Chapter 14
Milo
That evening, Callum's makes me lose my mind.
Which is stupid. We're watching some cooking competition where a guy is sobbing over a fallen soufflé, but Callum's thumb is drawing slow circles on the inside of my leg, about six inches above my knee.
Every circle inches a little higher. I don't think he's noticed.
But I've noticed. And my cock has definitely noticed.
We're lounging on his couch after Byrne's.
The buzz of the group is still humming in my bones, making me feel lighter than I have in weeks.
I'm wearing Callum's worn-out firehouse t-shirt and nothing else under the blanket.
My legs are draped across his lap. The apartment is dim, smelling like his body wash, and Gerald the fern is thriving on the side table.
Everything is perfectly fine. Except Callum's thumb has reached the hem of the shirt where it lies on my thigh. His fingers have hit my bare skin now.
He doesn't even look at me. His eyes are glued to the TV, his expression perfectly neutral. Like his thumb isn't currently making its way toward my dick with agonizing precision.
The circles inch higher. His thumb finds the crease where my thigh meets my hip, tracing it, unhurried and sure.
I'm fully hard now, pressing against the soft cotton of the shirt.
The slick is starting—that wet, heavy heat spreading between my legs, proving my body has completely bypassed my brain.
The dampness soaking through. Every time I shift, the wet fabric drags over the head of my cock.
It's obscene. There's nothing between his hand and my dick except three inches of air, but he's not touching where I need him to.
And I'm pretty sure the bastard is doing it on purpose.
His thumb brushes the base of my cock. One stroke. Barely there. Just a whisper of rough callous against sensitive skin, and then he retreats back to the safe territory of my inner thigh. The sound that escapes me is a pathetic whimper that's going to haunt me for the rest of my life.
"Tell me if you want me to stop," Callum says. He's still watching the TV. His voice is low, even, and utterly casual. Like he's offering to change the channel, not slowly dismantling me under a fleece blanket.
I don't want him to stop. I want him to grab my cock and stroke me hard and fast until I come all over his fist and his shirt and his couch. I want it right now. But saying that out loud feels about as possible as performing open-heart surgery on myself.
"Whatever you—" I start. It's the easy path. The good, accommodating omega response. I'll take what you give, I'll be grateful, and I won't demand anything because demanding makes me a burden.
His hand goes completely still. He doesn't pull away, but the circles stop. His thumb just rests on my inner thigh. The sudden lack of movement is maddening.
He waits.
The guy on the TV is crying harder now, and normally I'd feel sympathy, but I'm too busy being edged by a man whose patience should be classified as a lethal weapon.
My cock aches. Precome is already making a wet spot on the inside of his shirt.
My hips do this tiny, unconscious rock that I can't stop, and he can definitely feel it. But he just sits there.
"Touch me," I manage. It comes out as a breathless whisper. My face burns immediately, because even two words feel like I'm stripping myself bare. But I said it. I chose those words instead of whatever you want.
He moves. His hand slips under the shirt and wraps directly around my cock, his calloused palm gripping the shaft. He gives me one slow, firm stroke from base to tip. The relief is so sharp my back arches off the couch, and I gasp loud enough to startle the soufflé guy.
One stroke. Then his grip loosens. He stays there, but the pressure drops to nothing, his fingers barely grazing me.
I whine in protest. That wasn't enough. My body wanted forty more of those.
He finally turns away from the TV and looks at me.
His expression is steady, patient, slightly amused, and completely devastating.
"What do you want?" he asks, his voice dropping an octave. He's not going to just do it. He's going to make me use my words.
I close my eyes. His face is too much right now, and I can't look at him while I try to form sentences about my dick. "Your hand," I stammer, my voice unsteady. "On my... please. Your hand. Harder."
He grips me properly this time. His fist tightens around my shaft, and he strokes.
Firm, steady, the pace exactly right. The wet sound of his palm sliding over me, the slick and precome making his grip glide.
My hips roll up into his hand, and the sound I make is wrecked.
Desperate. The heat coils low in my belly, my thighs tensing. I'm close. I'm almost—
He slows down. The grip stays tight, but the pace drops to an agonizing crawl. I could actually scream. His thumb swipes over the head of my cock, catching a bead of precome, and the sharp spike of sensitivity makes me jerk.
"What else?" he asks, low and unbothered.
"Harder," I gasp. I don't even care that my face is probably the color of a fire engine. "I want... your fist tighter. And don't—don't stop this time, please, I need—"
It's not a request. It's a demand. I hear it leave my mouth and it doesn't even sound like me. Or maybe it's the real me, finally clawing his way out from under a lifetime of I'm fine with anything.
