Chapter 37
THIRTY-SEVEN
Tony
HEATH WANTED ME. MY heart had been pounding with adrenaline, throughout our entire agonizing conversation after Jez and Gage had left—but now those three words were all I could think about.
He hadn’t just said that he wanted to keep sleeping with me.
He’d said he wanted me to be their beta.
There was so much to unpack with that. Things like the way it had felt to wake up in Gage’s arms, when I’d fallen asleep in Heath’s.
.. or the fact that no one had talked to Knox, the pack leader, about this.
And then there was Jez.
But Jez wasn’t here right now. Whether she broke her mating bond with Heath, or whether she didn’t—all of those things were worries for the future, not the present.
“You mean it, though?” I asked, needing to hear Heath say it again. “You’d really want something like that?”
And the part that went unsaid. You’d really want... me?
His green eyes were tired and sad. “I don’t think either of us are very good at wanting things. Maybe it’s time to work on that.”
I should have come up with some kind of witty, devastating banter to toss back to him. Instead, the achy thickness in my throat bubbled up and spilled over in the form of tears. It wasn’t how I wanted him to see me. Those tears didn’t belong to the strong, independent person I needed to be.
Throwing myself at him and trying to stick my tongue down his throat seemed at the time like a completely rational way to keep him from noticing that I was sobbing. Then strong arms closed around me, holding me in place, and tears became the very last thing on my mind.
It made no sense whatsoever that my brain had randomly decided a year ago that Heath was the safe one.
I should have been terrified of male alphas.
According to society, they embodied everything that had hurt me so badly as a child.
Overwhelming physical strength. Out-of-control libido.
Rabid possessiveness. Toxic masculinity.
Stereotypes were just stereotypes, though.
Heath slid a calloused hand up to cradle the back of my neck, using the light grip to gentle the kiss until we were no longer clashing teeth and bumping noses.
I whimpered as he tilted my head back further and nipped his way from my lips, along my jaw, and down the length of my exposed neck. His soft beard tickled my skin.
“Shh,” he murmured against my throat. “Let me take care of you.” Another nip. “I’m sorry I didn’t understand the things you weren’t telling me.” Teeth scraped along my collarbone. “I’m sorry for all of it. So, so sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I begged. “I don’t want sorry. I just don’t want to be alone anymore!”
That was no better than the tears had been. But the words had been building in my chest for so long, even if I hadn’t realized they were there. Now that they had a chance to escape into the real world—now that they had a chance to be heard—there was no stopping them.
Heath rested his forehead against my shoulder for a beat. “Then don’t be alone. Be with us.”
A shivery feeling took up residence in my bones at the idea I could say yes to this. The idea that I could actually get all the things I’d secretly desired, since Heath had swooped in and rescued me from the dead body in my apartment.
Before I could blurt out anything else embarrassing, Heath slid a finger along the open collar of the designer button-down shirt I was wearing.
“How much did this thing cost?” he asked, without lifting his head from my shoulder.
I swallowed noisily, my pulse picking up again. “Um... a lot?”
Hands eased me away by the shoulders until I was sitting upright, straddling Heath’s thighs.
“Pity,” he said, grasping the sleek maroon fabric and jerking the shirt open.
Thread ripped, buttons popping in every direction. A couple pinged against the walls; most of them disappeared silently into the rumpled bedding and couch cushions.
“Christ,” I gasped, blood rushing painfully to my dick
Heath spilled me backwards off his lap. I landed in a heap on the mattress where the four of us had been sleeping. He leaned over me, bracing a hand next to my ribs—his arm caging me in loosely.
“I’m sucking you off until you come in my mouth,” he said matter-of-factly. “Afterward, I’ll do anything you want, as long as it doesn’t hurt you. But first, I want to watch you come undone without any distractions.”
What did a person even say in response to something like that?
“Okay?” I managed.
He sat up, freeing both hands to open the fly on my expensive new suit trousers—thankfully without ripping them. I swallowed an undignified noise as he reached in and freed my desperate cock from my underwear.
I lay shaking with anticipation as he looked down at me. He was still fully dressed, and I was on my back in a ruined shirt and thousand-dollar trousers, my dick hanging out as he gave it an assessing squeeze.
Lightning raced from my shaft to the base of my spine. I squirmed beneath his touch. A bead of precome dripped in slow motion from my tip to the trail of dark hair on my belly.
“Please,” I whispered, struck once again by how safe this felt, as long as Heath was the one doing it.
The gruff, sharp-tempered alpha bent down. His lips engulfed the head of my cock, his tongue rasping over the slit to gather up the wetness there. My eyes crashed shut as my entire world narrowed to slick heat and suction.
I could count on one hand the number of times someone had sucked me. Always before, it had been another random, harmless twink. Someone like me, who preferred to bottom, and who didn’t have an aggressive bone in his body.
This... was nothing like that.
Heath possessed me with his mouth, taking ownership until there was no question of staying in control... of keeping my cool as my body’s responses rose in an ever-tightening spiral.
“Oh, god,” I choked. “Heath... Heath!”
I was worried that I’d shoot off like a rocket before a full minute had passed.
Yet somehow, my pleasure kept building and building, long past the point when I expected it to blow.
