23. Jordan
Chapter twenty-three
"So what did you say to that?" I ask, shaking my head and not allowing him to respond. "That presumptuous asshole!"
"I told him he's lost his mind if he thought I'd let him come here." Icarus grabs my feet from where they rest on the couch cushion and kneads the sole with his fingers. I stretch out like a cat at the sensation.
"What do we need to look out for with this scent sickness?" When Icarus first brought up the potential for the sickness, I was furious that he kept it from me. But that fury didn't last long. Vick is a doctor, and he'd been compiling research on it and reviewing it to determine if it was going to be something we needed to worry about. Right now, it doesn't appear to be affecting me. But time will tell.
Blush mews at the base of the couch, and I pick her up and cradle her to my chest as Vick goes through the potential symptoms. "It's like any withdrawal. Irritability, insomnia, nausea, and weight loss are the most common."
I chew the inside of my cheek as I run a system check of my body to see if I've experienced any of that, but it's hard to say. "You'll keep an eye on it then?" I ask quietly. "And intervene when necessary?"
"Yeah, sunshine, of course." Out of nowhere, Dae jumps on the back of the couch, crashing into Vick's head. My Alpha drops my feet and yelps, "Goddamnit, Dae!" as he swats at the massive feline. "Why? Why do you need to jump on my head?"
The feline interruption provides some much-needed levity to the situation. The truth is that there is a very real possibility I will have to spend time with Pack Stargazer soon.
And part of me worries that once that happens, I will fold like a cheap lawn chair.
"Do you… maybe want to consider setting up a meeting on your terms?" Vick sighs, rubbing his hand on the back of his neck.
"You mean reaching out to them?"
"Yeah, and maybe all of us going somewhere public and getting on the same page?" I can tell by the tightness in his shoulders that he's expecting me to get upset, maybe to yell and stomp away.
But honestly? I don't have the energy to. I'm just so tired.
What he doesn't know is that I pulled Simon's phone number out of that box, added it to my phone, and have started and stopped at least a dozen texts to him since my heat.
Eventually, I'm going to have to hear them out. The question is, do I do it now, when I'm of a clear mind, or do we wait until I'm so sick I have no choice but to let them be around me?
"Tell me the truth, Vick." I grab his hands and pull them to my chest, ignoring the indignant squawk Blush lets out when I jostle her away. "Do you think I should give them a chance? Not just for me, but for your sake too?"
He sucks on his teeth, taking time to think over his answer. I've never seen Icarus do anything impulsive. He always takes the time to think through all of a situation's possibilities. Finally, he nods.
"I think you need to hear them out at least. And then make the decision. You'll always wonder if you don't find out the truth about what happened." He presses his forehead to mine, his eyes drifting shut as he speaks. "I think you need closure. And if that closure allows you to move forward with them, so be it. If not, we'll figure out how to combat the sickness."
"As always, my love, you make too much sense." I press my lips against his before wrapping my arms around his neck and falling backward, pulling him on top of me.
I'm eager to put this conversation out of my mind, and I know just how to do that.
Icarus' plaid pajama pants leave very little to the imagination, and with just a few swipes of my tongue in his mouth, his cock hardens and presses against me. I throw my leg around his hips, using my heel to push down on his ass as I raise my hips to grind against him. The bond lights up with his amusement.
"Eager little thing," he mumbles against my mouth. "It seems like you think you can top from the bottom tonight."
"Then stop me, Alpha. If you don't like what I'm doing, put a stop to it." A sexy rumble grows in his throat, and he jumps off of me and quickly scoops me up in his arms.
We don't make it to the nest. After nearly tripping over Dae, Icarus hastily tosses me on my bed. I bounce several times before he stills me by throwing his body on top of mine.
Vick can be and is, most of the time, quite serious and dominant, but he's also silly. I never thought I'd want to fuck someone who was being goofy, but he makes it work. Eagerly, my mate removes my tank top, his pupils widening as his gaze drifts across my naked form.
A large hand wraps around one wrist and then gathers the other, pinning them above my head. Icarus runs his nose down the column of my neck, breathing me in before kissing across his mating bite and down my collarbones. Eventually, he has to let my wrists go because even though he's taller than me, the logistics of holding my wrists while kissing down my heated flesh are almost impossible.
