20. Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty
Leah
G abriel’s words burrow deep, softer than I expect, carving a path through the twisted wreckage inside me. They find a place in that charred, empty mess and settle there. A light flickers to life in the same spot. A glow so unfamiliar I don’t believe it’s real.
His unruly auburn hair shines in the soft light.
Freckles dust across his cheeks and forehead, adding to the soft glow about him.
His mouth curves like he’s swallowing laughter, teasing, alive.
The line of his jaw is clean, the flicker in his eyes is full of pride and something deep beneath that telegraphs it wants me close.
He’s impossibly handsome. Citrus flames flickering through dark cloves wrap around me.
Every part of me is pulled toward him. An ache crackles under my skin, and the part of me that only surges to life in my heat washes through me, caressing me with a soft urge even though the normal flames aren’t fogging my mind. This is all me. All me wanting him.
Needing him.
The knowing of those two things bursts to life. I want the taste of his mouth, the shape of his hands on me, the sound of his voice rasping out my name. Longing rises, swallowing every doubt. I drift toward him, fingers brushing up his jaw.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t even breathe. His eyes flare and he holds so still as I reach for him until my palm finally settles on his cheek. His skin is warm beneath my palm, the rasp of his stubble sparking down my arm.
"Can I…kiss you, Gabriel?" My voice is small. There’s no hiding my uncertainty.
Awe blooms, lighting the hazel in his eyes so they glow.
"Leah, you’re killing me," he whispers, like I’m some holy ache.
"But in all the good ways." His lips curve, his pupils darken, hunger and adoration braiding together.
"Tell me how you’re feeling, Sweetheart.
Is it your heat again? Is that why you want to kiss me? "
I shake my head and hair brushed to a fresh shine falls around my shoulders. I have no fever, or fog. Only the clean, honest ache of wanting him. "No heat. I just…want to kiss you."
"Omega. You honor me." His voice is gravel and wings burst to life deep in my abdomen.
His fingers slide around my nape, and he slowly closes the distance between us, giving me chance after chance to move away. I don’t want to. I want to be here. I want his lips on mine.
This choice is mine.
Urgent, electric desperation rocks through my body but want holds me steady as his lips finally brush against mine.
Gabriel’s body stills. For a single heartbeat it’s all breath and waiting, his mouth trembling against mine, holding back so much want it’s painful.
His fingers flex gently at my nape, keeping me close but not trapping me, like he’s afraid to scare me away from this delicate, impossible thing.
My heart trips over itself. The first press of his lips is shockingly soft. There’s no demand, no hurry, just the slow bloom of excitement. My body tightens, then unravels, opening hungry and loose for him.
Gabriel draws me in, mouth slanting deeper, and the shiver that moves through me isn’t fear.
Nor is it shame. It’s a rightness that hums through my body, imbuing it with new life.
There’s no room for doubt. No fog of haze that makes me feel what I don’t want to feel.
The radiant glow burns brighter, and the press of his lips grows bolder.
His tongue slides along the seam of my mouth, teasing.
Questioning. I part for him, letting his tongue slip inside, the taste of him as intense and sweet as he is.
He kisses me as if there’s nothing but us, no world but our mouths, our scents, the gasp and tug and slide.
My lips tingle, slick with the mingled heat of our breathing, my body glowing under the weight of his honest hunger.
I give everything I have to this moment, wanting to drown in the rightness of his kiss, in the electric, perfect now.
Our kiss tapers off. Gabriel’s lips linger on mine, dragging out the goodbye with gentle, weightless pecks. He rests his forehead against me, close enough my breath stirs across his cheek, mingling with the sigh he lets go.
His eyes flutter open, pupils wide and soft. He looks wrecked, skin flushed high along his cheekbones. His thumb brushes my jaw. "You’re perfect, Leah. Such a beautiful soul. So fucking good for us."
A good kind of shiver steals through me, bringing my nerve endings awake in a new way. New hunger rises within me. Another hunger angles inside me, just as demanding.
My gaze snags on Jax’s liquid fire. Want. Need. Alpha.
Gabriel’s chuckle spills over me. "Go on, Sweetheart. Kiss your other Alpha. He wants you just as bad. "
The invisible cord snaps me toward Jax. I swivel where I’m straddled on Ronan’s lap as I lean toward my other Alpha and close the distance between us, bolder now.
I burn for Jax, every beat of my heart pounding hot and heady in my chest. It’s not just hunger. It’s necessary that I kiss him, too. The glow inside me pulses, richer, a new intense color blooming.
The velvet thunder of Jax’s purr rolls from deep inside him. The thrum hums up my spine and spools apart. I can’t breathe. I don’t want to. I want to live and ache and unravel in the sound.
I can’t look away from his mouth, the shape of hunger on his lips, the way his focus blazes hot and certain on me. I can only chase that luminous craving. Jax leans in so slowly it kills me. "Are you sure you want this, Sunshine?"
I settle on the truth because nothing else will fit. "Please, Jax. I want to kiss you more than anything."
His purr stutters as he closes the distance and locks his lips to mine. I’m blooming everywhere, my heart liquid as I open for his kiss.
