, you chase me.”
And then he left the room, no backward glance, no more teasing, wrapping a towel around his hips and walking off while his tantalized mate gawked at his back.
It was four minutes before the water shut off. One more until she walked into the bedroom wrapped in a towel, hair wet and eyes assessing—dissecting every last aspect of his existence in her nest like he was some kind of insect in a jar.
Territorial. Adorable.
Grumbling, “There’s no room for me.”
There wasn’t. Jules pointedly took up the whole space, arm thrown behind his head as he grinned.
“Didn’t you want me to dress your shoulder?” Annoyed honey eyes darted back to the bathroom where the bandages were kept. “I’ll go—”
“No, it’s better if it breathes. Come here.” Soft. He could pretend to be soft for her… forever, if he had to. Catching her wrist, Jules drew his Omega closer, guided her to dare set one knee into the nest so he could ease her thigh over his hips. “There. Just like that.”
Slowly, reverently, he began peeling away the damp towel around her breasts, revealing the smooth expanse of skin, inch by tantalizing inch.
Tracing the curve of her collarbones with his fingertips, the swell of her breasts, the dip of her waist. Every touch a caress, a veneration, a celebration of her body and the obsession that consumed him.
Jules would be the architect of her need, purring as he invited her to play. “Chase me, Brenya.”
He knew deep down that she wanted to—for reasons beyond just sexual curiosity. Brenya wanted him in ways she would not understand for some time.
And laid her lips on his with an innocence that melted his black heart.
Left him groaning as he wrapped his arms around her, praised her, helped her settle her hips, her sweet folds finding him swollen and ready.
The scent of slick, feeling it trickle over his imposing, ridged serpent of a growing erection as he eased her a little higher. Splitting her labia around his girth without penetration, letting her feel him, experience him. Learn how different he was from an Alpha.
How hard she made him.