Chapter 25
I had taken a chance. A desperate one that was against my better judgment but also made my instincts sing. Confirmation that he wanted me had snuck into the heart of me and lit a match to the buried embers there. Even if I wasn’t sure of his mind, his body certainly left no question. Amir touched me like he craved me down to the depths of his soul, and for all that his confusing rejections and reactions twisted me up, I knew for certain Jerry had never touched me the way Amir was now.
His hands cradled my thighs, trapping me between his body and the wall while he devoured my kiss like he couldn’t get enough. I clung hard, hooking my elbow behind his neck and whimpering against his lips, trying to keep up. Something about having my feet off the ground and a warm alpha body pressed to me reduced me to my base form. Just an omega who needed her alpha, nothing more, nothing less.
He nudged my head to the side with his and arced down to get his teeth on my throat, sending a cascade of pleasure sliding over my nerves. Slick dampened my core with every delicious grind of his hips against me. Relief poured through me at knowing he still wanted me without the influence of the heat or the urging of the contract.
Amir set me on my feet and dropped to his knees, hoisting the hem of my nightgown. “Are you seriously running around with no panties?”
“They get in the way.”
He looked up at me and I braced one hand on his shoulders just to stay upright with the amount of fire in those eyes. “Tell me to stop right now if you don’t want me.”
“But I do want you.” The words felt thick on my tongue. I’d never been particularly good at voicing what I wanted, but I knew Amir wouldn’t let me get away with that.
A second later, my thigh was propped on his shoulder and his mouth was buried against me. I made an absolutely feral sound when his tongue flicked my clit, and slid my hands into his hair as he lifted my other thigh. He kept me pinned like that, his hands holding my ass while his mouth ruined me. I only remembered bits and pieces of having him during the heat, but my body apparently kept the knowledge of every touch stored away; I felt like I was going to burst into flames.
If I had told past Callie she’d have had two different alphas in the same day eating her out, she probably would’ve fainted.
I mewled and squirmed, holding onto him with shaking hands and quivering thighs. His thumb stroked through my folds before pressing into me. I leaned my head against the wall, trying to catch my breath while he seemed entirely intent on making that impossible. Amir alternated sucking on my clit with rapid flicks of his tongue until I broke apart in his grip in a rush of slick. He groaned and kept lapping at me until I was half-delirious.
Amir got to his feet, folding my legs with the movement to brace against the wall, my knees hooked over his arms, leaving me totally exposed.
“Be a good girl and undo my pants for me.”
I opened the button and zipper with shaking fingers and extracted his cock from the confines of his clothing. He wasted no time getting it inside me, choking off his name on my lips as he filled me in one swift motion.
“Fucking hell, princess.”
I grabbed tight to his hair and dragged his mouth to mine, his sun-baked cedar filling my senses. “Give me everything,” I demanded. “I can take it.”
I only half believed my own words when he fucked in hard and I saw stars. Clinging desperately for some sort of anchor barely helped as Amir drove into me with every ounce of friction there had been between us since Kai had bonded me.
I knew sex wasn’t the answer to everything, but it probably wouldn’t hurt the situation. He needed to get out his frustrations and I would much rather he do it this way than how he had been.
My core tightened with every thrust, and when he turned his head to bite my wrist where I was holding on to his hair, I came all over his cock in another gush of slick and a scream I couldn’t muffle. Pleasure sparked up my arm and straight to my clit as Amir sucked at the scent gland there, his hips still grinding against me.
Helplessly pinned, I could only let myself be open to everything he wanted to pour into me. My brain was going to melt out my ears at this rate. The glide of him sinking into me on repeat soothed the deepest parts of my mind. My alpha wanted me and he was taking me. I couldn’t breathe well enough through my panting to purr.
Amir released my wrist and I whimpered at the loss of his bite.
“Again,” I gasped. “Please, god, fu?—”
He turned and bit the other wrist, sending me spiraling all over again, clamping down so hard on his cock his movements stuttered, and he moaned against my skin, bucking hard one more time before heat burst from the tip of him and his knot swelled between us. My eyes rolled back, mouth dropping open in a silent scream as he overwhelmed everything.
“That’s my good girl, princess.” He licked my wrist. “Taking everything your alpha wants to give you. Your cunt feels like heaven.”
I whined when I regained the ability to breathe, my muscles twitching as I floated down from the high. Moving was still next to impossible with him holding me, but I wasn’t sure I’d have the strength to try anyway. I focused instead on taking long, deep breaths while I trembled in his arms.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, just…you’re a lot to take outside of a heat.” I wiggled, a moan sneaking out. My body was still getting used to knots.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” The kiss he dropped to my upturned mouth was softer than I expected out of him. I sighed into it, scratching softly at his scalp and pulling him closer. He very carefully rearranged me so my legs could wrap around his waist in a more comfortable position. “Should I take you inside or do you want to stay out here for a while?”
Going inside felt like it might break the delicate spell we’d woven. “Out here.”
Amir carried me to a lounge chair, stealing the blanket from the chair I’d been reading on, and flipping it over us after he’d stretched out.
I plucked at the fabric of his shirt. “Off.”
His eyes gleamed. “Does that mean you’re taking off that nightgown too?”
I lifted my arms in response and he sat up, pulling it over my head and catching one of my nipples in his mouth the second it was bare. The sweep of his hands up my back pressed me closer. I’d thought he’d have had his fill, but he acted like a man starved for the taste of me.
My pussy went wild under the attention, squeezing his knot so hard I was right back to my desperate clinging. The quick snap of his teeth had me squeaking, the sharpness giving way to a warm ache, and he pulled away with eyes full of mischief. “I remember everything you liked during the heat.”