His lips trace across a spot above my hip that has me giggling and squirming, and he stills. "Are you ticklish here?" I attempt to wiggle away from him, but he pins my hips down with his shoulders. He kisses the same spot again, and I squeal, kicking my feet in a futile effort to free myself. His eyes light up with mischief as he drags his tongue down the divots above my hips, which buck in response.
My brain is dealing with two conflicting inputs. There is the tickling, to be sure, that is lighting up my fight or flight instinct and a low, coiling heat in my belly that has me squirming for release.
Vick is a generous Alpha, though, and he decides to put me out of my misery by pulling my lounge pants down my hips and tossing them onto the floor. His emerald green eyes take in my body as if it's the first time he's seen it, trailing over every exposed bit of flesh. His tongue drags across that ticklish spot again, but this time, all it leaves is heat in its wake.
"Alpha," I whisper, feeding my fingers through his hair. "Please."
Raising an eyebrow curiously, Vick sits up a little. "Please, what? Go back to tickling you? Got it!" And then he dives in, aggressively tickling me on both sides. My body curls in an attempt to dislodge his efforts, but it is pointless.
He has me exactly where he wants me.
Which, it turns out, is on my side, my knees pulled close to my chest.
It had to be planned because, without warning, one of his hands drops its efforts to tickle me and instead thrusts two fingers inside of me. My toes curl and my head throws back as a strangled sound leaves my throat. My Alpha chuckles, his fingers curling inside me and petting that fleshy spot that makes me see stars.
"Do you think I could make you laugh while I fuck you with my hand?" he muses, clicking his tongue. "Could you still ride my fingers while you're giggling?" His other hand resumes tickling, and the two feelings war with each other, short-circuiting my brain.
It's an overwhelming sensation, the tickling itching a part of my brain that says I need to flee, the sensation almost painful but tempered dramatically by the way he strokes inside me, his thumb joining in and grinding against my clit.
I try to shove him away, and he pulls both hands away, leaving me feeling bereft and empty. Icarus rolls off the bed, shaking his head and clicking his tongue in disapproval.
"Well, that just won't do, sunshine," he mutters, crossing the room and entering my nest. He emerges only moments later with two lengths of hemp rope. "You can't just shove me away. It's rude."
"You were tickling me!" I grumble, sitting up. "If you tickle, you need to expect to get shoved away."
"You didn't safe word me. Tickling is fair game." He stalks back to the bed, sets the rope down, and holds one hand out to me. Gingerly, I place mine in his palm. He takes my other hand and has me weave my fingers together before grabbing one of the bundles of rope and gently, carefully weaving a pretty pattern of rope up my combined arms.
"Tickling isn't sexual," I remind him, watching in awe at how he ties the rope. "Of course I didn't safe word!"
"My love, you're naked, and my hand was buried inside you. This is very much a situation where you need to use your safe word if you're uncomfortable." He guides my combined arms over my head, pulling the second length of rope through the design on my arms and securing them above my head to the headboard. "It makes me nervous that you were uncomfortable with something I was doing, and you didn't use your safe word."
I suck on my teeth, taking a moment to take stock of my body and the headspace I am in. Icarus' hands gently run down my bound arms to my shoulders, rubbing them to make sure the positioning is comfortable. After a moment, I catch his eye.
"I didn't need my safe word," I say quietly. "I don't want you to think you pushed past a boundary. A lot of it is a reflex, I think."
"Thank you for being honest with me." He plants a kiss on my forehead. "So then, where is your boundary?"
"You actually like to tickle?"
He chuckles and shakes his head. "It's not about liking to tickle. When I tickle you, your hypothalamus lights up," he taps me between my eyes, "and tells your body you're in pain and need to run."
"Okay…" I say slowly. "Is this you just showing off your medical knowledge?"
He chuckles and pops the side of my thigh. "No, Omega, it's not. Think of something else in the bedroom that may tell your body you need to run because of the pain?"
When the realization hits me, I feel like an idiot. "It's like spanking."
"It's like spanking." His eyes sparkle with amusement. "Yes or no, Omega?"
My stomach swoops, and I squeeze my thighs tightly together. "Yes, Alpha."
