Epilogue
Easton
He wiggles his hips again in my direction and the scent of his arousal floods the room, black cherry so thick and sweet it coats my tongue with every breath.
Slick is already glistening on the inside of his thighs and the sight of it combined with the desperate sound he's making has me stripping out of my jersey and shorts before my brain fully catches up to what's happening.
"Of course you'd be the Alpha who breaks my cycle," he grits out into the pillow, his voice strained but still sharp enough to be Kit. "You couldn't just ruin my hallways. You had to ruin my biology too."
I kneel behind him on the bed and run my hands up the backs of his thighs, feeling the heat radiating off his skin. He's burning up, his whole body flushed pink, trembling with the kind of need that goes deeper than want.
This is Kit's body recognizing mine on a level that neither of us chose, an Alpha-triggered heat that means his Omega has bonded to me whether Kit's brain has signed off on it or not.
"I've got you," I tell him, leaning over his back, pressing my mouth to his spine. He shudders and pushes back against me.
I push inside him slowly and the sound he makes is nothing like any sound I've heard from him before.
It's open and unguarded, a long exhale that shakes at the edges, his fingers twisting in my sheets as his body takes me in with a willingness that makes my arms tremble where they're braced on either side of him.
"More," he breathes.
I set a pace that's slower than the heat is demanding, fighting against every Alpha instinct telling me to take, claim, and match the urgency flooding through my system from his scent. Kit deserves better than a rut-driven fuck on sweaty sheets.
He deserves the version of this where I'm present for every second of it, where my hands are careful on his hips and my mouth presses words into his skin that he can feel even when the heat fog clears.
However, every thrust is making it harder to remember that.
His body is so much more responsive, every touch drawing sounds from him that he'd be mortified by if he had the capacity for embarrassment right now.
I trail my mouth across his shoulders and he arches into it.
My hand slides around his hip to his stomach and he gasps and pushes back onto me harder, chasing the feeling.
"Good boy," I murmur against his shoulder and Kit melts.
He sinks into the mattress, a sound of contentment falling from his lips.
I fuck into him, picking up the pace until my knot is swelling inside of him, Kit coming on a broken cry.
I collapse onto him before pulling the both of us onto our sides.
"I hate this," he pushes out, his words a little slurred. "I hate that my body just decided for me."
"What did it decide?"
"You. Obviously." He closes his eyes as another wave crests and his back arches into my chest even as we’re locked together. "It's been deciding you since September and I've been arguing with it and apparently my biology got tired of listening to my objections."
I press my mouth to his temple and move with him through the wave, rocking against him and pushing my knot deeper inside of him. When it passes he relaxes against the mattress with a shaky exhale and I brush his hair off his forehead, damp with sweat.
"For what it's worth," I tell him, my lips against his ear, "my body decided too. Months ago. I just didn't have the guts to tell you."
"Your body decided and your mouth spent six months saying the opposite. Your body and your mouth need to have a meeting." Even during a heat Kit can't turn off the sarcasm and I love him for it.
Kit lets out a soft squeal before his fingers dig into my chest, his head thrown back as he comes a second time, my release filling him up. My knot swells further, almost painfully as I wrap my arms around him. "Stay with me," I tell him.
Kit gasps, his whole body going rigid, and then he softens, the first wave of his heat already passing.
The room smells like both of us, so tangled together I can't tell where his scent ends and mine begins. Kit's heartbeat slows against my chest, his breathing deepening until I’m sure he’s seconds from falling asleep.
"I'm kind of in love with you," I say into the quiet, tired of holding the confession in, the words slipping out like an exhale I've been holding since September.
Kit is quiet long enough that I think he’s passed out until he presses a kiss to my chest. "I'm kind of in love with you too," he murmurs, his voice barely there, rough from the sounds the heat pulled out of him. "Don't let it go to your head."
A chuckle rumbles through my chest as my knot starts to loosen. "I'm kind of hoping we're endgame."
Kit squirms against me as my cock slips out, his scent thickening through the room. I sit up a little to see into his eyes, brushing his sweat-soaked hair from his forehead. His eyes are dancing as they meet mine. "Easton, you're going to have to work for that."
Before he can roll over or curl up or rebuild any of the walls the heat stripped away, I flip him onto his stomach, and slide back inside him in one smooth stroke.
Kit moans into the pillow, his hands fisting in the sheets, his back arching as I settle over him. "How's this?" I ask, my mouth against his ear, rolling my hips forward.
He turns his head just enough that I can see the curve of his mouth. "It's a start."