Chapter 35 #2
He doesn’t finish. Just presses kisses down the inside of my thigh, lips so soft I almost flinch. He’s memorizing, tasting, branding me. My muscles quiver under his mouth, and when he gets close—so fucking close—I might actually scream.
But he backs off. Takes the scenic route. Bites my hip, sucks a bruise, then leans up and pulls my panties down slow, like he’s unwrapping a holiday he’s waited his whole life for.
Cool air hits the wetness pooling between my thighs and I swear I almost combust.
He groans, low in his chest, the sound vibrating straight through my core.
“So fucking wet for me,” he says, tongue flicking out to taste, to prove the point. “Always knew you’d be like this. Knew you’d unravel if someone was patient enough to make you feel good instead of just needed.”
Something in my brain shorts out.
I arch up, hands in his hair, grounding myself with the feel of him—soft at the nape, wild everywhere else. His mouth is gentle, at first. Licking, tasting, learning. He pushes one finger inside, then a second—slow, deliberate, curling just right to make my vision white out for a second.
I want to come. I need to come.
But he won’t let me.
Every time I get close, he eases off, soothing with his tongue or thumb, holding me at a trembling, furious edge. Like he wants me so desperate I stop thinking in words entirely.
And it’s working.
My head is thrown back, legs over his shoulders, thighs shaking so hard I’m embarrassed, but he just smiles against my skin. “Good girl,” he whispers, and shit, that does it.
He brings me up again. And again. Letting me collapse in his arms only to haul me back to the edge. I’m a wreck. Slick is everywhere, the scent of it thick in the room, Alpha and Omega mixing into something that feels dangerous, forbidden, like gasoline on hot asphalt.
Finally, he gives in.
He moves up my body, lining himself up so I feel the length of him press right where I’m throbbing, and for a split second, we just breathe—foreheads together, chests heaving, soaked in sweat and need and want so raw it makes my eyes sting.
He pushes in slow. Slow enough to feel every ridge, to memorize the way I open for him, greedy and grateful and desperate. The stretch is maddening—fullness like nothing, like every other time was a dress rehearsal for this.
My name.
He says it like a prayer and a curse.
“Aurora—fuck, you’re perfect—made for me, you know that? Meant to be right here—”
I break.
The orgasm hits like a car crash—sudden, violent, shuddering. I claw his back, arch my hips, try to rip him deeper, don’t even care if I draw blood. He groans, then starts to move, not rushed but relentless, pounding slow and deep like he’s got all night and a score to settle.
He never stops talking.
Every mindless thrust is punctuated with more praise, more filth, sometimes both at once.
“So gorgeous—can’t believe you’re all mine tonight—good girl, taking me so deep, fuck, I could live here forever—”
I come again, and again.
There’s no time between, no recovery, just endless laps around a track made entirely of pleasure and friction and the absolute certainty that nothing in the universe has ever fit better than this.
He holds out as long as he can, teeth gritted, arms shaking from the effort. When his knot starts to swell, he slows, bracing himself, forehead pressed to mine. Voice barely a whisper.
“Can I?” His eyes are wild with need. “Need to—please—”
I don’t even answer, just nod, frantic, begging, every cell of my body screaming yes.
He knots.
The sensation is like being split open and soldered together all at once. I feel the swell, the impossible stretch, the locking heat of him inside me—pressure and pulse, the raw and ancient thrill of an Alpha claiming, and my body answers before my mind can catch up.
I gasp, then choke on the air, knees braced on either side of his hips while his cock thickens and pulses, and the hot rush of him spills deep, deeper, fucking eternal, flooding every part of me.
He holds me tight, arms caging, breath ragged in my hair. The world shrinks to the circle of his arms and the unbreakable link where we’re fused.
My own climax—already obliterating—shreds a second time, nerves firing wild, every contraction milking more from him. My legs shake, my spine bows, and I sob into the side of his neck, lost to the rip current of sensation.
It’s not just physical. It’s chemical. Primal. The hormone hit as our scents tangle, Omega and Alpha, signature sharp and overwhelming. I can feel him through every cell, his need, his pleasure, his pride in having me—his. It echoes through the link, a chorus of want and possess.
He breaks first, voice a hoarse, broken sound.
“Fuck—fuck, Aurora—” He bites his lip, knuckles white on my back where he grips me. His knot throbs, swelling tighter, and I can’t move, can’t even think of moving, just ride the aftershocks as my body wrings every drop from him.
I’m helpless, pinned, and so fucking alive.
It’s too much.
Too much and not enough.
This animalistic part of me—buried so deep for so long—rises to the surface, hungry and wild.
My teeth flash, and I’m not even aware of biting his shoulder until the taste of skin and the copper of blood floods my mouth.
The mark is deep, a perfect bite, and I suckle it while he groans—deep, guttural, wrecked by the combination of pain and pleasure.
Instinct detonates.
We shudder together, wrung dry and emptied out, suspended in the white-blue aftermath of orgasms too big to contain.
I only know he’s breathing because I can feel the aftershocks in his chest. I can taste blood, a little, and the heat of my own sweat. My thighs are shaking. My throat is raw from moans I don’t remember making.
But I did it. I claimed him.