“I suppose it’s helpful that at least one of us does.” I traced the planes of his face, wondering what was going on inside his head.
But then I caught the scent of strawberries on him, faint but distinct, and I froze instantly. A growl leapt out of me.
Amir scrutinized me. “What’s wrong?”
“I can smell her on you.” Agony boiled in my chest. I had no claim on him except the scent match, but it hurt nonetheless. The mystery woman had been a hypothetical before I caught her scent, far easier to push out of my mind.
“We didn’t do anything.”
I believed him. Her scent would’ve been a lot stronger if they had. “Why did you go?”
Amir’s growl was low and smooth, raising the little hairs on my arms. I couldn’t go anywhere while he was knot-deep, and truthfully, I regretted asking as soon as the words had left my mouth.
“Because I had a whole life before you. She deserved an explanation. More than a text message that she was never going to see me again.”
I dropped my gaze, setting a palm on his chest and feeling the thunder of his heart against my hand. Desire for him still burned strongly in me, but mostly I wanted to sink my teeth into his skin so the whole world would know he was mine. I couldn’t do that until the next heat, and certainly not without his permission, but smelling another omega on him was turning my insides into a tangled mess. I followed the compulsion—not to bite, but still to claim him—and dragged my cheeks and wrists over his skin to scent mark anywhere I could reach, and he let me. It wouldn’t change anything, but it made me feel better at least.
“She’s a good person and she was a good friend,” he said softly. “I needed to see her, to know…”
“To know what?” I asked quietly, barely daring to form the words.
Amir let out a sigh, tracing his fingertips up my arm until he was cradling my throat, his thumb sweeping softly down the length of it. “To know how tight a grip you have on me. It doesn’t seem fair.”
It wasn’t fair, and I knew that, but instinct didn’t care about fair. “And what did you find?”
“I could barely make myself get to her door. I spent all of this week wanting to get your scent out of my head so I could think, and as soon as I did, the only thing I wanted was to breathe you in again.”
I stared into his dark eyes, and even in the dim light I could see the vulnerability there. It wrapped itself up with heat and anger. “I don’t want to keep you from her if she’s who you would rather be with.”
It was only a half truth. I didn’t want him to be with me only because he had to be. Would I be devastated by him pursuing another omega? Absolutely. But I wasn’t so cruel that I would stop him from pursuing someone else who already made him happy.
I had Kai and Diego, and they were wonderful, but this whole pack was mine, and I was theirs, even if it was fated and not choice. I’d had the luxury of my previous partner destroying everything before I’d scent matched this pack. What would I have done differently if my relationship had been intact and I’d met these alphas under other circumstances? I genuinely wasn’t sure, and I held on to that, trying to understand why he had gone to someone else.
“I don’t want her,” he said stiffly. “I used to. I thought maybe I could evade fate by trying to go back to her, but that obviously didn’t go as planned.”
“And—” I swallowed hard. “—when you came back here? Did you have me just because you couldn’t have her?”
“No,” Amir growled. “I might be struggling with everything, but I’m not that much of an asshole.”
“Why are you struggling so much with it?”
He sighed, leaning back on the lounger and bringing me with him so we were chest to chest, breaking our eye contact. “I grew up desperate to please my parents. I did everything they asked, adhered to every single expectation, and cleaved away whole parts of myself to ensure I fit into the box they created for me. They dictated my friends, what I studied, all my extracurriculars. I don’t even like physics, but I made sure I was the best at it to get their approval.
“When I got offered a job at a company in Vegas straight out of university, I jumped on it. They were much more forgiving of my going far away because they wanted my career to be a success. They still think I work for that same company. I quit before my first year there was over because I hated every second of it and I couldn’t stand imagining the rest of my life looking that way.”
I listened in silence, absorbing the words, his heart racing against my ear.
“And then you appeared when I had finally settled into a life that felt like one of my own making, where I got to make my own choices. But I didn’t get to choose you. Fate dropped you into our laps and it all just whiplashed me right back to the feeling of being backed into a corner, slowly cutting away the pieces of me to follow a path someone else had picked out for me.”
I curled my fingers over his shoulder. “I think I know a thing or two about cutting away pieces of yourself. It’s not the same, but I absolutely did that with my ex. I made myself smaller, more palatable, trying to win approval I don’t think I ever actually got.”
His growl rumbled in my ear. “I’m going to push that man off a bridge the next time I see him.”
“I don’t want you to go to jail.”
“I could be stealthy about it.”
I laughed quietly, something inside me finally settling now that I knew what he was thinking. “I feel like I understand you so much better now. I won’t like it if you don’t want to be with me, but I’m never going to force you.”
“I do want you, but wanting to be with you in some ways feels like betraying my younger self.”
“Did you know that four months from now I was going to get married?”
His grip on me tightened.
“I understand what it’s like to look at who you were and know that person would be upset seeing you now, but I’m trying to adjust. I want to build a life that makes me happy, and I don’t know if I could make you happy, but I hope I could, one day.”
Amir didn’t speak for a long while, only stroked my hair. Eventually, he said very softly, “Is it enough if I try?”
Was it? “I think so. I suppose that’s all I can expect from anyone, given how weird this situation is.” Honestly, I never thought I’d get this far with him at all. Trying was a blessing I hadn’t expected.
His sigh lifted me and we settled together. His knot had gone down enough for me to slip off, but I didn’t go far. He lifted his arm for me to tuck myself at his side, ensuring the blanket covered all of me, though I really only needed the warmth of his body.
“I’m sorry I’ve made things difficult for you.” His voice was quiet, but felt so much louder when I was this close. “If it’s any consolation, I promise I’ve made things very difficult for myself too.”