23. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Artie’s citrusy perfume was cloying, almost suffocating as I pulled the brown athletic tank top I’d been wearing to practice over my head and threw it out of the shower.
Never before had I been in the presence of an omega that I was attracted to romantically while they were in heat.
It made me feel drunk as I stared down at his flushed face, my eyes falling again to his lips. I hadn’t realized how aggressive I’d been when we were kissing because they were swollen and red, making me want to mark him up even more.
I needed to try and keep a level head about this—when Wiz and I spoke about the possibility of joining Pack Santoro we’d never considered getting caught up in a heat unprepared.
But as I stood in front of Artie, I knew that forcing myself to leave him here when he was so needy and ready would feel like tearing bits of my own skin from my body.
Every instinct was riding me hard to kiss him—to possess him—and when my hands returned to his chest they immediately slid down the flat expanse until they reached what looked to be a painfully erect cock.
It was nearly purple as it strained upward, a steady drizzle of slick leaking from the tip.
Reaching for it, I wrapped my hand loosely around it and was surprised to find it soft and smooth aside from an inward divot at the base. It was like the opposite of a knot, and I realized with a jolt, that it was where a female alpha’s lock would slot in order to keep us stuck together.
Through the fuzz of Artie’s pheromones, I tried to remember everything I’d learned about male omegas when I was in school. I’d never interacted much with them as they were a bit rarer than female omegas, so I was almost at a loss with what to do.
“You’ll tell me if I do something you don’t like?” I asked, surprised to find that my words were a bit slurred, probably half-drunk on his scent.
Artie’s expression, which was pinched from my attention to his cock, pulled up into a tight smile. “There’s nothing you could do that I wouldn’t like.”
I let out a dry laugh. “What if I left right now?”
Artie’s face fell. “You wouldn’t do that would you?”
“At this point? I think I’d lose my mind if I left you right now,” I told him honestly before dropping to my knees in front of him and giving him a gentle shove until his back was up against the wall of the shower.
It wasn’t the most ideal place for our first time together and I needed to be careful to avoid getting a mouthful of water instead of what my true target was.
Other alphas always spoke about their omega’s slick with a reverence that always seemed a bit overblown and cheesy to me. All of the books said that, historically, slick was used as a form of nutrition for an alpha during a rut in the absence of other kinds of sustenance in the thick of an omega’s heat.
I wasn’t sure I ever believed them until I opened my mouth and my tongue darted out to taste it.
A moan of surprise left my mouth as more leaked out into my mouth.
It tasted good. That was the only way I could manage to describe it as it finally seemed to trigger the rut that had been hovering in the back of my brain ever since I walked into the changing room earlier.
All rational thought flew from my brain as I took him fully into my mouth, seeking more of that delicious taste.
Artie’s fingers dug into my wet hair, a groan of relief leaving him as I suckled.
I’d noticed how different he was during practice, his expression flushed and dazed as he went through the motions. His scent had been odd—more muted than it usually was and when he’d hurried off of the ice I’d known something was wrong with him.
A heat had been my last guess, but now as he babbled incoherently above me I could see that he’d been fighting through the discomfort—maybe for days—and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed sooner.
“I need—” he managed through gritted teeth as he gently pulled my head away from his length.
“Tell me, omega.” I wasn’t quite sure whose voice that was. It sounded altogether more growly than my normal one, but it seemed to work for Artie because I watched the man shudder with desire.
He dropped down in front of me until we were eye level, his own squinting. “I need you to tell me if you like things or what you want to do, Ciara, because I can’t always tell what your expression is. Especially with the haze of my heat getting in the way.”
Sucking in a deep pull of his scent, I let go of my filter and began to speak. “I… I want you to touch me—preferably everywhere. I want to feel how an omega’s cock can fill me up and I want to lock around you until you see stars.”
Artie’s next breath came out in a stuttered whoosh.
“Does that work for you?” I asked, my lips pulling up into a wry smile.
The omega’s head bobbed up and down furiously. “Oh, yes.”
Then he was pulling me by the back of my neck under the warm spray of water and our mouths collided in a hungry kiss.
I wanted to suffocate myself in Artie’s scent and the taste of his lips, but the omega wasn’t going to be patient enough for me to get my fill exploring.
His fingers were already sliding along my collarbone and down over my breasts which seemed impossibly sensitive thanks to the cloud of his pheromones surrounding us.
A noise of discontent slipped in between our joined lips when he hardly paid either of my nipples any mind on his journey downward. No, it seemed the omega had a one-track mind and it was on our lower halves.
“Sit with your legs crossed,” I instructed in between kisses, giving him a gentle shove until he was sitting flat on the tile, his thighs a cradle for me as I straddled his hips.
Slick wept openly from his cock now, creating the perfect lubrication for me as I lifted myself up and used my hand to guide the head of his length to the entrance of my pussy.
“Are you ready?” I asked, my heart hammering away in my chest.
Artie’ chin tilted up and he rested it just between my breasts. “Please, Ciara.”
As slowly as I could manage, I slid down his length causing the both of us to moan. Pressing my forehead to his, I sat still, giving us time to adjust to each other.
“Feel that?” I asked as my insides twisted around him, almost encouraging me to bring him even further inside of my body.
“Yeah,” Artie rasped. “What is it?”
A slow smile filled my face and I shifted playfully in his lap. “That, sweetheart, is my lock. It’s like the opposite of a knot. Where your other alphas might be able to fill the space in your ass, I fill that little indent in your cock not letting you go until you empty everything you’ve got inside of me.”
Artie’s body shuddered with pleasure and his hands slid down my hips and cupped my ass. “I want to feel it, please.”
“In time, omega,” I purred, rolling my hips and riding out my own satisfaction as my swollen clit brushed up against the lower part of his stomach. “But first I have to get you ready for it.”
We rocked together on the floor of the shower, Artie’s hands slipping up and down my back, his lips pressing along my jaw and neck as I gripped his hair as tightly as I could without hurting him.
My eyes were naturally drawn to the silvery marks on either side of Artie’s neck.
Bite, bite, bite,my inner alpha purred as Artie filled me so deeply that lights had begun to dance in my vision.
My last coherent thought before everything was drowned out by moans and the sound of the shower was that I’d maybe bitten off more than I could chew—quite literally.
Artie’s shout as he came filled my ears and I felt myself lock around his cock as he spilled inside of me. Everything was a blur of heat after that.
A rut, one of the most potent that I’d ever felt, took over and pushed regular Ciara right out of the way, letting that tiny little voice that always whispered my basest desires take over the driver’s seat.
“Bite me,” I vaguely heard him beg of me and to my alpha brain that sounded like a grand plan.
I didn’t realize my teeth were buried deep in Artie’s neck, just underneath his ear, until I heard a familiar gasp.
“Oh, mo leannan, what did you do?”