Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Raven
Alpha Damien was at my side in seconds, his voice hoarse with worry.
“Raven, what’s wrong?”
My lips trembled, but words weren’t forthcoming, so I just sobbed harder. Cradling me like I was fragile porcelain, Alpha Damien pulled me into his arms, and I let him.
In fact, I did more than that. I crawled onto his lap, effectively straddling him as I buried my head in the crook between his shoulder and neck, desperately inhaling his intoxicating scent that had driven me to sneak into his rooms and steal his possessions.
Goddess, I’d never felt more embarrassed in my entire life.
Following my conversation with Elias, I’d decided to let Alpha Damien be and stop blurring the already shattered lines between us. But in the end, I’d broken my own rules. I’d yearned for him. Reached for him.
“Raven,” Alpha Damien’s voice was a low, thick, luscious rumble that stoked a flame within me. “Are you alright?”
No.
I hadn’t been alright since I’d learned about his full history with Rielle and punched a dent in my room’s wall. But I didn’t say that. Rather, I pulled back enough to meet his golden gaze.
“You were laughing at me,” I accused, my voice small, tinged with mortification and almost petulant, the last of my tears drying on my cheeks. A genuine look of confusion settled on Alpha Damien’s face.
“Of course not.” He attempted to seem neutral. “I was just…relieved that you aren’t angry at me anymore.”
I narrowed my gaze in suspicion. Letting out a reluctant breath, a wry smile twitched to life at the edges of Alpha Damien’s lips.
“Alright. Fine. I was a bit amused,” he admitted.
“I knew it,” I huffed, my embarrassment returning with a vengeance as I quickly retracted completely from Alpha Damien and climbed out of his lap. But I didn’t get far.
“Raven.”
In the same breath that Alpha Damien called out to me, his arms went around my middle, embracing me from behind and halting my retreat.
“I’m sorry.” His words were a cool whisper against the sensitive skin of my neck. “I should have been more considerate of your feelings.”
I shivered, hating the way I was already coming undone, craving more of him like an addict. But Alpha Damien was already letting me go, shifting so that he was in front of me, and though I could feel his heated gaze on me, I couldn’t bring myself to meet it.
“Raven, look at me. Please.” The paper-thin edge of desperation Alpha Damien’s voice held was so unexpected that I couldn’t help but glance up at him. His exquisite jawline held a tension I was unfamiliar with.
“I was wrong to push you away after the party,” he rasped almost painfully, his golden gaze steady on mine. “I was so caught up in myself that I hurt you.”
“It’s fine,” I interrupted, guarding my heart, the memory of his bitter words in the car all but a breath away. “I shouldn’t have asked you such a personal question. It was insensitive of me. I apologize.”
“You’ve got nothing to apologize for,” Damien growled, his voice dark with self-loathing. “You shared so much of yourself with me, but when it came down to it, I couldn’t reciprocate.”
I froze, the rawness of his words slicing through me. His hands found mine with a startling gentleness, his gaze locking with mine as he pressed a gentle kiss to my knuckles.
“I was wrong and stupid, and I’m so damn sorry,” Damien apologized. “Can you forgive me?”
My heart spasmed, tight and aching. The truth? I’d already forgiven him for a while now. The only reason I’d kept my distance from him was because I was scared. Scared of the dangerous sway Alpha Damien had over me. Scared of how easily he disarmed me.
“You are forgiven,” I said softly, managing a small smile. “Don’t do it again.”
Alpha Damien’s shoulders slumped with a sigh of relief, and when he pulled me into a tight embrace, I felt the slight tremble that ran through him.
“I missed you, Raven,” he murmured, lips brushing my cheek like a promise.
I went still, my breath catching as Damien pressed a chaste kiss to my forehead, his thumb skimming over my cheekbone. I’d let him go. Or at least I’d thought so. I thought I’d buried these complicated feelings for Alpha Damien. But my body leaned into his instinctively, my eyes falling shut.
“Damien.”
I didn’t recognize my voice. It was soft. Needy. Undeniable. I felt him stiffen at the sound of it. The suggestiveness of my tone.
“Raven.”
My teeth sank into my lower lip, the heat between us sparking and burning. I trembled, painfully aware of the inches between his lips and mine, his strong thighs beneath me, the solidness of his body against mine, the roar of blood in my ears drowning out my rationality.
