Chapter 35 Rose #2
The smack to my ass comes before the sting. Perfume bursts into the steam.
“Quickly, Rose,” he orders, eyes dark, rimmed in brown just barely holding back the rut.
“Yes. I’m the girl from the garden,” I admit.
I’m eighteen again. Too young to designate yet.
My father was hosting a soirée to gloat over a financial victory against Harlan and his father, only to be outmaneuvered instead by Harlan himself.
My mother found me alone in the garden and took her stress out on me—my weight, my hair, my dress—until Harlan showed up and barked at her to leave.
She fled, and he turned to me. He wiped my tears, told me more of me only added to my beauty.
That I was resilient. Then he took my waist and let me dance with him to the muffled music until I could breathe again.
Nearly six years later, the memory still burns inside me. His kindness had been a lifeline.
“I’m surprised you remember that,” I whisper.
He tilts my chin with his knuckles. “I remembered the moment I saw you. I wanted you to come to me. If you want to give me the kind of trust you’re asking for now, then give me everything.
Trust that I can carry it all. I knew then you were special.
I knew then you should be mine—scent or no scent. Beta, omega, alpha—it never mattered.”
The tears won’t stop. “Why didn’t you take me then?”
His eyes close, and when they open, they’re gutted. “I had just humiliated your father. I wasn’t invincible. I didn’t think I could protect you.”
His weight lifts from my back and rejection claws through me—until he turns me to face him, gripping my chin firmly, forcing me to meet his eyes. He’s heat and intensity and dominance, wrapped in muscle.
“You want this, omega? I’m on the edge of rut, and I’ve never been called gentle.”
Every nerve in my body sparks. Slick runs down my thighs, mixing with the shower spray.
“You read my list,” I tease, thinking of the heat boundaries I’d laid out.
“I need a yes or a no.”
“Yes, please, alpha,” I whimper, all teasing gone.
“This bathroom is far too small to do the things I’ve been dreaming of since that garden.” His words nearly unravel me. “But it’s still enough space to wreck you, to make you scream my name until the tiles shake.”
I whimper again, desperate.
“If you want to stop—”
“Sparkles. I’ll say sparkles. Evander told me.”
He chuckles, deep and dark. “Of course he did. He’s such a good boy.”
“Please, alpha. Please fuck me.”
“I decide what you’ve earned, Starlight. If you’re a very good girl, I’ll let you take my cock until you forget your name.” I nod frantically. “Let’s see if you can obey.”
He takes the detachable showerhead in hand. Slowly, he sprays water over my breasts until my nipples pebble into tight, aching peaks. His eyes blaze.
“What can you take?” he asks.
“Anything you want to give. I promise.”
His gaze snaps to mine. The water drifts lower, scalding down my stomach, over trembling thighs, hovering at the slick heat between my legs.
“Spread your cunt wide for me, Starlight,” he demands, low and rough.
I comply instantly, heat flushing my cheeks. The spray lashes my clit in sharp bursts. His fingers twist the knob and the water turns ice-cold, a shock that makes me cry out.
I choke on a gasp. The sharp agony and piercing pleasure rip through me, heightening the desperate, throbbing ache in my core. The sting and the pleasure snarl together until the ache in my core goes feral, climbing toward something filthy and uncontrollable.
“Come, omega,” he demands, taking my clit between his fingers, cold water still spraying and tweaking. I topple over the edge, strangled cries bursting from my throat, my thighs trembling. I lean heavily on the wall just to keep upright.
He drops the faucet, twists the water off.
“Turn around.” He’s not barking, but my mind has switched off. Harlan’s words are all that matters. Everything with my family, the Blackbear pack, the media, the omega clause—gone. All that’s left is Harlan’s voice and my urgent need to have his cock.
We end up back in the same position we started. The cold bite of the tiles against my breasts. The warmth of Harlan’s broad chest and hips against my back. “You’ve been such a good girl,” he says, rubbing his cock along the slit of my ass and down, notching at the slick entrance of my pussy.
One hand jerks back on my hip, the other tangles in my hair and pulls firm, arching my back like a bow, my slick center poised for him.
“Take your reward,” he growls, pushing in.
He stretches me deliciously. My breathing comes in ragged gasps.
He works into me one brutal thrust at a time until he’s seated to the hilt.
I’m a shaking, shivering mess, half from the feel of his cock invading my needy pussy and half from the residual cold of the shower.
His arm bands under my breasts as he pulls my back flush to his chest. The warmth of his body is instant relief. His other hand finds my clit and rubs as he thrusts in and out of me, building the fire in my core higher and higher until—
“Harlan!” I cry out.
“Come, Starlight. I’ve got you.” His voice, gentle instead of demanding, sends me cresting into wave after wave of orgasm as he fucks me raw, until his roars bounce against the tile and his cock twitches as he spills, first into my cunt and then pulling out to shoot hot ropes of come all over my ass, painting me with it.
Thank god his arm is still banded under my breasts, because I surely would have slipped when my legs give out.
For a moment he’s doing something behind us, and then I feel the cascade of warm water as he positions me under the showerhead.
It’s the perfect temperature for my aching, cold skin, and I moan in relief.
Harlan’s other arm comes up to band under the first around my ribcage, fully engulfing me in his warmth and his pine-and-resin scent. His cheek skims along mine, scent-marking me, and then his mouth lowers to the crook of my neck, kissing me there.
“You took me so well, Starlight. My perfect good girl.”
I think we’re done and he’ll leave, but instead he reaches for the bottle of shampoo.
Carefully, he works the soap into my hair, massaging my scalp with the tips of his fingers.
He takes the care to rinse it and then do the same with the conditioner.
Then he uses the soap to wash me with heart-rending, tear-inducing care—caressing and gentling with every stroke of his hands and fingers.
By the time he turns the water off, I’m a half-sobbing emotional mess.
He’s given me such demanding structure and such gentle care all in one, and my brain hardly knows what to do about it.
He steps out of the shower first to grab a towel from the small linen cupboard. He wraps the fluffy softness around me and then sits on the top of the toilet lid, pulling me down onto his still-wet lap. I bury my face in his neck, still crying.
“Sorry,” I say into his hot skin.
“No.” His voice booms. “You will give me everything, and I will show you that I can carry it. Do you understand?” His hands glide up and down my spine, belying his rough words.
I nod and snuggle closer to him. I fall asleep like that somehow, spent and exhausted, feeling safer than I ever have.