Chapter 7 #3
"Alphas can have sex without knotting. Most do—casual encounters, hookups.
The knot only happens when—" He pauses. Chooses his words carefully.
"When the connection is real. When the alpha's body recognizes something in the omega that goes beyond physical attraction.
It's not something you can force. It either happens or it doesn't."
"So you don't know if—"
"I know." Quiet. Certain. "With you, I know."
The fluorescent tube hums. My pulse beats against his thumb where it still rests on my neck.
"Bane." I pull back enough to look at him fully. "When the heat hits—whatever I say. Whatever I beg for. Don't bite me. Not here. Not like this. If that ever happens, I want it to be a choice. A real one. Not desperation in this cell."
"I won't." His eyes hold mine. Clear despite the sedative. Certain. "I promise you."
"Even if I beg."
"Even if you beg." His thumb is still on my neck. Still on the spot. He pulls it away slowly—reluctantly, like it costs him something to stop touching the place where he could claim me forever. "Not here. Not like this."
We stand there. Holding each other in the flat fluorescent light while the clock in my body ticks toward something neither of us can stop.
An hour passes. Then two.
We sit on opposite ends of the mattress. Not touching. Not talking about why we're not touching. Bane leans against the wall with his eyes half-closed, and I sit with my knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them, staring at the concrete floor like it has something to tell me.
It's absurd. Only a while ago his thumb was on my neck and his voice was in my chest and we were talking about knots and bites and permanent bonds. Now we're sitting three feet apart on a prison mattress like strangers on a bus.
Both pretending. Both waiting.
My skin starts to prickle first. Faint. A warmth building in my belly—slow, spreading. Like a pilot light catching. Like embers being breathed on. A slow blow.
I shift my weight. Press my knees tighter against my chest.
The warmth spreads.
Down.
Lower.
I'm getting hard. Not from arousal—not from wanting—from something chemical and inevitable and completely outside my control. My cock stiffens against my thigh and I press my legs together, trying to hide it, trying to will it away.
My skin flushes. Sweat prickles along my hairline.
“Fuck,” I whisper.
Another wave. Stronger. My hips shift against the mattress without permission—a slow, involuntary roll that sends a pulse of heat through my core.
I bite my lip. Clench my jaw. My spine arches slightly, my body curving toward something that isn't there, and a sound escapes me—small, strangled, barely a breath.
Across the mattress, Bane's nostrils flare. His eyes open. His pupils are blown wide—dark swallowing the hazel—and I can see the exact moment my scent peaks. His hands clench in the zip ties. His jaw goes rigid. A muscle jumps in his throat.
Neither of us speaks. The fluorescent tube hums.
Another wave hits me—harder, deeper, a cramp that locks through my abdomen and makes me curl forward with a gasp. My body is burning. The scrubs feel like sandpaper against my skin.
Everything is too much and not enough and I can't—
"It's okay, Max." His voice is strained. Rough. But steady. "It's okay. I'm right here."
The warmth intensifies. Heat crawling up my spine, pooling between my hips. My skin goes hypersensitive—the thin scrub fabric suddenly unbearable, every thread a line of friction. Slick gathers. My breathing changes. Deepens. My hips start to shift against the mattress without permission.
Jesus Christ.
I’m a monster.
I try to stand. Try to put distance between us—move to the other side of the cell, press myself against the far wall. Shame flooding through me hotter than the heat itself.
"Don't." Bane's voice. Low. Strained. "Don't go over there. Don't sit on cold concrete by yourself and be ashamed."
"You don't—" My voice cracks. "You can't want this. Not like this. Not because my biology is—"
"Come here."
"Bane—"
"Take the bed," he says. He slides off the mattress. Lowers himself to the concrete floor, back against the wall, giving me space. "I'll be down here."
I begrudgingly lie back on the mattress. Stare up at the ceiling. The thin foam does nothing to cushion the frame beneath it but at least I'm not on concrete. At least there's distance between us.
Three feet of air that might as well be three miles.
The heat doesn't care about distance.
It builds in waves—each one hotter, longer, harder to ride out. My skin is slick with sweat. The scrubs cling to me, fabric dragging against hypersensitive skin. I press my thighs together. Press harder. The pressure helps for ten seconds and then makes everything worse.
My cock is aching. Fully hard, straining against the thin fabric, pulsing with my heartbeat. I try to ignore it. Try to think about anything else—the tiles in Linda's bathroom, the periodic table, the names of every professor I've ever had—
Another wave. My hips roll forward on their own. My hand moves before I can stop it—slides between my thighs and squeezes. The pressure sends a bolt of relief so intense my spine arches and a sound escapes me. Small. Desperate. A whimper that echoes off concrete walls.
