Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Larissa
“Minimal fucking bruising. Have you seen her chest?” Rhett’s roar is distant, like he’s in another room.
“No,” comes Woodrow’s calm reply.
“Good. You don’t get to look at my mate’s chest in any capacity. You’re not a fucking doctor. I ought to empty your bank account. Let me tell you, it’s bad—purple, motherfucking purple!”
“Which will soon be resolved,” Woodrow replies just as smoothly.
I blink my eyes open, and a crushing sensation manifests like someone parked a shuttle on my chest. Rapid footsteps draw near, and Rhett appears at my side.
“Baby, how are you feeling? Don’t move.”
I’m in a white medical-like room, one I do not recognize.
“The healer is here,” a voice says from the doorway.
Rhett’s head swings around. “Fine, let them in.” He turns back to me, taking my hand gently. “You’re going to feel better soon, baby. Just let the healer do their work.”
A male healer strides in. He comes to an abrupt stop when Rhett growls low and dangerous.
Lucian steps through the door behind the healer. “Ease it down a notch, dipshit,” he grumbles. “Let him heal your mate.”
Rhett’s grip on my hand tightens. He swallows and nods.
The healer walks cautiously around the other side of the bed to me, eyeballing Rhett the whole time, which is understandable when Rhett’s eyes are tracking his every move, tense and protective emotions rippling through the bond.
The healer stops beside me.
I brace. I know he needs to kiss me, but Rhett’s rumbly growl is creating a sense of anxiety that counters the healer’s strong desire to ease my suffering.
The kiss is brief. I sigh. The healer is already clearing his throat and standing up.
“She should, ah, be fine now,” he mumbles and stalks out the door.
Rhett cups my chin, turning me to face him. “Don’t look at him, baby.”
My emotions are all over the place, relief, love—and I am an omega, so Rhett’s aggression is having a predictable effect.
“Close the door,” he says gruffly.
Lucian mutters something and snaps the door shut.
I keep my eyes on Rhett.
“Let me see,” he says.
His hand is gentle as he tugs the string at the back of my medical gown and draws it forward over one shoulder.
Going on the way it felt, I suspect the bruising was spectacular. Now the skin is pink and unblemished.
His hand is gentle as it brushes over my collarbone and down between my breasts.
“Does it hurt at all? Any pain?”
I shake my head. “No, none. Just a little woozy, I suppose, from whatever the drug was. Did it work?”
“Yeah,” he says. “It worked. We got the mofo. Also, Ethan’s been placed in custody.” He grins. “There has to be some due process, for appearance’s sake. Maybe they’ll leave him there.”
His thoughts darken for a moment, but he reins them in quickly and his expression turns speculative. “Anything you want to tell me, baby?”
My eyes widen and I swallow. “No, I don’t think so.” Guilt must be written all over my damn face.
He smirks. “You forget I can read your mind? Quite a slick move. Took me a beat to realize what you did. You done that before?”
He’s talking about me plucking a memory from the thug’s mind and using it to terrorize him.
“No,” I say. “And I have no desire to do it again.” I shudder. “It made me feel polluted and cruel… But he was hurting you. I just wanted him to stop.”
He nods, takes my hand and brings it to his lips in an unexpectedly chivalrous gesture. Then he smirks and gives me a hot look. “Lucky me, mating a badass omega.”
The purr and pride in his voice have me melting—damn it, I’m too old to be blushing.
“Is that it?” I say changing the subject because the panty-melting level of adoration he’s giving off is distracting me. “Are we free now? Can we go home?”
“Fuck yeah, we can go home.”
He presses his lips to mine, to the corner of my mouth, and then across my jawline. The side of my throat, right over the claiming mark, and then the center of my chest, where the bruising must have been.
My breath catches. He’s so tender, so devastatingly gentle.
Although it’s not something we’ve really discussed, I know he’s younger than me—I’m guessing by a good five years. We’ve both lived extraordinary lives, albeit in different ways. I lack experiences that an ordinary person my age might have. And so does he.
We are beginning again together. And I like that.
His lips trail to enclose the stiff peak of one nipple. He sucks. A delectable thread of pleasure streaks straight down to my core.
And I moan.
