CHAPTER NINETEEN - Mariska
The best mornings are when you can feel the sun on your face and you’re surrounded by the soft warmth of blankets. Artemis was a reliable alarm clock, but on the weekends, she seemed to know to let me sleep a little longer.
My hazy waking brain couldn’t remember if today was Saturday or Sunday. No, it didn’t matter. I wasn’t working at Blue Skies any longer. No work.
With my eyes still closed, I stretched my limbs out under the heavy duvet and inhaled deeply.
It smelled so good. Fresh evergreens, cocoa, citrus, and peppermint.
Every December, Primrose House took on the perfume of Christmas, and while the season brought back sad memories, the smell of it somehow made me cozy and content.
Just like now. Warm, comfy, and kind of sore between my legs.
I touched myself, discovering I was naked and extremely sensitive. An ache sprang awake and demanded Alpha attention. It crawled up, down, and through my body until I was nearly panting.
Throwing off the blanket, I opened my eyes and startled myself with the fact I was not in my own bed. I sat, my eyes trying to see everything at once.
The bed was gigantic. Who had beds this big?
I’d been in pools this size. Snowy white comforter, sheets, and pillows surrounded me in a room with a skylight in its high ceiling.
The sun shone down on me and made me look nearly as pale as the blankets.
There was a large dresser on one side and a pair of mossy green reading chairs on the other.
One open door led to a bathroom and another door was partially open to a hall.
The hall in the farmhouse.
I jumped out of bed with the realization I was in the pack room.
The charity event, Balthazar pinning me to a wall in the records room, and then Jasper fucking me from behind on this bed. I fanned myself. My body was burning up. Hot, too hot.
Miss Eloise!
“Shit!” Panic warred with my heat pains. I’d promised Lyla I would come to the hospital first thing in the morning. And if the sun was shining through that skylight, it had to be around noon.
“Where’s my phone?” I couldn’t see it anywhere. There wasn’t much else in the room except my bag beside the dresser and a bottle of water on the bedside table. No other decorations. Not even a clock. I ran into the bathroom. What was I doing? There wouldn’t be a clock in there!
As frenzied as I was, I had to pause and relieve myself. Fuck. I wanted a shower too, a very cold one, but I couldn’t waste any more time.
I washed my hands and face, and I was drying them as Artemis nosed her way into the bathroom.
She did her little happy dance to see me awake, and I crouched down to give her scritches.
“Where were you, girl? I needed to get up early today. Don’t you need to pee?
Aren’t you hungry? I really needed my furry alarm clock with her cold nose. ”
A shadow passed in front of the half-open bathroom door. “Hey, good morning. How are you?”
Lucian. The sound of his voice went right to my pussy. A gush of slick wet my thighs, and suddenly all I could think about was dragging him into the shower with me and getting way more dirty than clean.
I slowly stood and Artemis pranced out of the bathroom to greet him with her tail wagging madly like she was a puppy again. Lucian said something to Artemis and called her a good girl, but it was my thighs that clenched together as he did.
Fuck my heat. It was distracting me from what was important.
“Hi. I’m… okay. Um, do you know where my phone is? I need to see how Miss Eloise is doing and talk to Lyla. I was supposed to go back to the hospital this morning, but I guess I needed to sleep.” And get filled by Alpha cock. The one I wanted now was just on the other side of that door.
“After everything… We decided to let you sleep.” Lucian stepped closer to the door. “I was charging your phone for you, but I’ll go get it. We did hear from Lyla, though. Well, Liz did, and Eloise is awake.”
Miss Eloise was awake! I let out a relieved moan and my body sagged if it was just relieved of a twenty ton weight.
I had to get to the hospital. I had to see how she was doing and apologize to Lyla. Again.
The tempting scent of cedar and peppermint had me shiver and stoked the fire between my legs. I tried to wipe away my slick with the towel, but it kept coming.
Lucian.
I had to have him.
“Thank you. So much. I’m happy she’s awake.” Now get in here and give me your hard cock!
“I’m glad. We’re all relieved. Do you want anything else when I get your phone? I can bring you something to eat, coffee, anything.” He was right on the other side. A foot away from me. It was as if I could feel his body against mine already.
