Chapter 4 Braiden
Braiden
His words vibrate through my bones like a bass line turned too high. My knees buckle.
I can't breathe. Can't think. My skin tightens, shrinking around me, squeezing the air from my lungs.
Wes is everywhere—his chest a wall of heat against mine, his hands branding my waist, his face buried in my neck.
His scent floods my nose—sharp like the air before lightning strikes, clean sweat, and something uniquely him that makes my head spin.
My brain scrambles for a protocol, for a procedure to follow. This is Wes Chambers. Star quarterback. Campus celebrity. Alpha. Not in my plan. Not supposed to happen. Error. Stop. Run.
But my body… my traitorous body is singing a different song entirely. Alpha. Safe. Strong. Mine.
"I—" I try to speak, but my voice is a thin, pathetic whisper. "This isn't—we can't just—"
"We can," he growls against my skin, his lips brushing the sensitive spot just below my ear. "We are."
I should push him away. My internal checklist flashes behind my eyes: 3:15 PM: Advising. 4:30 PM: Purchase textbooks. 6:00 PM: Dinner, solitary, review syllabi. This is a catastrophic deviation. This is failure. I should be outraged at how he's taking over, this caveman display of alpha dominance.
Instead, I melt.
My head falls back against the solid wood of the door, exposing more of my neck to him in a gesture of submission so primal it bypasses my conscious thought entirely. A soft, needy sound escapes my throat, one I've never made before and don't recognize as my own.
Wes makes a sound in response—half growl, half purr—and the vibration spreads through my chest. "That's it," he murmurs, his breath hot against my skin. "Stop fighting it."
"I have a plan," I whisper again, one last desperate attempt to cling to the life I thought I wanted. "A schedule."
He lifts his head, those impossibly blue eyes locking onto mine. They're dark now, the pupils blown wide with a hunger so raw it could consume me whole. "Plans change."
Then his mouth crashes down on mine, and the last thread of my resistance snaps.
This isn't a kiss. It's a claiming. His lips are firm, demanding, taking rather than asking. His tongue pushes past my lips, exploring, conquering. It tastes of certainty, of inevitability. Of forever.
My hands, which had been pressed flat against the door behind me, fly up to grip his shoulders.
My first instinct is to push him away, I think, but my fingers dig into the hard muscle instead, pulling him closer.
My body is acting on its own now, responding to a code written in my DNA that overrides all the careful programming of my mind.
A sound rumbles in his chest, a growl of approval that makes heat rush through me, melting me from the inside out. His hands slide from my waist to my hips, gripping tight enough to bruise, and I whimper into his mouth, the small pain a sharp counterpoint to the overwhelming pleasure.
When he finally breaks the kiss, we're both breathing hard. My lips are swollen, sensitive. Claimed.
"Mine," he says, the word simple and undeniable.
And God help me, I nod.
That's all it takes. Something shifts in his eyes, a predator seeing its prey surrender.
In one fluid, powerful motion, he bends and lifts me, one arm scooping under my knees, the other wrapping securely around my back.
I gasp as my feet leave the floor, cradled against his chest like I weigh nothing at all.
"Wes!" I yelp, my arms wrap around his neck on instinct for balance.
He doesn't respond, carrying me through the apartment, his strides long and purposeful. I catch a blurred glimpse of the living room, the kitchen, and then we're moving down a hallway. My heart hammers in my chest, a frantic drumbeat of anticipation and terror.
The bedroom is spacious, dominated by a large bed with dark blue sheets that look rumpled and inviting.
The bedsheets smell like him, clean and sharp, like fresh laundry and lightning.
It's overwhelming, a cocoon of his scent that makes it impossible to think.
Wes doesn't set me down gently. He tosses me onto the mattress, and I bounce once, a startled sound escaping me.
Before I can recover, he's on me, his body covering mine, his weight a heavy, comforting blanket, caging me in.
"Too many clothes," he growls, his hands already working at the buttons of my shirt.
He's not careful. I hear a button pop off and ping against the hardwood floor. I should care—this shirt was part of my carefully selected "first day of college" outfit—but I don't. All I care about is the heat of his hands on my skin as he pushes the fabric aside.
"Look at you," he murmurs, his eyes raking over my exposed chest. I am small and pale beneath his gaze, my skin prickling with goosebumps.
I want to cover myself, a wave of self-consciousness hitting me, but his hands pin my wrists to the mattress on either side of my head. The gesture is possessive, dominant, and so hot I can barely breathe.