He obeys immediately. His grip tightens, his pace picking up. His free arm comes around my waist, hauling me closer against his solid chest. I rock into his fist. I'm so close the edges of my vision are blurring white. My cock pulses against his palm, and I'm right there—
"What do you want when you come?" he murmurs, his mouth brushing my ear. His voice is rougher now. Less controlled. He's asking me to think about the future while every thought in my head is white noise, and it's completely unfair.
"I want—" My voice cracks. "I want to come on your hand. I want you to... to watch me."
I cannot believe I just said that to a man while someone on TV is frosting a cake.
But Callum's response cuts the thought right in half.
He lets out a low, involuntary groan that vibrates through his chest and straight into my body.
The specificity didn't scare him off. It turned him on.
I just made this massive, steady alpha lose his breath.
He pumps his hand faster, his arm tightening around my waist like I'm the only thing keeping him anchored to the room.
My words did that. Not my slick, not my scent. Me. I asked for what I wanted, and he gripped harder. I demanded more, and his control slipped. The more I ask for, the more he gives.
He edges me one more time—brings me right to the agonizing brink and holds me there with a relentless grip—and I finally break.
"I want your fingers inside me," I say. The words tear out of me between ragged gasps. "I want your fingers inside me while you jerk me off, and I want you to watch me when I come."
The words hang in the air between us. This is the line I've never crossed. Not the physical act, but the shameless, out-loud asking for exactly what I want from an alpha who could say no. This is me, drawing the map.
Callum doesn't hesitate. He doesn't tease, doesn't slow down, doesn't make me repeat it.
He keeps his tight rhythm on my cock while his other hand slides down, slipping between my legs from behind.
His fingers find my hole—soaked and open, the slick making it embarrassingly easy.
There's a wet slip of sound as he pushes two fingers deep inside me.
The blunt stretch, the fullness, and his fist pounding my cock all hit me at the exact same second, and I'm gone.
I come so hard my spine bows off the couch.
His name tears out of my throat, loud and broken.
My cock pulses hard in his fist, hot spurts of cum making a messy, wet sound against his knuckles, splattering across my stomach and the hem of his ruined shirt.
His fingers press deep inside my ass, hitting my prostate, and my legs clamp tight around his thick forearm.
The orgasm rolls through me in endless, violently intense waves.
And he watches my face. His eyes are locked on mine, dark and blown wide, exactly like I told him to.
The waves finally slow. My body goes entirely boneless.
His grip eases on my cock, his slick fingers working me through the sensitive aftershocks.
The mess cooling on my stomach, the streaks of cum painting his hand and my skin.
The shirt is absolutely destroyed. He slides his fingers out slowly, and I lay there panting and trembling.
The couch is a disaster. The cooking show has moved on to desserts. I can't feel my legs.
"Thank you," I whisper.
Because I'm me, and that's what I do. Someone gives me something, and I thank them. It's an automatic reflex, the muscle memory of an omega who was taught that taking up space costs something.
Callum pulls me flush against his chest. His mouth presses against my temple, firm and sure. "You don't have to thank me for wanting things, bubba," he says into my hair, quiet and certain.
The words hit me square in the chest. Not in my brain, which is still currently mush, but in whatever buried part of me holds all the rules about being small, being easy, not being a burden. That part goes very, very quiet. Maybe this is the new rule. Maybe I'm allowed to just want.
I press my face into his neck, inhaling his cedar scent, and just breathe. He holds me. The cooking show keeps going. The couch is ruined, and for once, I'm not sorry.
Callum gets up after a few minutes—ignoring the pathetic, protesting sound I make—and comes back with a warm, damp washcloth.
He wipes me down, careful and thorough, his large hands gentle on my stomach and thighs.
I watch him do it, and I open my mouth to say, Sorry about the couch.
Because the cushion is definitely destroyed.
There's a dark wet patch spreading under the blanket, the whole thing soaked through with our mingled scent like a territorial claim on the upholstery. It's my fault, and I should apologize.
I stop. My mouth opens, then closes. The apology sits heavy on my tongue, but I don't let it out. I swallow it. I let the mess exist. I let myself be the kind of person who leaves a mark.
Callum sees it—the swallowed sorry. The corners of his eyes crinkle, but he doesn't say a word. He just leans down, presses his lips firmly to the fresh claiming bite on my neck, and goes back to cleaning me up.