A faint buzzing noise echoed in my ears, punctuated only by the wet sounds of Heath’s mouth working, and my own thundering heartbeat.
Shush-shush. Shush-shush. Shush-shush.
I listened to the soothing rhythm, following its gradual rise in speed and volume.
It was almost a surprise when my muscles clenched, my balls drawing up to shoot hot and heavy into Heath’s welcoming mouth.
My whole body trembled with reaction, as though I was dumping an entire year’s-worth of tension instead of a single mouthful of spunk.
Heath groaned, swallowing around my softening length.
I felt oversensitive; lightheaded.
“I want your knot,” I whispered, as Heath pulled off with a pop. My half-hard dick flopped into the crease of my thighs, still twitching weakly.
He straightened, looking down at me. “You’re still not taking an alpha knot without a lot of prep first,” he said, echoing what he’d told me the first time we’d had sex. “But I’ll give you as much as I can without hurting you, pet.” He chuckled. “Looks like you’re plenty relaxed, at least.”
“Can I see you naked now?” I asked, my brain-mouth filter conveniently offline.
“Course you can, not that there’s much to see.” He started taking off his shirt, only to freeze, inhaling sharply.
I rolled up on an elbow. “What’s wrong?”
His eyes darkened, but after a moment, he shook his head and let out the breath he’d been holding.
“Nothing,” he said. “It’s nothing. Get out of those trousers, why don’t you. Because as much I like the idea of you shooting your load all over that brand new Armani, Gage would probably kill me.”
I wriggled out of the suit pants and my underwear with uncoordinated movements, then shed the ruined shirt for good measure.
“Stay here for a minute,” Heath said. “I need a couple of things, if we’re going to do this proper. See if you can get that pretty cock hard for me again while I’m gone.”
I blinked at him, unable to miss the way his own dick was thickening and twitching beneath the trousers he was still wearing.
“’Kay.” I obediently reached for myself and started stroking, even though I doubted I’d be getting hard again so soon.
Heath disappeared, his unbuttoned shirt hanging open, and reappeared shortly afterward with a condom and a packet of lube. His expression, which had been surprised and uncertain before, had grown sharp, almost desperate.
I rolled onto my stomach, hitching one leg to the side in anticipation of the thing I always wanted, and almost never let myself have.
“Gimme,” I said brilliantly.
Heath snorted. “Yeah, I’ll give it to you, all right. Brat.”
The last was said with affection, and I hid my smile against my crossed arms.
As he had during our first hookup, Heath hefted my hips up and shoved a couple of pillows beneath them, lifting my ass in the air.
I floated in a pleasant haze, all of my usual worries and fears growing faraway and unimportant.
Slick, blunt fingers probed my hole, circling and scissoring.
Heath was patient and thorough, but there was an edge of something behind his movements that I hadn’t felt before.
“Ah... you’re ready,” he purred, once I felt loose and easy around his touch.
“So ready,” I agreed, my voice distant in my own ears. “I want it hard this time, alpha. Please give it to me hard.”
Heath let out a low rumble that shivered along my nerves. The thick, blunt head of his shaft nudged at my entrance and pushed inside, slow but inexorable. My muscles turned to jelly as my body surrendered to the assault, sparks zipping up my spine.
Feeling my readiness, Heath began to move in slow, deep strokes.
Not rough, but powerful. Hands adjusted my hips, moving me this way and that until the head of his cock hit my prostate.
I whined, fresh blood flowing to my own spent dick.
With his target successfully acquired, Heath took up an unforgiving rhythm, holding my hips in place as I twisted and squirmed.
My newly awakened erection rubbed against the pillows beneath me with every thrust.
“You’re going to come again for me,” Heath panted, his voice nearly a growl. “Come apart with me inside you.”
There was a wildness in his tone and movements that sent new shocks through my body. In an embarrassingly short time, I was on the edge for the second time.
“Yes!” I said breathlessly, thrusting my hips back to meet him, then forward to rub my aching hard-on against the pillows. “Yes, yes!”
This climax was deep and devastating, rather than sharp and violent. It rolled through me, prickling the hair on my scalp and curling my toes. My ass milked the thick cock filling it, as though begging Heath to shoot inside me.
With a groan and a curse, his thrusts turned sloppy as he spurted into the condom.
“Fuck...” he moaned. “God.”
I whimpered as he pulled out, a bit too abruptly.
Hands rolled me onto my side, away from the mess I’d left on the pillows. Heath urged me to lie with my thighs pressed together. His heavy cock nudged into place where my thighs met my ass cheeks, his knot already swelling inside the warm, protected space.
“This good?” he slurred, tugging me snugly against his front.
“So good,” I agreed sleepily. “Still gonna take that knot someday, though.”
He hummed something that I chose to interpret as agreement.
I wasn’t sure how long we lay there, dozing. But I jerked awake when he gasped and flailed upright behind me, his now-soft dick sliding free of my thighs.
“Whu...?” I asked, craning to look over my shoulder at his slack-jawed face.
His mouth moved for a moment before words formed.
“Sh-she just...” he shook his head as though to clear it. “He just...”
I blinked up at him in utter confusion. His green eyes met mine, full of shock.
“Fuck,” he said, with feeling.