He was being so sweet and all I wanted was him to fuck me. My heat pains made me groan. There was no way I’d be able to do anything else until my urges were quelled.
I peered around the door to see Lucian with his hand on the frame. He was dressed in a black hoodie and gray sweatpants that highlighted his huge erection. His darkened eyes met mine and there was nothing sweet in his gaze which claimed me with its intensity.
“Mariska,” he said my name with a rough edge, and I became wetter yet.
“Anything?” I raised my brows and stepped to the side to open the door all the way. It didn’t even occur to me to be embarrassed of my nakedness, especially when a growl peeled from his throat. Another wave of crushing need had me sway as I tried to keep to my feet. “All I need is you.”
Lucian snatched my wrist and pulled me to him as if I were on a patch of slick ice. I rubbed against him like a wanton feline. “You have me. All of me.”
I breathed him in. His Alpha scent was fresh, invigorating… as if I needed to feel any more energized by him. I groped his stiff cock through his pants. “I don’t have all of you in me yet.”
He kissed me with enough force that it pushed me back against the door frame and banged my arm. Lucian’s eyes widened as he took a step back. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
If my arm hurt at all, I had no idea. My body was raging with how badly I needed him. “Yes. Don’t stop.”
I stood on my toes and pulled him to me for another feral kiss. He immediately went back into beast mode. His hands were all over me, squeezing, kneading, groping. We breathed the same air as his tongue dominated mine, nearly lifting me off my feet as his body pressed mine into the door frame.
There was nothing else I could think about than having him inside of me. Jasper and Balthazar had fucked me, but neither had knotted me. There was no way I was letting this end without him knotting me.
I pushed us away from the bathroom and toward the bed. Yanking on his shirt, we both scrambled to pull it over his head. His chest was hard and lean and so smooth. I mashed as much of myself against his bare skin as I could. Fire erupted at every contact.
Lucian swept me off my feet and I was suddenly in the air, plunking down with a gasp on the bed. He’d thrown me.
An Alpha had literally thrown me on a bed.
My mussed hair fell around my face and my legs akimbo. Heat scorched as it raced through my veins. My heart pounded and my breaths became ragged.
He stalked toward me. No longer sweet, considerate Lucian. He’d transformed into a hungry animal with his sights set on his prey.
Stripping himself of his pants, boxers and all, he continued forward like a fallen angel. Gorgeous, ferocious, and ethereal.
Lucian’s hand shot out and cupped my chin, holding me so he could bend and kiss me with near bruising force. Our tongues twined as his free hand skimmed over the tops of my immensely sensitive breasts and down over my hip toward my drenched core. He rubbed my pussy with a satisfied groan.
“So beautiful, so wet.” He ran a finger along my slit before circling my clit.
I whimpered as I reached for his shoulders to pull him down on top of me, but he resisted.
He nipped at my lower lip and nudged me to lie on my back.
“Down. Spread wider for me. I want to taste you first. You smell so good.”
I didn’t even think not to obey him. Sinking back, I propped myself up on my elbows so I could watch him kiss along my legs to my aching center. His hair was even more pale beside my flushed skin but his gaze was darker yet as his mouth latched onto my pussy.
Crying out, I arched my back and shook as his tongue lapped at me. Up and down and then burrowing inside. Fast and rough, like a starving predator.
I squirmed, arched, and kicked. Lucian sucked on my clit and grabbed my legs. He set them over his shoulders and held my hips, pulling me to him even as he was still feasting on my pussy.
“Oh God!” I was at his mercy and there was nothing tender about it. I felt his thrusting tongue and scraping teeth and I lost it.
Screaming his name, I thrashed beneath him as my orgasm smashed into me. While I was lying in a white bed, colors exploded behind my closed eyes as climatic pleasure seared every inch of me.
Lucian kissed and licked his way up my body before I started to come down from those blissful heights and positioned himself between my legs. Slick gushed forth in anticipation. I gripped his shoulders as he prodded me with his cock’s head.
My juices coated the lower half of his face. His lips were swollen and his cheeks were flushed. “Fuck, Mariska. I haven’t thought of anything else except this since the moment I met you.”