The next moment was as inevitable as sunrise. It was a culmination of all those stolen heated moments between Damien and me. Every moment we’d denied the simmering tension, building and cresting, shadowing our every interaction at the office, at his townhouse, and even here at the pack house.
But what tipped me over the edge was selfish. It was an emotion born the moment Elias told me about Rielle. In that moment, I’d finally understood how out-of-control Alpha Damien had felt when he’d forbidden me from speaking to Elias and any other male in his absence.
I didn’t have a name for it. Just a word on the tip of my tongue, ringing in my head. Mine. Mine. Mine.
I opened my eyes to see Alpha Damien staring down at me with a look that mirrored the conflicting emotions that owned me. Within a breath, I was closing the distance between us, tugging Alpha Damien down by his shirt and hungrily claiming what I’d tried to deny myself for so long.
Alpha Damien tasted like temptation, spiced heat, dark honey, and smoke, undoubtedly addictive and sinfully decadent. He tasted like dreams I didn’t dare whisper aloud. I couldn’t get enough.
A deep, primal sound tore from Alpha Damien’s throat, and he took over the kiss, dominating me with a need that matched my own. His hand slid into my hair, his grip tightening as his tongue parted my lips and laid claim to me.
My lips parted eagerly beneath his, his tongue expertly stroking over mine as his other hand found my waist, trailing lower—his palm scorching as it molded over my ass and thighs with an entitlement that made my nipples harden against my bra.
I lost my breath and found it again as he adjusted me with casual strength, angling my hips so my legs were splayed indecently over his lap, his thigh settling between them.
A moan rose from me only to be stifled by our kiss as I ground myself shamelessly against him, my mind shot with intense stimulation and pleasure, my fingers tangling in his shirt.
Goddess, it felt so good I would have cried if I had enough breath to. Yet it wasn’t enough. Not nearly. As though he were in sync with my very thoughts, I felt Damien’s hand sharpen into claws and in the next breath, they were gone, my shirt with them.
I shivered, a cool gust kissing my bare skin, but Damien was there, warm hands on my breasts, his body hot against mine even as his lips left mine to trail the most sensual of kisses down the side of my neck, the slightly sharpened edges of his canines grazing that sensitive patch of skin that would have held his mark if we’d been a real couple.
His teeth dug in, nearly breaking skin, and my core tightened reflexively, the delicious friction of his thigh against my clit falling short of the fullness I desperately craved, and my lips parted on a raspy pant.
“Damien.”
I would have begged if I had enough presence of mind to, groveled, sobbed, abased myself even. But he heard the unvoiced plea in my voice, and faster than I could form a thought, I was on my back, Alpha Damien braced above me, his thigh still nestled between mine, the look in his eyes scorching.
“Tell me to stop,” Damien rasped, his tone almost tortured.
I shivered, my breath coming fast as I took in the sight of him, the naked look of want in those golden eyes, the way the exquisitely defined muscles of his forearm rippled as he kept himself tightly coiled apart from me.
Like he had the first time we’d been together, he was giving me a chance to pull away and act like this moment of surrender had never happened. To go back to our normal.
My lips parted, and I dragged my tongue over my lower lip, tasting him.
Alpha Damien tensed, golden pools rapidly darkening with desire as he followed the movement of my tongue, still waiting.
He didn’t realise I’d made my choice the moment I let him catch me stealing his shirt, maybe even before then, when I’d pushed him away in the training room, hoping he’d come after me.
Keeping my gaze on his, I lowered my hand, taking an unhealthy amount of pleasure in the surprised grunt that escaped Alpha Damien as I opened his pants.
“Please stop,” I whispered, teasing as I tried and failed to get my fingers around his sizable girth, stroking his length through his underwear.
“Fuck Raven.”
My name left Alpha Damien’s lips in a harsh breath before his lips crashed into mine.
He pinned my wrists above my head as he kissed me like a man on the brink of breaking.
He kissed me with desperation, like he was drowning and I was both his salvation and his end.
Each caress was a claim. and each kiss a brand, his lips rediscovering me with every slide of his tongue against mine.
I wasn’t aware my bra was gone until his fingers found my breasts, heavy and sensitive, his calloused thumb coaxing my nipple until a moan tore from me. I panted as Alpha Damien’s lips left mine, his head dipping as he sucking my nipple into his mouth, making lightning crackle in my veins.
His hand slipped between my legs and found my swollen clit, fingers slicking through my arousal.