I freeze.
Bane is three feet away. On the floor. He heard that.
I roll over. Face the wall. Press my forehead against the cold concrete and squeeze my eyes shut.
"I'm sorry," I whisper. "I'm sorry, I can't—I didn't mean to—"
"Don't apologize." His voice is strained. Tight. Like he's holding something between his teeth. "Don't worry about me. Pretend I'm not here."
I try.
I try so hard.
But the heat is eating me alive. The warmth in my belly has become a furnace—radiating outward, turning my blood to something molten. Slick is gathering between my thighs. I can feel it soaking through the scrubs. The shame of it burns hotter than the heat itself.
My hand drifts again. Through the fabric this time—palm pressed flat against my cock, rubbing slow circles because I can't not. My hips move against my hand. My breath comes in short, ragged gasps against the wall.
"This is wrong," I hear myself say. The words fall out—heat-drunk, half-delirious. Thinking out loud. "We're stepbrothers. We're practically family. This is—I shouldn't be—not with you in the room—"
"Max—"
"I'm wrong." My hand presses harder. My hips grind forward. Tears leak from the corners of my eyes—shame and need and the impossibility of separating them. "I'm all wrong. My body is wrong. Wanting this is wrong. Wanting you is—"
"The thoughts I'm having about you right now are certainly not familial."
I go still. My hand stops. My breath catches.
"You're not wrong, Max. Nothing about you is wrong. Not your body. Not what it wants. Not who it wants."
"You don't know what you're saying. The scent is—it's making you—"
"I wanted you before the scent. I wanted you in the library. In your room. At the dinner table where I said the worst things I've ever said to anyone." A pause. The sound of him swallowing. "The scent isn't making me want you. It's making it impossible to pretend I don't."
Silence. The fluorescent hum. My pulse pounding in my ears.
"Max." Closer now. I hear him stand. Hear his unsteady footsteps crossing the three feet between us. He doesn't touch me. Just stands beside the bed. "Do you want me to—"
"No."
The word comes out fast. Reflexive. The word of a person who's been trained to refuse help because accepting it means owing something.
Bane doesn't leave. I hear him swallow. Hard. I can feel him standing there—can feel the warmth of his body, can smell him through the haze of my own scent. Amber and sandalwood and something underneath that's darker, richer, alpha.
"Max." His voice is barely a thread. "I'm here. You can—" He stops. Starts again. "Use me. If you need to. Or—I mean—" A breath. Shaky. Bane Graves, who always has the right words, fumbling. "I can take care of you. If you'll let me."
I roll over. Look up at him.
He's standing over the bed with his zip-tied hands in front of him.
His jaw is clenched so hard the muscle jumps.
His pupils are blown—almost no hazel left, just dark, bottomless want held in check by sheer willpower.
And he's hard—visibly, achingly hard, straining against his pants—and making no effort to hide it but no move to act on it either.
He's offering. Not taking. Not demanding.
Offering.
"I–”
What do I do? What the fuck do I do?
I want him so bad it hurts.
I need him. I think I need him…
“Please," I say. The word breaks in my mouth. "Please, Bane. I need—"
"I know." He kneels beside the bed. His bound hands find my face. Thumbs on my cheekbones. Steadying me. "I know what you need. Can I touch you?"
"Yes."
He doesn't go for my clothes. Doesn't reach for my waistband. Doesn't do any of the things my body is screaming for.
He kisses me.
Slow. Deep. His bound hands holding my face like I'm something he's afraid to break. His mouth opens against mine and his tongue slides in—hot, wet, unhurried—tasting me, learning me, taking his time like we have all of it in the world instead of a concrete cell and a ticking clock.
I moan into his mouth. Can't help it. My hands fist in his shirt and pull him closer—onto the mattress, over me, his weight settling between my legs. The pressure of his body against my cock sends a jolt through me so intense my hips buck.
He makes a sound.
Not a groan. Not a growl.
A whimper.
High and desperate and completely involuntary, muffled against my lips—the sound of an alpha whose control is costing him everything.
Holy shit.
That sound. That sound does something to me that all the heat and biology and scent chemistry couldn't. Because that sound is Bane—composed, guarded, careful Bane—losing it. Coming apart against my mouth. Wanting me so badly that the want leaked out as a whimper and he couldn't stop it.