"Wes," I gasp, not sure if I'm protesting or begging.
"Take it," he commands, his voice dropping to a low growl that seems to vibrate not in my ears, but in the hollow of my chest, a physical touch all on its own. It brooks no argument.
He releases my wrists only to tear at the rest of my clothes.
My pants are unbuttoned and yanked down my legs along with my underwear, leaving me naked and exposed.
I've never been naked in front of anyone before.
Mortification should overwhelm me. Instead, the hungry look in his eyes as he stares down at me makes a surge of power, of being wanted, rush through me.
He stands at the edge of the bed and strips off his own clothes with efficient, almost angry movements. His t-shirt comes off in one fluid motion, revealing a chest and abs that look like they were carved from marble. His jeans follow, and then he's naked, and—
Oh. My. God.
He's huge. Everywhere. His shoulders are broad enough to block out the sun, his chest a wall of muscle, his arms thick and corded with strength.
And his cock—I swallow hard, feeling panic flutter in my chest. It's long and thick, already fully hard and curving up toward his stomach, the head flushed a deep, angry red.
That's not going to fit. That can't possibly fit.
As if reading my thoughts, a slow, predatory smile spreads across his face. "Don't worry, little omega," he says, his voice a dark promise. "You were made to take me."
He crawls back onto the bed, and the mattress dips, rolling me toward him.
He moves with a fluid, predatory grace that makes the hair on my arms stand up.
Part of me is terrified, a logical, self-preservation instinct screaming that this is too fast, too much.
But that part is being drowned out by a deeper, more primal hum in my blood. A hum that recognizes him. My alpha.
My cock is painfully hard, leaking slick against my stomach. An embarrassing, hot wetness is gathering at my entrance, something I've only ever experienced during the lonely privacy of my heats. It's a biological betrayal of the highest order.
Wes's eyes drop to the evidence of my body's surrender, and his nostrils flare.
A low, guttural growl rumbles in his chest, a sound of pure, possessive satisfaction.
"You smell so fucking good," he murmurs, his face dropping to my neck, his hot breath ghosting over my skin.
He doesn't kiss me; he inhales me. "Sweet. Ripe. So fucking ready for me."
His hand, big and warm, slides down my belly.
The calluses on his palm are a rough, pleasant friction against my skin.
When his fingers brush the slickness between my legs, I jerk, a full-body flinch of shock and stimulation.
No one has ever touched me there. I've barely touched myself there, too clinical and embarrassed by the omega part of my anatomy to ever explore it.
"So wet," he says, the words a smug vibration against my throat. "Look at you, little omega. Soaking for my cock already."
One thick finger presses against my entrance, and I gasp, my back arching. It's a strange, intrusive pressure. He pushes inside, and it's tight, so tight it's almost painful.
"Fuck," he grunts, working his finger deeper. "A virgin?"
I can only nod, my throat closed with a knot of shame and raw need.
His eyes darken, a fiercely possessive fire igniting in their blue depths. "Good," he says, his voice dropping to a register that rearranges my bones. "No one else ever gets this. You were waiting for me. You just didn't know it."
A second finger joins the first, stretching me wider. A sharp burn makes me wince, my hips instinctively trying to pull away. Wes's free hand comes up, not to my cheek, but to grip my jaw, his thumb pressing into the soft skin under my chin, holding my head still. It's not tender. It's an order.
"Don't pull away from me," he commands, his voice dropping to a low growl. "You take what I give you. Now open the fuck up for me, Braiden. Show me how wet you are for your alpha."
I try to obey, forcing the muscles I didn't even know I was clenching to relax. The burn eases into a throb, a strange, aching pleasure. He moves his fingers inside me, a slow, deliberate rhythm, and the friction against something deep inside sends a jolt of pure electricity through my system.
"That's it," he murmurs, sounding pleased. "You feel that? You were made for this. Made to be filled by me."
He adds a third finger, and I whimper, a sound of overwhelmed pleasure and pain.
His mouth crashes down on mine, swallowing the noise.
The kiss is deep, punishing, his tongue sweeping through my mouth like he owns it, like he owns every part of me.
He's teaching me his taste, branding me with it.
By the time he withdraws his fingers, I'm trembling, my body a live wire of sensation.
I'm aching for something I don't understand, a desperate, hollow need that only he can fill.