Uncontrollable moans left my lips as Alpha Damien switched between my breasts, leaving a sweet, hot trail of bites and kisses, his fingers playing me expertly as though he knew every inch of my body and knew the exact amount of force he needed to elicit his desired reaction from me.
More clothes fell away until all I could feel was Alpha Damien’s cool skin on mine.
My lips bruised and more than slightly buzzed from his kisses, I sucked in a breath, his scent of citrus and cedar hitting me like an aphrodisiac, my body trembling at the precipice of pleasure only Alpha Damien could give me.
I wanted, no, needed him inside me.
“Please,” I rasped, my hips surging towards his fingers, unashamed of the wet, obscene sounds from our intimacy. “Damien, please.”
Alpha Damien’s lips left my skin, his gaze lifting to meet mine, his eyes dark gold and burning with heat.
“I’ve got you,” he said softly, his voice thick as molasses. “Let me take care of you.”
As Alpha Damien slid inside me, he kissed me gently and reverently, like I was something fragile and sacred. The heat between us didn’t dim, but it shifted—slow, consuming, and unbearably tender.
His forehead touched mine, his breath mingled with mine, and I felt seen in a way that made my chest ache.
“Don’t,” I said breathlessly, heart thundering.
“Don’t?” he murmured, brushing a kiss against my cheekbone, golden eyes on mine, waiting for my response.
A response that hung in my throat. Don’t look at me like this means something. Like this moment wasn’t purely lust-driven but something tangible. I didn’t say that, though. Rather, I locked my legs behind his back, my lips at his ear.
“Don’t treat me like I’m breakable,” I rasped, letting my core clench around him, my voice low and trembling with want. “I can take it. I want to. I want you.”
I felt the moment Damien’s restraint fell away, his wolf at the surface, a deep growl rumbled from his chest, primal and barely restrained.
“Mine,” he breathed like a vow. “You’re fucking mine.”
For a moment I was struck by how much I wanted those words to be true, then his hands were on my hips angling me such that when he thrusted into me, his cock found nerve endings I didn’t even know existed, and I lost my breath, my mind finally falling quietening, all my conflicting emotions silenced as I lost myself in him.
Damien withdrew by half, then thrust back into me even harder, beginning to move in earnest, and the sounds that left my lips would have embarrassed me if I cared.
My toes curled, my eyes rolling back as another potent wave of arousal crashed into me, my body overwhelmed by a pleasure so absolute I couldn’t string together a single coherent thought.
Alpha Damien took me with rhythmic, long, deep strokes, steadily driving me insane as the pleasure slowly built into a wave that threatened to pull me under a tide of want, need, desire, and the threads of an emotion so profound I didn’t dare identify it.
I moved my hips mindlessly against his, the pressure building and building until I couldn’t take it anymore. I clutched at Damien, breath breaking into sharp, helpless gasps.
“I can’t—”
He didn’t let me finish.
“Yes, you can,” Damien growled, his voice low and commanding. “Come for me, Raven. Let me feel you fall apart.”
That was all it took. I fell apart. Helplessly. Violently. My back arched as I shattered around him, shaking uncontrollably, sobbing out my release as waves of pleasure crashed over me.
A primal wordless grunt tore from Damien’s throat, his hands digging into my hips as he buried his face in my neck, his rhythm faltering as I clamped down on him. His movements became rough, chopping, his hips pistoning against mine in no particular pattern. Just raw, unfettered need.
My second orgasm sprang up on me suddenly and violently, my heart hammering in my ribs, my muscles contracting powerfully as his name tore from my throat, hoarse and raw, my hips bucking into his touch and squeezing down on him.
Damien stiffened, a guttural groan of something low and wrecked and desperate escaping him as he climaxed. My breath caught even though I couldn’t make out the words, my world blurring at the edges, everything tightening and snapping.
I came undone, falling apart in Damien’s arms, crying out as my back arched off the bed, the rush so dizzying that the entire world fell away. I came back to myself in pieces to find Damien curled almost protectively around me, his hand cradling my bump.
He didn’t speak. The moment felt far too fragile for that. Instead, he held me, dropping a kiss on my nape, my shoulder, and the inside of my wrist, breathing in my scent deeply as though he’d die if he stayed even a minute without it.
And in that moment, I felt myself unravel as I saw my earlier thoughts for the fraud that they’d been.
This hadn’t just been lust-driven. Not for me.