Chapter 6
Milo
It's been maybe three seconds, but it feels like an hour. Callum's thumb strokes across the inside of my wrist—just once, barely there—and the sound I make is so embarrassing I'd crawl out the tiny bathroom window if I could fit.
It's a shaky, desperate little whine that slips out before my brain can stop it.
Callum's eyes go completely black.
His free hand comes up, cupping the back of my neck. His palm is huge, his fingers tangling in my curls with a grip firm enough that I feel it in my teeth. He pulls me forward and kisses me.
Hard and hungry. I grab the front of his shirt with both fists and pull him in, the wet, desperate sound of our mouths loud in the quiet bathroom.
He tastes like the garlic bread he was sampling earlier, mixed with something sharp and entirely him.
The pull of his fingers sends sparks straight down my spine as he pushes me back against the counter.
He's hard. His cock is thick and rigid against my hip through our jeans. The realization that Callum Hayes—careful, responsible Callum—is hard for me, kissing me like he's starving, makes my knees weak. He wants this.
The cut on my finger is forgotten. I don't give a shit about the running faucet.
His hands won't stay still. One second they're in my hair, the next his fingers are digging into my hip hard enough to bruise.
He finds the hem of my sweater, sliding his rough palm underneath to press flat against the bare skin of my waist. I gasp into his mouth.
The contrast of his calloused hand on my skin shorts out every thought I have.
His hand slides up my ribs, then down to my stomach.
My stomach. The soft, round part of me I've never let anyone touch without sucking in.
His palm presses flat against the curve of my belly, and he makes this low, guttural sound against my mouth.
His fingers spread wide, and instead of pulling away, he pushes in.
Like it's the best thing he's ever touched.
My eyes sting. I blink the hot flash away fast, but nobody's ever touched me there like that. Like they wanted more of it. Like I'm something worth holding onto.
Callum's mouth drags from my lips to my jaw, his nose trailing along the line of my throat.
He inhales deeply, scenting me, and a continuous, low rumble vibrates against my skin.
It makes the slick worse. Hot and wet, running down the insides of my thighs, soaking my boxers.
My cock aches, trapped against my zipper.
When Callum scrapes his teeth over my pulse point and sucks, I moan loud enough that we should both be worried about Ava hearing us. Neither of us stops.
"Fuck, Milo," he rasps. His voice is wrecked. "You're so fucking soft."
His grip shifts to the backs of my thighs, and he lifts me. He just picks me up like I weigh absolutely nothing and sets me on the counter next to the sink. I let out a startled, filthy sound. Being manhandled by a six-foot-one firefighter does something to my brain that I'll have to unpack later.
My legs spread on instinct. He steps into my space, his hips pressing against the insides of my thighs, his cock grinding against mine through our clothes.
We both groan. He rolls his hips, a slow, deliberate friction through two layers of denim.
I wrap my legs around his waist, pulling him tighter.
My head falls back against the cold mirror.
He takes the exposed line of my neck like an invitation, mouthing at my pulse, sucking a bruise into the skin that feels like the promise of a bite.
"Can smell you," he growls against my neck. He rolls his hips again, and I whimper. "Soaked for me, aren't you?"
"Yes." My voice doesn't even sound like mine.
Callum's grip on my hips tightens.
"Been wanting to touch you," he murmurs, the words broken between kisses pressed to my jaw and the corner of my mouth. "Every fucking time you walked into a room—"
I cut him off, grabbing his hair to pull his mouth back to mine, kissing him so hard our teeth click. He's been wanting this too. My slick is everywhere, he's grinding into me on his sister's bathroom counter, and I'm losing my mind.
"Mine," he growls against my mouth.
His fingers hook into my belt loops and tug. My jeans shift down a fraction of an inch. The intent in his eyes makes my vision swim. He's going to pull them down, and I'm going to let him.
A knock on the door.
"Okay, did one of you faint? Because dinner is literally getting cold."
Ava's bright, amused voice comes from the other side of the wood, hitting us like a bucket of ice water.