Not just as lover or packmate but as something untouchable, necessary, permanent.
And with the way his arms wrap around me—gentle but inescapable—I know I’m not the only one who just got changed by this.
We’re fused on a molecular level, sweating and shaking and still hungry.
We don’t move for a long time.
Sweat slicks the sheets, my thighs quivering with every aftershock, and the only sound in the whole world is the sharp, uneven tempo of our breathing. I’m straddling him, more or less—hips arched, hair plastered to my forehead, teeth still sunk shallow in the mark I left on his shoulder.
The taste of him is copper and salt and how it feels a lot like victory.
His arms are locked around me, holding me in place even as the rest of my body tries to shake itself apart. The knot inside me pulses, a reminder that we’re still fused on a cellular level, that nothing and no one can wedge us apart until biology decides to ease off.
It’s the safest I’ve ever felt from someone other than Cale…which feels nice.
Elias strokes my hair—the gentle rhythm of it, like petting a nervous animal or coaxing a runaway engine back to idle. His voice is soft, but under that calm is a steel edge that makes the words feel like a blood pact.
“You’ve got me now,” he whispers, lips brushing the shell of my ear. “Officially. No going back. You’re it, Lane. You’re the whole story.”
I want to laugh, or tell him not to be so dramatic, but my throat is wrecked and I can barely manage a hoarse,
“Good. You’re mine too, you realize.”
He grins, wide and a little wild.
“I hope so. Cale still thinks he’s ahead on points, but… not anymore.”
He shifts me a little on his lap, making sure the knot is still locked, and god, the sensation is obscene in the best possible way. We’re wet, sticky, ruined. The scent in the room is pure Omega-Alpha chemistry, sweet and sharp, so tangled there’s no point trying to separate out the notes.
His hand slides up my back—light, almost absent-minded, tracing the knobs of my spine. He looks at the bruise blooming on his shoulder and his eyes go dark again, pride and want sparking in the depths.
“I want you safe,” he says. No joke, no filter. “Want you protected. I’d burn the world if it meant no one ever got near you again.”
I believe him wholeheartedly.
We drift for a while, his arms never letting up, the knot still anchoring us in place. The exhaustion creeps up on me in waves—first just muscle fatigue, then the blanket of sleep threatening to drag me under.
I don’t fight it.
I let my forehead rest against his, feel the brush of his breath on my lips. My eyes close and open and close again, and each time the world gets a little softer, a little more distant. I hear him murmur something—Italian this time, or maybe just nonsense—and I let the words carry me away.
At some point, the knot subsides. I don’t know how long it takes; time is meaningless.
Elias is careful, so fucking careful, guiding me off his lap and onto the bed.
I whimper at the loss of connection, but he hushes me with gentle kisses, stroking my hair and my cheeks until I can blink back the sting of tears.
He cleans us up with damp towels and soft words.
The praise doesn’t stop—he just modulates it, making it a lullaby instead of a shot of adrenaline. When he tugs one of his shirts over my head, I don’t protest; I just nuzzle deeper into the fabric, soaking up the scent and the warmth like it’s the only air I know how to breathe.
He spoons up behind me, arm heavy across my waist, hand resting possessively on my stomach.
His heart beats steady against my back, and every time I think I can’t possibly relax more, he finds a new way to make it happen—soft kisses to my shoulder, palm smoothing over my skin, words that burrow into places I didn’t even know existed.
I fall asleep, hard.
Dawn scrapes its fingers under the blackout curtains, the room tinged pale gold. I wake up slow, blinking like a hangover victim and trying to piece together why my body feels like it’s been rebuilt from the ground up.
Then I remember.
Elias.
His arms are still around me, anchoring me to the bed, one hand tucked under my shirt and splayed across my belly.
His breathing is slow and even—he’s dead asleep, for once.
I wonder if I could get used to this. Waking up safe.
Wanting to stay. I can only imagine what it would be like to sleep with all of them in one space.
Hell…having a nest would be nice…
And then reality kicks in—Work. Racing. The schedule. There’s probably already seventeen texts from Richard, three from Luca, and one very pointed meme from Roran about not being late to your own career resurrection.
I should get up.
Need to get up and start the day like a good racing Omega that should appease the world…
I try to move, even thinking about untangling myself from Elias’s grip, but he just tightens his hold and drags me back against his chest with a sleepy grumble.
Goddamn it.
I could fight. Could slip out, get ready for work, put on the mask and the armor and pretend the world hasn’t shifted on its axis. I could be the ultra-professional Omega who does everything right, never slips, always shows up first and leaves last.
But I don’t want to.
For the first time in years, maybe ever, I want to be selfish.
I want to stay here—in the cocoon of his arms, in a shirt that smells like him and me and sex and trust. I want to let someone else take the wheel, just for a few minutes, and see what it’s like to be cherished instead of merely functional.
The internal war is brutal.
Duty screaming in one ear, desire whispering in the other.
Desire wins.
I press back into Elias, nestle my head under his chin, and let my body go limp. No more tension. No more panic. Just the slow, perfect rhythm of two heartbeats forced into the same pace.
I fall asleep again.
And this time, the smile on my face is real.
I’ve never felt more at peace for being a rebel.