Chapter 17
SEVENTEEN
KNOX
The vision of Thistle on her knees before me, desperate for my cock, was enough to splinter the last of my wrath—an anger born to smother my fear.
That somehow Ace had changed everything. That maybe I would lose her in the face of his arrival.
But that wasn’t the case.
It was impossible not to believe as she ran her tongue along my shaft, violet gaze dizzy with lust before she took my length between her lips.
Fuck .
I tugged the scrunchies out of her two messy buns and tossed them on the desk so I could sink my grip into her hair. Raven feathers tumbled around her face haphazardly, sticking in a million directions as I dragged her roughly to the base of my cock.
I bit my lip, watching her eyes water as I pinned her in place. “You’re so fucking perfect,” I murmured.
The frosted moonflower in the room shifted, low, midnight notes blossoming in the air as she heard my praise.
I drew her back, letting her catch a breath before choking her again.
I gripped the desk with my free hand, working to hold onto my orgasm, needing to last longer because she was everything.
She had been scattered, a buzzing ball of anxiety only minutes ago. I’d taken a shot in the dark. Mad, she might be, but the first time we’d met she’d told me exactly what she wanted—what she needed.
Rules.
Order.
I set a pace, driving my length between her lips, holding when I could feel her throat squeezing my tip before pulling out. I kept at it until I couldn’t hold on anymore, then I finished down her throat.
I helped her to her feet, then turned her, and unlatched her cuffs.
It sent a sweet shiver up my spine, feeling her delicate fingers fumble with my zipper to tuck me away. I hooked her wrists in my grip and pressed her palms to my cheeks and drew her into a deep kiss while I quickly did up my zipper safely .
She might be the centre of my world, but I had zero faith in her dexterity, and if she wanted to injure my dick again I required it to be as kinky as the last time.
“Good girl,” I said as I sank into my office chair, glad she hadn’t noticed the diversion. She was on my lap in seconds, her arms winding around my waist, and her teeth finding my neck.
I’d woken with enough pain, inside and out—then earned myself some more fighting with Rogue—that I hadn’t clocked this particular ache until her teeth traced my neck. A perfect match. I lifted my hand, brushing the wound on my neck.
“Was that you?” I asked. There were a few places I could feel them, as if she’d left a number of bites.
“I uh… was in heat…” She sounded nervous. “Might have gone a little far.”
I realised I was grinning as I wound my fingers into her hair again and tilted her neck so she was looking directly at me.
“Not far enough,” I murmured.
A strangled sound of joy escaped her chest as I released her, that sweet wildness burning in her eyes.
I dropped my hands to her waist, blood already trying to re-energise my cock as she sank her teeth into my neck again.
I’d take any mark from her. Maybe with a thousand of them, I could forget this bond with Bella for just a second.
“I’m sorry I missed your heat,” I told her when she seemed done, and a few small trickles of hot blood could be felt sliding down my collarbone.
“That’s alright,” she said, wiping crimson from her lips as she leaned back. “Ace and Rogue were there.”
I nodded, trying to ignore the tightening of my chest at the confirmation.
She peered at me for a long time and I held my tongue, finding it easier to recognise now when she was bursting with something she didn’t know if she should say. Finally she spoke, gaze fixed on me like she was curious about my response. “Rogue didn’t have sex with me once during my heat.”
That staggered me. “He… what ? He didn’t manage your heat?”
What the fuck ?
I had a lot of reasons to despise Rogue, but I never thought chastity would be one of them. “What the hell was he thinking?”
“Oh, dammit,” she muttered, wrinkling her nose and fumbling for the patchwork plushie I’d set on the desk. “I knew there must be something wrong with him.”
“Did Ace?—?”
“He was passed out for most of it. Rogue drugged him—I think he was worried he was gonna keel over. Probably valid, I only managed to steal a few packs of Poptarts and bottles of soda back in Vegas for him, so…” She looked a bit guilty.
“Are you hurt?” I asked. How did heats work? If she was in pain at the time, could that cause lasting issues?
“Not anymore,” she said.
“But you were?”
“Physically.” She nodded matter-of-factly. “But about Rogue. Do you think he’s broken?”
“Why the hell didn’t he fuck you?”
“Uh. Reasons.” She let out an anxious laugh. “But I mean… shouldn’t be possible, right? Does he need to see a doctor?”
“To get his head checked—” I cut off, catching the guilty look in her eye. “What reasons ?”
“Well… I don’t know. He made me open the bond up.”
“ Made you?”
“Asked real nice while he was purring.” She scowled. “What else was I supposed to do?”
I cocked my head, zeroing in on the little spark of… something… in her eyes as she spoke. As if she wasn’t sad at all about any of it.
“And…?” I prodded.
“He was all up in the bond, being real nosy…” She muttered.
Oh god.
I braced for the twist.
If one more person made me respect Rogue?—
“I think he thought that, like, maybe… I was nervous about the sex more than I was about the pain.”
“Ah.” Fuck. She’d gone through hell, and the heat had been induced. I was left with an uncomfortable question: would I have noticed the same in her? “And…?”