He slides one hand along my jaw, thumb stroking my cheek, the touch both gentle and unapologetically certain as his mouth claims mine, bold enough to make my thighs clench tight.
Ronan groans and I realize that his cock is hard and pulsing under me and nothing but sweet rightness makes the world spill away.
Jax catches my bottom lip between his, a soft nip that sends sparks to the base of my spine. His tongue traces the seam of my mouth, licking slow and coaxing, asking for what he already knows I want to give.
Heat pools in my belly, thighs tensing from the pressure growing inside and I start to rock on Ronan’s heavy erection beneath me. I melt under every slow drag of Jax’s tongue, every gentle stroke and retreat.
Every motion is a promise. He lets me linger in control, before a deeper stroke and the light scrape of his teeth leave a tremor in my chest. The world shrinks to nothing but these Alphas surrounding me. Supporting me, as the glow inside me burns brighter .
Jax drags his lips over mine, like he’s reluctant to let go. His breath ghosts across my mouth. "You’re perfect, Sunshine. I mean it. You’re everything."
His honeyed voice pours over me, sinking under my skin, stealing the rest of my air. Heat surges where my body meets his, and I want to taste him all over again, to let his quiet reverence fill my head, but a deeper ache grows inside me, building at the memory of another pair of hands.
Ronan’s fingers close around the back of my neck, pulling me from Jax to him. His touch anchors me, holding me right where he wants me. His eyes are dark. This is no civilized distance. He doesn’t hide the hunger blazing there.
My core ripples and slick drips from me. "Fuck," I whisper.
His eyes blaze with an inferno. "Did you just curse, Kitten?"
A whimper steals past my lips as his scent coils around me, thick and spiced and delicious.
His fingers dip into my hips, his palm branding my skin where he cages me.
His nostrils flare. "No one could have prepared us for you. You’re not what I expected.
You’re so much better than my feeble imagination could ever come up with.
Never dim your light, Omega. Not for anyone. It’s fucking breathtaking."
Desire crackles at every touch, every word, every breath.
I wind my arms around his neck, crushing my breasts against his chest. I ache for his mouth, his power, his devotion pressed into me.
I lean in, lost to hunger, to the sweet gravity of belonging, and close the last sliver of distance between us.
His mouth crushes over mine, his grip unyielding at my nape, the other arm braced around my waist. There’s no hesitation in him, only deep, anchored intent.
Every motion is claim and sanctuary, his lips hard and sure, demanding surrender and promising safety.
He tastes me deeply, his tongue sweeping through my mouth, capturing every gasp and moan, relentless in the quiet hunger he finally unleashes on me.
He tilts my head, deepening the kiss, staking out his place in me with every breath. His energy is all hot, visceral, uncompromising Alpha. I fist his shirt, helpless against the dark, magnetic pull of him.
Our scents intertwine in a riot of our demands.
Together, they’re more than home. They’re heaven, thick on my tongue, painting the space around us golden with belonging and hunger.
The throb of arousal is everywhere. A frantic ache grows low in my belly and slick pools between my thighs.
My hips move on their own, grinding against the thick, unmistakable swell of his knot growing hard beneath me.
I chase my pleasure shamelessly, breath ragged, sobbing his name into his mouth every time he arches to meet my grind.
There’s no space between us, nothing to separate where I stop and he starts.
All I know is this ache and this all-consuming desire to come undone for him.
Pressure coils inside me with every grind, hotter and sharper, a tight ache blooming into something electric.
Every sound that tumbles out of me is desperate, whimpering, lost to the glide between my thighs, my whole world narrowing to the thick press of his knot and the delicious contact driving me higher.
Ronan drags his mouth from mine, gasping, jaw rough against my skin. "Kitten, let me help you. Please."
I whine, caught between wanting to bite down on his mouth again, greedy for every rough brush of lips, and drinking in the sweet promise in his words. Every heartbeat without his lips on mine is too much. I want him everywhere, all at once.
Ronan answers my wordless plea with a hard, consuming kiss that steals the rest of my air.
His hand slips from my waist, knuckles brushing along my stomach, fingers moving with certainty.
He finds the soft seam of my sex, sliding lower, and the pad of his thumb finds my clit.
He circles, careful at first then heavier, slow and insistent.
The sensation shoots clean through me, and sparks snap up my spine as my thighs clench around his hips.
His touch pushes me to the razor edge. A moan drags from the depths of my body and into his mouth as Ronan’s thumb works my clit, finding a rhythm that shreds every thought from my mind. Each stroke builds the pleasure tighter, sharper, heat curling and coiling until it’s too much to hold.
I rock my hips into his hand, chasing every perfect circle, every drag and tap.
He holds me against him, not letting me escape as he drives me higher.
Intense pulsing crashes through me and I throw back my head, mouth open, a broken cry ripped from the center of my being as my entire body goes taut.
Ronan keeps working my clit, thumb pressing, circling, until I’m shaking so hard I can’t bear another second as I shatter. The climax drags on and on, each aftershock pulling another gasp from my lips, body strung out and straining, until I slump, spent, boneless and slack against his chest.
He gathers me close, his palm soothing now, voice thick with pride as he kisses my hair. "That’s my girl. My good, perfect Omega."