11. Kedi
Kedi
The air was ripe with the scent of Conroy’s— Apollo’s—pheromones.
His eyes roamed down my body, and I had to stop myself from preening under his attentive gaze.
He stopped at my nipple piercing, and his tongue darted out, wetting his lower lip, as though he was suddenly famished, and my body responded so quickly that I got lightheaded when all blood rushed south.
Wait, no! This wasn’t the time to be sexy!
I’d hit the poor guy on the head, gagged him, and tied him to a chair!
I was holding him hostage, this was not the kind of environment that people found alluring in the least. What I should’ve been doing was untying the ropes and letting him go.
I was sure he wasn’t a threat to me now.
There was no other reason to keep him restrained. Right?
But then I caught a twitch of movement, drawing my attention to his crotch, and I found him hard and tenting those ridiculous baggy jeans. Did he… like being tied up?
“Huh… Here I was feeling guilty for mistreating you, but it’s looking more like a reward for good behavior now. Who knew,” I drawled.
His cheeks heated with a rosy blush beneath his light beard, and he averted his eyes like he couldn’t bear to look at me.
I reached down and took his jaw in my hand, the scruff rasping over my palm as I tipped his chin up until he met my gaze.
“You don’t need to be embarrassed. I’ll never judge you for what makes you feel good. ”
He huffed out a laugh. “I didn’t know this would feel good.”
“Neither did I, but I’m not complaining,” I admitted with a smirk, but it was hard to deny the heady desire that clouded my thoughts and made me harder than I’d ever been in my life.
Maybe it was just that we were both exploring these power dynamics for the first time, but I didn’t think that was the only reason it felt so damn good.
“You feel it too, don’t you? Like we’re made for each other. ”
I felt his Adam’s apple bob against my hand as he debated what answer to give. “I feel like I know you, like I’ve always known you. Your voice, your eyes, your scent. I feel like I can’t breathe without knowing how you taste.”
“And you know what that means? What we are to each other?” I wasn’t sure what to think. He’d clearly felt the urge to track me down, but if he’d been raised by the Order, who knew what he’d been taught about shifters besides how to kill them.
“Mate,” he whispered at last, his pupils blown wide.
My wolf instinctively reached out for his, whining, but it was like searching blindly for something in a pitch-black room.
I could feel his wolf somewhere beneath the surface, buried deep inside him.
Anger flared when I debated what the Order could’ve done to keep his beast not just leashed but muffled like it was.
“Do you want me to untie you, Apollo?” I asked, my voice dropping an octave into a sexy purr. Using that name felt like a betrayal to everything we’d gone through, but when he responded to me with a shudder, I decided pressing the issue could wait. We had time—I refused to believe otherwise.
He shook his head as much as he could in my grip. “No… please don’t.”
I needed to be closer to him. Finding him was one thing, but every fiber of my being wanted to claim him as mine. I brought one leg over his thighs and straddled him, and when I lowered myself to sit in his lap, there was no hiding that the attraction was mutual.
His breath stuttered as I gave a testing roll of my hips, just the barest hint of friction between us. “What are you going to do to me?” He sounded so eager to be at my mercy.
“Hmm, that depends on you.” Tilting his head back, I buried my nose in the crook of his neck where his scent was strongest, breathing deep, then licked up the entire column of his throat, his whiskers rasping over my tongue.
He whimpered. I’d never played like this before.
I was all about consent and communication, though he’d made it clear this was what he wanted. “What do you want me to do?”
“Anything… Everything,” he said, breathless.
“That leaves a lot of possibilities,” I purred. Kissing him seemed like the best place to start, though.
Brushing my lips softly over his, I told myself to go slow.
A first kiss should be special, cherished, something that could never be repeated.
If we’d never been separated, our first kiss would’ve happened years ago.
We’d likely have been mated now, with our own cabin on the Red River pack land, a whole passel of pups.
That kind of legacy deserved reverence, and that meant taking our time.
But then his sharp scent burst in my mouth as I swept my tongue across his plump lower lip, and I was helpless to stop the all-consuming urge to deepen it and claim him at long last.
How could I have been so na?ve to think a few pots of herbs were a substitute for what I’d truly been missing all this time?
