3. Intoxicating Circumstances
Intoxicating Circumstances
Andie
Dear gods, this feels good. Why does it feel so good?
The man above me was a stranger, a mistake, a force of nature my body was yielding to.
I shouldn’t be accepting this. But the world narrowed until only his touch remained.
His touch and his scent, pure Alpha, pure domination, sharp lightning wrapped in flesh.
A low growl started deep in his chest, a sound of pure frustration. “From the very first moment I saw you, I’ve been imagining what was under this silk. And every second it’s still on you is a profound waste of time.”
His admission sent a fresh, coiling heat low in my belly. He’d been watching. Hunting. A reckless power surged through me, a dizzying thrill that made the whole room seem to tilt on its axis. “Then stop wasting it, Stormwright,” I commanded, my throat tight. “Do something about it.”
A sharp tear cracked the silence, my expensive dress easily yielding to his strength. A moment later, cool air ghosted across my shoulder. His lips descended, claiming the exposed skin. He inhaled against my collarbone, a deep, shuddering act of possession.
“Gods… that scent,” he murmured, his breath a hot caress. “It’s not just on your skin. It’s in my blood.”
A clawing need to feel his skin against mine seized me. My fingers found the buttons of his shirt, each one a maddening delay. The fine fabric might as well have been a suit of armor for all the patience I had for it.
“And you Alphas wear entirely too many damned layers,” I bit out. “It’s inefficient.”
A breathless laugh shook his frame. He deliberately shifted, a purely arrogant movement to grant me better access. “Patience isn’t one of your virtues, is it?”
A single button popped free, a tiny, thrilling victory. I slid my hand into the opening, pressing my palm flat against the furnace of his chest. The powerful thud of his heart hammered against my hand, a wild thing demanding release. I leaned in close, my own lips brushing the shell of his ear.
“No. Getting what I want is.”
The last of his clothes joined mine in a heap on the floor.
His kiss seared a path down my stomach, each touch an act of ownership.
He rose over me, his hair falling forward, his eyes fixed on my chest with an intense focus.
He took one nipple between his teeth, scraping ever so gently.
My back arched off the bed. A jolt of pure lightning shot from that point straight to the aching heat between my legs.
A fresh, helpless rush of slick flooded from my core, soaking the sheets.
As he worshipped me, a demanding instinct coiled deep inside me. My hand tangled in the thick silk of his hair. My fingers tightened against his scalp, pulling him away from his work.
“Then it’s only fair I get to know how you taste, too,” I rasped, my own tone sounding foreign and strained.
His back tensed under my hand, a subtle ripple of muscle. He lifted his head, his eyes glittering in the dim light with a new, dangerous intensity. “Is that so? You want to set the rules?”
A giddy sense of control rushed through me. “My terms, Stormwright,” I shot back. “We do this together. At the same time.”
I tugged on his hair, a firm, undeniable order.
Our legs tangled in a clumsy dance. The motion was a shared urgency that left us reversed on the bed.
His hot breath ghosted over the slick, aching center of my need, a searing promise of what was to come.
Without hesitation, I lowered my head, taking the rigid length of his cock.
The salty, masculine taste of him flooded my senses, a shock that made my own core clench and weep.
He went rigid, and a ragged breath hissed past his teeth.
“Gods… yes,” he choked out. “Just like that.”
His tongue met the hard pearl of my clit, lapping greedily at my overflowing slick.
The hot slide made my world dissolve into white-hot pleasure.
A muffled sound escaped me, swallowed by the skin of his thigh.
My hips bucked against his touch in a silent plea for more.
I mirrored his actions, tracing the hard ridge of his crown as my throat tightened around his length.
He groaned, a deep, broken sound of an Alpha losing a battle with his feral nature.
His tongue pressed down again, harder this time. A shattering release ripped through me. My muscles seized, my back bowed, and a wave of pure, blinding sensation washed away all thought, all control. The only thing I wanted in that endless moment was to drag him into the abyss with me.
Pleasure stole the bones from my body, leaving only a soft ache in its wake. Lingering tremors still pulsed through me. And then, he shifted, pulling away with a sudden, decisive purpose that cut through my daze. “Now me.”
His hands clamped down on my hips, his grip firm and undeniable. He lifted me, turning me over as if I weighed nothing. I yielded to his hold, my muscles too saturated with pleasure to resist. He positioned me on my hands and knees, and the cool air on my sweat-slicked skin made me gasp.
