3. Declan #2
I lift my head. His face is dark with blood, his chest rising and falling too quickly under my hand. He means it as a threat, but it sounds like a plea. Don’t make this matter. Don’t make me soft.
I kiss the corner of his mouth. “I’m not going gentle. I’m making sure you feel it.”
“I already feel it.”
I slide my hand down between us, palming him through the rough denim of his jeans. Shay bucks hard, a sharp sound torn from his throat. I keep my hand there, rubbing him slow, feeling the long, thick shape of him jump against my palm.
“Fuck,” he gasps.
“Yeah.” I unfasten his jeans, my knuckles brushing his stomach.
The zipper rasps down, and the scent of him hits me like a physical blow—rain and chocolate and the sharp, sweet smell of his slick.
His underwear is soaked through. I push the jeans and boxers down his thighs in one rough pull, until there’s nothing between us but air.
He’s bare and wet and ready, and the sight of him—legs spreading for me without a second thought—makes my cock jerk. I drag my palm through the slick coating the inside of his thigh, feeling how warm and open he already is.
“Look at you,” I murmur, my voice rougher than I intend. “Wet and hard and already open for me.”
“Don’t.”
I circle his entrance with one slick finger, just teasing. “You’re the one under me, Shay. The one soaking my sheets before I’m even inside you.”
His breath hitches, and before he can decide whether to shove me away or pull me closer, I take both his wrists in one of mine and pin them to the mattress above his head.
He freezes.
Every muscle in his body locks. His breath catches in his lungs, and he just stares at me, his eyes gone wide and dark. The fight, the noise, all of it just vanishes.
I go still with him. “Shay. You’re okay.”
His throat works on a swallow. He pulls against my grip, not hard, just a test. A slow roll of his hips follows, a question.
“Don’t you fucking stop,” he whispers, the words rough.
I line myself up. The broad head of my cock presses against him, slick and hot, and the sound he makes is almost wounded, his legs wrapping around my hips to pull me closer.
“Now,” he breathes. “Declan. Now.”
I push in.
The wet, tight heat of him swallows me inch by inch, and I have to drop my forehead to his shoulder just to keep from losing it.
He’s so slick I slide in with one long, steady thrust, his body yielding around me like it was made for this.
A low groan tears out of him, his spine arching off the mattress as he takes me to the hilt.
“Yes,” he hisses. “Fuck. Yes.”
I pull back and thrust in again, harder. His mouth falls open on a soundless gasp, his pinned hands straining in my grip. The scent of his slick is everywhere now—sharp and sweet and flooding the room. I drive into him, a steady rhythm, and every stroke pulls another broken sound from his throat.
“Like that?” I ask against his neck, my voice a wrecked scrape.
“Don’t you dare stop.”
I don’t. I fuck him with deep, slow strokes, dragging over that spot inside him until his whole body clenches and his nails dig into the back of my hand. The heat coils low in my gut, my knot starting to swell at the base of my cock, catching on his rim with every thrust.
“Declan.” My name cracks right down the middle.
I lower my head, mouthing at the frantic pulse in his neck. “You’re perfect, Shay. Taking all of me. So good.”
He makes a raw sound, and his hips rise to meet my thrusts, wild and desperate. His wrists pull at my grip, not to escape, just to feel the resistance. The scent of his slick grows thicker, sweet and drowning.
This is where I should keep my head. My teeth throb with the need to close over his gland and mark him. I press my open mouth there, breathing him in, fighting it.
“Bite me.”
The words are so raw, so quiet, I almost miss them.
I pull back just enough to meet his eyes. His are wet and furious, but determined.
“Shay—”
“I said bite me, Declan. Right there.” He clenches around me, deliberate and tight, and my vision goes hazy at the edges. “I want it. Claim me. Please.”
That’s the end of whatever control I had.
My teeth sink into the spot I’ve been aching for.
A sharp, ragged sound is torn from him, half scream, half my name. The taste of him floods my mouth—salt, sweat, and something else, something that snaps a bond into place with a force that makes my whole body convulse. A physical anchor drops from my chest to his, locking us together.
Mine.
I grind deep and my knot locks inside him, swelling thick and hot as I spill.
The orgasm rips through me, every muscle locked, my teeth still buried in his skin.
Under me, his body goes boneless. All that sharp, defensive energy just…
drains away. His release splashes hot between us, striping his stomach, and I feel the last shudders of his orgasm as he whimpers my name.
His scent changes, my cedar and woodsmoke tangling with his chocolate and rain until I can’t tell where I end and he begins. His hands, which had been braced against my shoulders, are now clinging to my back.
I pull back, still locked inside him. The bite is a dark, swollen mark against the warm brown of his skin. My claim. Permanent.
Oh, fuck.
He asked for it. He fucking begged me. But he came here tonight because another alpha made him feel disposable, and now I’ve given him something he can’t take back. In a single, desperate moment, I let him ask for this, and I didn’t stop him.
The bottom drops out of my stomach.
Outside, somewhere down in the alley, the old refrigeration unit for the bar kicks on with a tired hum.
Shay stirs, making a soft, sleepy sound. He turns his face toward my chest, nuzzling instinctively against the mark I just gave him.
I hold him. There’s nothing else to do.
The first grey light is starting to bleed through the window. And I have no idea how I’m going to fix what I just broke.