I swallowed his guttural groan as we tumbled into the kiss.
He was eager, and it was clear he didn’t have a lot of experience, but I had no problem leading the way.
I controlled the pace, with my fingers tugging his hair, and slowed things down, exploring his mouth properly.
His lips softened under mine, and when I pulled back and opened my eyes, he looked almost drunk as he chased after me as far as his bonds would allow.
His eyes remained dazed and heavy-lidded, and the ropes creaked when he couldn’t stop himself from testing their limits. “Your tongue…” he rasped.
My smile turned sly. “Mm-hm, it’s pierced too.” I wondered if he would like what else I could do with it.
I moved slowly, giving him lots of time to say no, walking my fingers up his chest, then one by one, I undid the buttons on that garish neon patterned shirt, exposing his chest. As I peeled the sides of the shirt aside, my eyes were drawn to a tattoo of that same symbol as on his necklace, the Divine Order’s crest, branded right over his heart.
I hated that they’d claimed him first, when he was very clearly mine.
I pushed the shirt back over his shoulders but no further, blocked by his restraints.
Gods, he was thick. There was a generous sprinkle of dark hair over his beefy pecs, leading in a trail down the center of his hard abs.
I tried very hard not to think about the training that led to a body like this, then hunched down to flick my piercing across his nipple, before nipping it with my teeth.
His groan was vulgar, eyes drifting shut. “Gods, I wish I could touch you,” he spat out through gritted teeth, flexing his hips beneath me.
“Does it matter which part of you touches me?” I asked coyly, arching my brow as I trailed my fingers down his treasure trail. The tented denim jumped as his cock bounced, and if that wasn’t enough invitation, his nod to continue certainly would’ve done it.
It took very little effort to pop the flimsy button on his jeans, and I reached in to find him rock-hard and weeping for me. The skin of his cock was velvety smooth, and I could feel his pulse chasing after mine.
Giving my mate a hand job wasn’t anywhere near enough to tame the need burning through me, and so with my free hand, I tugged open my coveralls where I’d tied the sleeves around my waist and pulled my own dick out, shifting forward in Apollo’s lap to line our shafts up side by side.
Apollo was watching all this with helpless desperation, his breathing ragged. “Spit,” I instructed, holding up my palm, and he obeyed without question. It was a poor substitute for lube or slick, but it was enough to offer a bit of glide as I wrapped my fist snugly around us both.
With the first pump of my hand, Apollo gasped. With the second, it was a low moan. By the time I hit five, he threw his head back, cursing loudly.
I stilled my hand and gave him a mock stern glare. “Shh, the neighbors might hear you.” I didn’t care much if they did, but this felt like part of the game. “Do you think you can be quiet, or should I put the gag back in?”
Apollo whimpered then nodded vigorously, not even pretending that he could be quiet. “The gag.” Holy shit, this was turning into every fantasy I never knew I had. Who knew how ridiculously hot it would be when an alpha handed me control over his pleasure. I slid the gag back between his lips.
With our dicks side by side, I found a rhythm.
A harmony, a cadence where we locked together, not just in bodies but in souls.
I tried to pace myself, but it was so hard when all I wanted was to watch my mate fall apart, to learn every minute expression of ecstasy that passed over his face.
The entire time, Apollo watched the movement of my hand in fascination, slowly driven mad, his whines and moans building even around the gag.
I could see the strain of his jaw as he bit down on the gag, trying his best to fuck up into my hand, but I had him thoroughly pinned and at my mercy.
He whimpered a muffled plea, eyes rolling back, and I was tempted to draw this out even longer, but I couldn’t torture myself like that, not when my own climax was already cresting.
“Fuck, alpha, I’m close,” I hissed, my hand pumping us both at a furious pace.
I pulled his head back by his hair, exposing his neck, and nipped at him with my teeth.
My gums ached, longing to sink my teeth into him and claim him fully, but I couldn’t do that to him.
Not until his own wolf could be a part of the conversation.
Balls clenching, I came hard enough to see stars. My rhythm faltered, but with my cum adding extra lubrication, Apollo fell apart a few seconds later with a barely muffled roar.
It took me a second to come back down to earth.
