Eight #3
I could move if I wanted, but with the dryness of my mouth, how hot my skin was, and how hard my cock was, I didn’t even try.
“No one has ever claimed your heart?”
“It never… I’ve wanted others, but not to keep.”
“Why not?”
I swallowed hard.
“Answer me.” The demand was clear in his voice.
“There has to be this.”
“You need to submit to another.”
“Yes,” I barely got out.
“And the other person has to be strong enough to demand it from you.”
I needed to make him understand. “But not just…physically.”
“You need to feel the strength from inside, the power. Only that lets you surrender your body, your heart, and your soul.”
Of course he understood.
“I’m an alpha.”
“You are,” I said, trying to even out my breathing, even as I shivered.
“I have dominion over you,” he whispered, leaning close, his lips brushing against my ear. “Because you’re mine.”
Everything was suddenly hot, the air between us, his gaze, his skin as he touched me.
“You need to be held down and marked,” he made clear. “But most importantly, you need to be claimed.”
There was no way to hold in the whimper that tumbled from my throat.
“All this time, what you needed was a wolf mate, Mere.” His lips grazed the space beneath my ear. “An alpha mate, and that’s what you have now.”
Finally.
“Do you know why you had to have a wolf mate?”
I did. Of course I did.
“Because you’re not a shifter, so why would you need a mate?”
The thing was, I was ancient, but still, I needed his words.
“With all the choices you made, of what you would be, with shouldering everything, with so much weight on you, of course you’d need another to give you peace.”
The tears welling in my eyes were hot as well.
“Your mate who will care for you, who you can lean on. Always.”
“Yes.”
“I’m ready to claim what’s mine,” he husked, turning my head, still holding me, staring down into my eyes.
“Will you start with a kiss?”
“Yes.”
“That’s good, because you haven’t kissed me yet. You don’t even know if you’re going to like it.”
“Oh, Mere, I know I’m gonna like it.”
“How?”
“Because you were made for me, and me for you,” he whispered, his breath warm on my face before he bent and pressed his lips to mine.
The kiss started off slow, but soon his tongue was there, pushing for entrance, and when I parted my lips for him, opening, there was a rumbling sound in the back of his throat that made my breath catch.
Very quickly, the kiss turned hot and devouring, and his hands moved from my face, one slipping to the middle of my back so he could hold me still and press me forward at the same time.
The other hand gentled on my hair, still tangled, but not tight.
I wrapped my arms around his neck, and he must have liked the whine that came up out of me, because that quickly, the kiss became a mauling. It felt like he wanted to eat me, and I had no issue with that at all.
When he finally broke the kiss, his breathing was ragged.
“Listen,” he rasped, pressing his forehead to mine so we were sharing breath. “The first time—it has to be me, you understand? If I don’t… I have to mark you as mine.”
“Yes.” I barely got the word out.
“But after, later, if you need to have me, or you want to have—”
He was so perfect for me. In the midst of the heat flaring between us, he was letting me know that what I wanted, or needed, he would provide. “You’re the alpha.”
“I am. So my instinct says to claim what’s mine. But I’m also a man who knows I’m not the only one who… I mean, I want you to have everything so one day this will be more than a mating.”
It struck me then, what my mate truly desired. “You want me to love you.”
“Yes,” he whispered, staring down into my eyes. “That’s what I want. This could be what my parents had if I play my cards right.”
“What did they have?”
“They breathed together, you know? In sync, all the time. One heart.”
I took a deep breath. “I don’t ever want to disappoint you.”
“No.” He smiled at me. “You couldn’t. How you are with me, with my brother, your concern for others, your kindness and warmth… C’mon, Mere, I won the lottery here.”
The tears were instant. “You don’t know all the things I’ve done and—”
He wiped them away as fast as they formed. “You’re mine. That’s what you are.”
“I’ve never had a mate, and it’s overwhelming that you’re here with me, which is why it’s taken me all night to come in here. I mean, I can barely breathe.”
“It’s perfect that we’re both scared to screw up and worried about the other person.” He tipped my head sideways so he could kiss the side of my neck. “That’s amazing. Don’t you think that’s amazing?”
“Amazing,” I agreed, leaning into his hot mouth as he kissed along my jaw before returning to my lips, his mouth devouring, his tongue tangling with mine.
When I shoved him back, I saw the blown pupils, flushed skin, and how bruised his lips looked, like I’d chewed on them.
I moved up the bed, tossing piles of folded clothes in every direction, and he crawled after me. When I started stripping out of my clothes, he sat back on his haunches to watch.
“What are you doing?” I asked breathlessly.
“In all the time you’ve been alive, has no one ever told you that you are a beautiful man, Merritt Baker?”
I glanced away, unable to hold his gaze.
“No,” he commanded. “Look at me.”
Instantly, without even thinking about it, I was staring into the deep, storm-washed gray of his eyes.
“First time I saw you, I thought, please God, don’t let that man be married.”
I felt my face heat. “Could you please take off your clothes too?”
“Wait, wait, it was just getting to the good part. Lemme help you with the pants.”
“No, thank you.” I sat up and unbuttoned and unzipped my pants before sliding them over my ass along with my briefs. “I can do—Cole!”
He shoved me back down on the pillows, yanked my chinos to my knees, then bent and took my already erect cock down the back of his throat.
“Cole!” I shouted, bucking up off the bed, my hands tangling in his hair as he swallowed around my length. “It’s been too long. I’ll come.”
He didn’t stop, licking and sucking, his tongue all over me, from balls to head, making everything wet. It was heaven, and I told him so in English and Gaelic, as I slipped my hands under the headboard and held on, he feasted on me.
I was panting when he lifted my legs to his shoulders, and when he pressed his saliva-slicked thumb against my entrance, the mewling noise that came out of me made him smile evilly around my dick.
The orgasm came too fast for me to warn him, and I froze as I emptied and he drank me down. I was shivering hard with aftershocks when he licked me clean, lifted up, and climbed over me to kiss me deeply.
The rakish grin he gave me before the kiss stopped my heart for just a moment. He bit my lip before breaking the kiss, and I just stared up at him until he rolled me to my stomach.
Immediately, I tried to push up onto my hands and knees, but he wanted me sprawled beneath him.
“There better be lube in here,” he growled at me.
“In the nightstand.”
He was noisy getting into the drawer, complaining that it stuck, which it did not, and when he crawled back over me, he was muttering under his breath.
“You are adorable.”
“What?” He sounded affronted, and his voice went up an octave, which did nothing to diminish the adorableness. “No. Hot and sexy, not adorable.”
I was chuckling before he spread my cheeks and licked over my hole. After that I was just babbling agreement with him as he stroked his tongue inside of me, over and over.