"Tell me your safe words, please," he says as he climbs back on the bed, straddling my thighs.
"Red for stop, yellow for back off, green for it's all good." Sometimes, it can feel like overkill, the constant reiteration of my safe words and the checking of boundaries, but this is what makes the difference between potentially dangerous and abusive sex and the good, healthy, kinky stuff.
It is just one more thing that proves to me how lucky I am in the Alpha department because Icarus finds consent just as sexy as I do.
As soon as the words leave my mouth, he's on me, lips pressed against mine in a bruising kiss as one of his hands tickles across my lower lips. My eyes roll back with pleasure as he drags slick from my entrance up to my clit, circling it and applying just enough pressure to make me groan.
Instinctively, I try to reach to grab his body, but the restraints stop my hands, and I throw my head back in frustration. He chuckles against my lips before sitting up and peering down at me. He's lazily drifting his fingers over my cunt as he searches my face for something.
"Look at you," he says with reverence. "You are fucking stunning, Jordan. Panting with need, restrained and left bare for me to ravage." He dips his head and nips my neck before retreating again. "And you're mine, Omega." Two of his fingers drive inside me, making me gasp and writhe against him. The other hand drifts down my side, fingertips lightly tickling my flesh.
"Your pleasure belongs to me." He punctuates his sentence with a curl of his fingers. "Your pain is mine." The drifting hand becomes more pointed, fingertips digging in and increasing the pressure of the tickle.
Closing my eyes allows me to focus on the conflicting sensations and finally feel what Icarus told me about. The combination of the two is making my head feel that same fuzz and lightness I get when he spanks me but without the stinging pain.
Sometimes, I want that pain. But not always.
As his hands work in tandem, one curling inside me and grinding on my clit and then the other digging into the flesh of my hip and side, my squeals morph to moans of pleasure, which eventually evolve into low, breathy pants and groans as I fall deeper into the space my brain goes when it knows I'm safe and that my Alpha has me.
"There we go," he murmurs, slipping a third finger inside me. My eyes have long since closed, my hips pushing up towards him for more. The tickling stops, but I hardly notice because I am floating in pleasure. "Someone found subspace." His voice is soft as his breath feathers across my ear, a sharp contrast to the firm way he presses down on my clit.
I barely register the sound of rustling clothes before his fingers are replaced by his cock as he slowly glides into me. I gasp out a moan, and he covers my lips with his. "Shh, my love," he says between kisses. "I've got you. It's time to let go."
As if his words are all the permission I need, the stress of the day, of everything to do with Pack Stargazer, melts away from me and is replaced with a beautiful static.
I am hyper-aware of every drag and thrust of his hips, of the way his lips worship my throat. Pleasure spirals up my spine and leaves me gasping, fighting against the restraints on my arms as my body aches to touch and caress Icarus. He snakes his hand between us and rolls my clit between two fingers as he continues to rut into me. Hot lips trace his bite mark, and then he sinks his teeth down on top of it, and I gasp, pleasure whiting out my vision as an orgasm rushes through me.
I clench around Vick and feel the pulsing throb of his cock as he loses himself within me with a groan. He pulls out before he can knot me, and I whine.
"Shush, my love," he chuckles, leaning forward and untying the rope that is securing my bound arms to the headboard. "I didn't want to lock into you and not be able to give you proper aftercare. You can have my knot later."
I can't form words. It's like white noise in my head, a television left on a station that no longer exists. But there isn't anything I think I'd want to say.
I watch through hooded eyes as he gently unties the restraints around my arms, dropping the rope on the floor and taking time to rub each arm to help restore blood flow. When satisfied, he gathers me into his arms and rests his back against the headboard, placing me on his lap and pushing my head under his chin.
Icarus may be talking to me. I'm not sure.
After an indiscernible amount of time, my brain reboots, and I feel myself rise out of that compliant space. I look up into the adoring eyes of my Alpha. Vick's face is relaxed, his smile soft, as he brushes hair from my face. "Hello, my love."
"Hello, Alpha," I whisper, snuggling deeper into him.
And as I lie here in his arms, feeling nothing but warmth and comfort and safety, despite how happy and loved I feel, I can't fight that niggling feeling that something is missing.