Panting, dizzy in my euphoria, I reached up clumsily and pulled down his gag, and he took a heaving breath, dropping his forehead to my shoulder.
“Holy shit. Is it just me or was that the best orgasm ever.” His voice was a low, sexy rasp from screaming.
I toyed with the sweaty hair at the back of his neck with my fingers. “Not just you.” Leaning into him, our softening cum-drenched dicks sandwiched between us, I reached behind him to loosen the ropes, and he groaned, shaking the circulation back into his hands.
“We should definitely do that again,” I said with a throaty chuckle.
Something about what I said had Apollo emerging quickly from the haze, pleasure being replaced with dawning panic in the blink of an eye.
“Shit, what time is it?” He planted his hands on my ass and stood, taking me with him with ease, all power dynamics restored to their default setting.
He set me gently back on my feet. “I have to go, or they’ll think I’m trying to run. ”
That sobered me up like a bucket of ice water, my smile evaporating. “We could, you know. Run.”
His hands paused where he’d been tucking himself back into his pants, and he looked up at me with the largest green eyes, all innocent disbelief. “You would do that? Leave your life for me?”
I didn’t even hesitate. “Without question. You’re my alpha, my mate.” Of course, he was also my capital-A Alpha, which meant that what was left of our pack would want to run with us, but that was maybe a bit too much to dump on him all at once.
His face fell in sadness. “I wish I could, but I can’t. If what you said is true and there are other shifters trapped there… I can’t just leave them behind like that. There are kids there!” Spoken like a true Alpha, and as much as I hated that, I respected it too.
“I understand. I will wait for you, no matter how long it takes. You’re an Alpha—my Alpha—through and through. I would never ask you to leave anyone behind.”
Apollo let out a short laugh. “This is crazy!” He swooped in and took my face between his hands, kissing me soundly.
When he pulled back, his eyes were full of a desperate kind of panic.
“I need you to know I don’t want to leave, but if I don’t go back, they’ll come looking for me, and I would never forgive myself for leading them back here to you. ”
“Will they punish you?” Dread hit me like a stone sinking in the ocean.
He shrugged, trying to be casual. “Don’t worry about me. I’m tougher than I look.” It wasn’t a direct answer, but I understood all the same.
Before I could argue that there had to be another way, that I could gather the pack and go in with fangs out to liberate the pack of brainwashed hunters who would absolutely fight back, Apollo rested his forehead on mine, far calmer than I was right now.
“I don’t understand how being mates works or why…
but this is not goodbye. I will be back. ”
“I know,” I whispered, eyes stinging with emotion. I tangled my fingers in the front of that hideous shirt. “Where we first met in the woods… meet me there on the next full moon. Promise me.”
He stared into my eyes, no sign of a lie as he said, “I promise.” Then he gave me one last sweet kiss, over too quickly, before he turned and walked away from me.
Before he disappeared through the stairwell door, though, he paused, his entire body rigid, and he turned, sniffing. “What is that smell?”
“What smell?” I asked, drawing in a breath to pick up on what he’d noticed.
Apollo’s attention zeroed in on the aconite growing among the herbs. With three large strides, he stormed over for a closer look. “This… What is this?” he asked, indicating the delicate purple blooms.
“It’s aconite. You know, wolfsbane?” I rubbed the back of my neck awkwardly. “It, uh… it’s toxic to shifters, but we, um… smoke it.”
He gave a sharp humorless laugh. “Of course. I recognize the scent all too well. Does it suppress a shifter’s animal?”
“It dulls them a little, but it would take a lot to fully suppress them.”
“Yes, it would…” he said darkly, turning to look back at me, his implication clear. The Order was using wolfsbane on their hunters. “I have to go.” As he left, there was a hard set to his jaw, and I wondered what he was going to do with this new information.
My wolf howled for me to go with him, to chase him down and make him stay, but I forced myself to remain on the roof, watching the street below.
Apollo appeared a minute later, jogging down the sidewalk in the direction of the garage where he'd left his truck.
I stared after him until he reached the end of the block, and he turned just once, checking if I was still here.
Even from here, I could see the way he wavered on his feet, tempted to come back to me.
He lifted his hand once to wave, and then he was gone.
I hoped like hell this wasn’t the last time I would see him.