“Well, I think he was right. Just held me instead, let me tell him what I wanted. And then…” Her lip trembled and her next words came out in a rough whisper.
“Then he said we could go our whole lives, and I could never want him to fuck me and he’d still…
” She trailed off as her voice wobbled. Instead, she lifted Bunny and forced a laugh. “He’d still want to stick around.”
She glanced at me quickly, then back at Bunny.
“Dumb, huh?”
“Fuck.” My head hit the back of my seat.
“What?” she asked, alarmed.
“That was very…” I soured and the word felt as though it were being pried from my mouth. “ Principled .”
Her eyes were wide. “Is that, like, a disease ?”
I snorted. “Unfortunately not.”
“Okay, but really. I didn’t think it was possible for an Alpha to be there during heat and not… not, you know.”
“No one needs sex. Not even Alphas.”
She straightened. “Don’t say no one . Some people do—like Dan and his pack.”
I opened my mouth, then shut it, sensing danger in the angry edge to her voice. We were in risky territory.
I cleared my throat. “Maybe Dan and his pack were the broken ones.”
“Oh.” She tossed Bunny between her hands, then let out a rough laugh. “Yeah, maybe.” She looked back up at me curiously. “So… if there was no guarantee that you’d have sex with me ever again, you’d still stick around?”
“That’s a trick question.”
“Is not.”
“There is never a guarantee.”
She looked disbelieving. “What about the gun?”
I winced thinking back to our early intimacy. “The gun was… unique.”
“Hm.” She looked back to Bunny, a cute little frown on her face. “Well. I’m not making no promises in return.”
I grinned.
“That doesn’t bother you?” she prodded.
“Not in the slightest.”
Please, goddamn it, chain me up and fuck me again . Best night of my fucking life.
“Does that make me wrong if it… if it bothers me, then?” she asked. “If it doesn’t bother you?”
I considered her, then chuckled. “Unwanted intimacy with Omegas was never a demon of mine.” I hated Bella, but there were a good number of things I feared from that relationship before sex ever made the list.
“Hm… I never thought about it like that…”
She straightened, turning at the creak of my office door.
Honied bourbon soured my mood as Rogue stepped into the room without so much as knocking.
Fuck him. Having him in my space was getting more and more unbearable with every new reveal of his stupid nobility.
“All moved,” he said, eyes flicking to the scattered scrunchies on the desk, and then to Thistle’s still-scruffy hair. If he guessed what that meant, he didn’t let it show.
“Turns out you don’t have a disease,” Thistle declared.
“I don’t… what?” Rogue asked.
I stifled my snort at how affronted he looked, folding his arms and glaring at me like I’d tried to give her that idea.
“Nothing. Don’t worry about it,” Thistle said quickly. “Are you turning in?”
“Yeah,” Rogue said, yawning on cue.
“You uh… wanna maybe… crash in my nest?” she asked.
“Wait,” I snapped. “It’s my turn.”
“Turn?” Thistle’s eyes went wide. “Can’t you… can’t you both come?”
“No.” I said it the same moment Rogue did.
I’d crashed his date as a dominance play, not the status-fucking-quo. I wasn’t sharing nest time with that prick.
Never going to happen.
Thistle’s lips were pursed though, and she glanced down at Bunny. “Stupid Alphas,” she muttered.
I didn’t miss the way her scent wilted. Rogue noticed the same, and I met his gaze for a moment. He looked as bitter as I felt.
“Just not… now,” I muttered.
I’d die for her. Bite into a pack with my worst nightmare. But having to share my Omega nest cuddles with Rogue?
“My night. You crashed my date,” Rogue shrugged. “I get another turn.”
“He has a point,” Thistle said, eyeing me.
“Fine. Tomorrow’s mine. But I want one promise out of you.”
“Uh huh?”
“I don’t want you alone with Ace?—”
“But he’s mine !” She cut me off, voice shrill, fists closing in my shirt.
I pinched the bridge of my nose at the utter outrage in her tone. “Just for now . I don’t trust him and neither should you.”
“Did you trust me when I first got here?” she demanded.
“Not in the slightest.”
“And you said I was yours.”
I scowled. “You are .”
“But you were allowed to be alone with me.”
“I… You aren’t?—”
“What?” She folded her arms. “Not as smart as him?”
“No. Just not… so manipulative.” I couldn’t help but throw a look at Rogue. I knew exactly what was going through his head the moment the words had slipped from my mouth.
Don’t say it.
Don’t. Say. It.
He was grinning. “Well, Kitten. Shall we turn in? I think you’re perfectly manipulative.”
“Really?” Her eyes lit up, and she was scrambling from my lap and all but launching into his arms.
He caught her easily, lifting her up by her waist like a doll hovering before him. “Best in the business,” he said.
“Best?” She folded her arms almost comically, an eyebrow raised.
“He bought you, didn’t he?” Rogue tossed her over his shoulder and marched them out, making sure to outline everything I hoped he wouldn’t as he left.
“Now you have him eating out of your palm, freeing your mate, opening his territory to Ace— and he—” But that was when the door slammed shut behind them, blessedly saving me from the rest of his smug tirade.