We freeze. Callum's hand is still under my sweater, my legs still locked around his waist. We're both panting. His pupils are blown so wide his irises are just a thin ring of blue-green. His mouth is swollen.
Callum steps back. The sudden loss of his body makes me whine, and the mortification would kill me if Callum's jaw didn't clench like the sound physically hurts him.
"Coming!" I call toward the door. My voice cracks.
Callum lets out a choked sound that might be a laugh or a groan of pain.
We scramble. Callum turns off the faucet, the sudden silence deafening.
He opens the cabinet under the sink, finds the band-aids, and peels one open.
His hands are shaking. He presses the band-aid over the cut on my finger, smoothing it down with his thumb.
The gentle, caretaking gesture in the middle of all this chaos nearly ruins me.
I splash cold water on my face and look in the mirror.
I'm a disaster. Flushed, lips swollen, curls a mess, a red mark blooming on my neck.
I tug my sweater collar up. Behind me, Callum is adjusting himself, palming his cock through his denim to get it to behave.
I watch him in the mirror because I have absolutely zero self-control, heat flaring in my gut all over again.
Our eyes meet in the glass. The absurdity of what we just did during a casual Friday dinner lands on both of us. Callum's mouth twitches. I press my lips together. If either of us laughs, we won't stop.
He reaches out, straightening my sweater collar, his knuckles brushing the mark on my neck. A possessive edge crosses his face before he schools it.
"Come to mine after," he says, his voice a low rumble. "Please."
The please undoes me. I could say no. I could go home, text Jude something vague, and try to pretend my entire world didn't just tilt on its axis. The safe route. But I don't want safe. I want him.
I nod. My voice isn't working, but the nod is the most deliberate thing I've done all night.
He opens the door.
Ava is leaning against the hallway wall with her arms crossed. She's a beta. She can't smell the pheromones, the slick, or the fact that her bathroom now reeks of fated mates who were thirty seconds away from fucking on her counter.
"Seventeen minutes for a band-aid," she says, rolling her eyes. "Were you performing surgery in there?"
"He's a bleeder," Callum says. His voice sounds remarkably normal for a guy who was just growling against my throat.
"I'm a bleeder," I confirm, holding up my band-aided finger.
Ava herds us toward the table. I sit down.
My jeans cling to my inner thighs, damp and cooling.
Every time I shift in the chair, the denim drags against my wet boxers, a glaring reminder that I'm ruined underneath these clothes.
I'm still hard. I'm sitting across from the man who just had his cock pressed against mine, and I'm supposed to eat chicken and make conversation with his sister.
"Milo, how's the psych paper going?" Ava asks, passing me the salad.
"Great," I lie. I haven't looked at it in three days because I've been sexting a stranger on KnotMe who turned out to be—well. "Almost done."
Our knees touch under the table. We both go still. It's just knees through jeans, but it feels like a live wire. The muscle in Callum's jaw jumps.
He picks up the serving spoon and drops more food onto my plate without asking. I stare at it. He did it automatically, the exact same reflex as my anonymous match checking if I'd eaten. My throat goes tight.
Ava talks about her coworker's new puppy. I chew and nod in the right places, but my brain is completely offline. I can still taste him. Callum's eyes keep drifting to my mouth. To my neck. To my hands. Every time our eyes meet, I have to look away first, or I'm going to climb across this table.
I help clear the plates because I'm Milo, and I help clear the plates even when my underwear is destroyed and my fated mate is standing three feet away. I stand, feeling the cooled slick pull where the denim has dried against my thighs. I carry a stack of dishes to the kitchen counter.
Callum is right there.
As I pass him, his fingers catch my hip—quick, hidden from Ava's angle—pressing into the curve below my waist. He leans close, his breath hitting my ear.
"I'm not done with you," he murmurs, his voice so low it's barely a sound.
My knees buckle for the second time tonight. I nod without looking at him. If I look at him, I'll kiss him, and Ava is four feet away drying a pan.
His hand drops. He steps back. I put a plate in the sink and stare at the water swirling down the drain, my heart pounding so hard I'm sure Ava can hear it.