His lips pop off, and his eyes hold mine. “I need to knot you, baby.”
Blunt. I can’t lie: the thought of him knotting me lights me up.
His eyes darken. His mouth lowers to my breast again, and he sucks greedily against the flesh. His hand slides under my gown on the left, cupping the other side, pinching my nipple, and rolling it slowly.
Another ragged exhale.
It’s over. Cohen has been taken. The world thinks I’m dead.
I’m free.
Free to be with Rhett. Free to love.
Rhett
I push the medical gown down further so I can worship her breasts.
The taste of her skin and the sound of her ragged breathing are all I can focus on.
It’s like I’m in the midst of a maelstrom.
My need for her is all-consuming. A desperate desire to connect, to spear my flesh into hers, to knot her.
I couldn’t give a fuck where I am or that important people are standing outside the door waiting. Let them wait. Both of us have sacrificed too much to this war, but particularly Larissa.
It breaks me that she had to face that monster again.
She’s so fucking brave. She’s endured so much. I’ve seen just a few of the horrors she holds inside her mind, and know that there are so many more.
I just want to love her, to cherish her, to show her all the pleasure she deserves.
But mixed up with all these virtuous intentions is a deep-seated proprietary instinct. This extraordinary woman is mine. I need to remind her and every other motherfucker in the universe.
The gown is off. It lands in a flutter on the floor.
“You just lie there, baby. I’ll take care of this.”
I’m braced over her on the tiny, awkward medical cot, my mouth at the side of her throat, sucking against her soft skin. She still smells faintly of chemicals.
I need my scent on her, and in her, replacing it.
Her hands shake as she sinks her fingers into my hair at the back of my head, holding me to her.
I have one hand on my belt buckle, yanking it open with a jerky, impatient movement, as the other slides up her thigh until it reaches her pussy. She moans as I sink my fingers into her sopping wet heat.
My low growl shifts to a rumbly purr. “So wet for me, baby,” I whisper against her throat. “Let me fill you all up.”
My dick finally comes free as I shove my pants past my hips. I pull my fingers from her and suck them into my mouth.
Fuck, you taste so good.
I wish I could eat her out and fuck her all at once… Sometimes you have to make tough decisions. And right now, I need my dick inside her so I can have her writhing on my knot.
“Hurry,” she whispers, her small hand wrapping around my length.
My hips jerk forward. I nearly fucking come. I want to peel her fingers off and fuck her. But it’s like I’m stuck, trapped, as she moves her fingers up and down erratically.
“Goddamn! Fuck!”
She sinks her fingers into the already swelling knot. And with a growl that is somewhere close to torture, I grasp her wrist and tug her fingers off.
“Bad girl,” I admonish. “My cum goes inside you and nowhere else.”
I line up, slide the tip of my dick into her waiting entrance. And then I sink slowly inside her. We both groan as her hot flesh sucks me in.
It’s unbearably good. I’m not going to last.
“Please, Rhett,” she whines. “I need to come.”
Not a problem… I snake my arm underneath her back, grip, and pound the fuck out of her. The bed creaks ominously. I’m guessing it’s not made to take an alpha rutting an omega…If it collapses, it collapses, I decide, distantly.
She cries out. Her nails score my shoulders. Her pussy is already gripping me. My knot is swelling.
I’m going to knot her…. I’m going to knot her, and it’s going to feel so good.
I want to reach the summit, but I also don’t want this to end.
She squeals with pleasure, and her pussy locks down on me, taking the choice away. My knot bulges to the point of no return, and her rippling, spasming cunt compels a climax from me.
My teeth find the claiming mark, and I bite. I taste blood and the surge of her pleasure through the bond, our climaxes in perfect synchrony. Her pleasure, my pleasure. The sweet squeezing sensation, milking me, my balls rising, and bliss as I dump cum deep, right where it needs to go.
I see stars, little shoots of light behind my closed eyes.
My breathing is ragged, hers likewise, as I rock gently against her, prolonging the pressure, dumping yet more cum deep inside her, grinding against her softness.
She whines a little.
“Take it like a good girl.”
Her thighs squeeze around my waist, and her pussy clenches over me.
Heaven. Right here, with my woman blissed out on pleasure and stuffed full of cock and knot.