He drove into me, and I cried out. My nails dug into his flesh. He kissed from my mouth down to my neck. The sting of bites accentuated the animalistic joy of having him fill me and fuck me hard.
My mewls and whimpers added fuel to his already rabid appetite. “Lucian, yes! So close.” I didn’t even recognize my own voice, husky and wild.
“You feel so fucking good.” His mouth then covered mine again as spread me wider with the force of his pounding hips. We slid a little ways across the bed with each few thrusts.
His knot swelled and knocked up against all the right spots. I rocked with him as much as I could while pinned under his hot body. When my second climax exploded, my cries were muffled against his mouth.
Lucian didn’t stop. Not for a second.
His knot thickened and locked inside of me, and that feeling caused something in me to bloom like a flower opening at lightning speed for the sun and basking in primal delight.
Lucian’s grunt and orgasmic bellow followed. Each spurt of cum had me shudder as he filled me and eradicated the stabbing pains of my heat.
I was limp under him, moaning with satiation. His lips brushed over mine as the hardness drained from his muscles, and he scooped me up to press against him as he rolled onto his back. I draped over him, locked deliciously together by his knot.
He gently brushed my hair away from my face before tucking my head under his chin. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so…”
“Incredible?” I hummed and smiled against his chest. I lightly traced my fingers along his arm. “You don’t need to apologize for anything. I was ready to jump you like a horny wild cat.”
“You’re welcome to do that any time.” Lucian chuckled and gave me a squeeze. “I just want to make sure that I wasn’t too rough. You bring out something in me. It’s never happened with anyone else. It’s like I’m Jekyll and Hyde or a werewolf and you’re my full moon.”
The way he said it, like he was worshipping me, made my heart melt as thoroughly as my body already had. Jack had always made me feel like I should be the one lucky to be with him, but Lucian, no, the entire pack here at the farm acted like I was the most precious thing in the world.
“Mm, I like that. A sweetheart by day and a sexy heathen monster at night. Well, I guess it’s day right now, so you can shift at any time.
” I giggled and moved to prop up my chin on my hands to look at his handsome face.
“It’s no wonder you had the magic in you to trigger my heat. One little touch…”
“I triggered your heat?” His eyes widened and his lips parted, his surprise genuine. “But Balthazar… He took you to the market and spent that whole afternoon with you.”
I smirked and tried to scootch up to kiss him, but I only managed to graze my lips over the cleft in his chin. “Nope. You. After we finished working last Friday and you handed me Artemis’ leash. It was a light touch but it changed me forever.”
“I thought…”
“It was you,” I repeated, needing him to understand just how much he’d affected me.
I’d watched the three of them together. Jasper and Balthazar had big personalities, and sometimes butted heads.
Lucian was the peacemaker in the pack. To most people, his voice didn’t seem as loud, but he was every bit as strong as they were.
“No Alpha before you had affected me that way.”
Lucian lazily stroked his thumb along the bottom curve of my spine as he let my words sink in. He gazed at me with not only awe, but with something else I didn’t want to name.
He needed to hear this. I didn’t know why, but it didn’t matter. I punctuated it with one more fact. “You’re also the first Alpha to knot me.” I wiggled my hips and grinned as he sucked in a breath. “And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
I settled my head down on his chest again, and he kissed the top of my forehead. “Thank you.” His whisper was thick with emotion. “You don’t know how much it means to me to hear that. This gift you’ve given me, I’ll cherish it forever.”
Closing my eyes, I bit the side of my tongue so as not to say anything else. This conversation was growing too emotional, too close to declarations that I couldn’t afford to hear. Hell, I was in danger of saying the words which were growing in my heart too.
With what had happened with Miss Eloise and my new job waiting for me in California, I had too much to deal with to add falling for this sexy Alpha.
But fuck, he was perfect. Then add in Balthazar with his big heart and determination, and Jasper with his sharp wit and pack protectiveness, and I had found the ideal trio of Alphas for me.
I didn’t know what to do.
The only thing I could do at the moment was lay here with Lucian and listen to the comforting thump of his heart in his chest, and not think on the fact that this felt not just good or even great. It felt like the place I was supposed to be.