“Alexander, what—”
A harsh, possessive whisper ghosted across my ear, hot and absolute. “Watch. I want you to see yourself. See how you take me.”
My head felt impossibly heavy, but I forced my gaze upward.
Across the room, a set of mirrored wardrobe doors threw back a dark, distorted reflection.
I saw myself on all fours, my back arched, my hair a wild tangle.
Behind me, he was a mountain of dark muscle, a conqueror poised to claim his prize.
He gave me no time to process the sight. He drove into me. The single, powerful thrust stole the air from my lungs and tore a sharp, broken cry from my lips. He filled me completely. Searing, stretching pressure met me, a razor’s edge between pain and a pleasure so exquisite it bordered on agony.
He withdrew, slowly, deliberately, until I almost cried out at the loss.
Then he surged back in, a deep, punishing stroke that hit my very center.
It was a brutal rhythm. A torturous retreat followed by a devastating invasion.
Again and again. He was teaching my body a new language, one of complete and utter surrender.
“Mine,” he gritted out, the declaration a low hum against my back. “You feel this? You’re all mine. My Omega.”
Thought dissolved into a haze of sensation. I arched back to meet each devastating stroke. “Yes… please…”
His own control shattered. The deliberate pace broke into a frantic, desperate speed.
His hips slammed against me, hard and fast, driving me forward with each impact.
There was no more thought, no more control, just his body taking mine in a storm of unrestrained need.
“Gods…” he groaned, the plea breaking apart as he spoke.
He drove into me one last time, his entire frame going rigid. Deep inside me, his knot rapidly swelled to life. The thick, throbbing mass popped past my slick-swollen entrance, stretching me beautifully wide. It locked us together in an inescapable, aching bind.
The force of his climax triggered my own. My world exploded into a million points of light, and he dragged me down into oblivion with him.
A final, lingering pulse faded, leaving me limp and satisfied. He didn’t pull away. He couldn’t. His swollen knot remained locked tight inside my core, keeping our bodies intimately flushed and fused together.
When he collapsed, his momentum pulled me down with him.
We landed on our sides in a tangle of sweat-slicked limbs, still bound by his knot.
The roaring in my ears subsided, replaced by a sudden, ringing quiet.
The only sound left in the universe was the ragged drag of our breathing, a harsh rhythm in the dark.
He didn’t speak. He just exhaled, a long, shuddering breath that seemed to empty him of the last of the storm.
He pulled me more fully against his side, tucking my head into the hollow of his shoulder.
His arm settled over my waist, an anchoring weight in the darkness.
His scent completely enveloped mine in a protective cocoon.
“Tell me then,” he murmured. “What’s your name?”
A soft, yielding sound left my throat. “Andromeda.”
Just like that, my eyelids became impossibly heavy. The adrenaline, the wine, and the magic all crashed at once. His hold was a warm, solid anchor in the darkness, and I didn’t fight it. I just sank.
My head throbbed, a dull, relentless hammer against my skull. I groaned, the sound a raw scrape in my throat. I tried to roll away from the merciless beam of sunlight lancing through the porthole, but a heavy weight pinned me in place. An arm. Solid, warm, and possessively settled across my waist.
Heat on my skin. The sharp sound of tearing silk. A deep voice growling a command. The fragments of the night before flashed through my mind’s eye.
I was naked. I was in bed with Alexander Stormwright. A cold, nauseating dread coiled in my stomach. The wine and magic that had felt so liberating hours ago now soured in my gut.
For the life of me, I couldn’t fathom what had possessed me to act this way.
I’d reached for him myself, practically begged for his touch.
That was already bad enough. But whenever something like this happened, when an Omega lost her head, an Alpha was bound to take advantage. Had Stormwright… Had he claimed me?
Panic seized my chest, sharp and suffocating. “No, no, no, no…” I croaked out.
I reached for my throat, desperately praying to all the ancestors I so often cursed. But when I brushed my hand over my bonding gland, there was nothing there. No mark. No sign of a possible bond. I was fine. I was safe.
I could have cried in relief. But my moment of respite was short-lived. A soft knock sounded at the door. I flinched, suddenly reminded that the outside world existed.
“Andie?” a familiar voice called out. “Are you in there? The party’s over.”