Chapter 2
June
With his mouth fused to mine, we come together in one hard, meaty thrust that tears something inside me.
I cry out, and he freezes, eyes widening.
With only two wall light sconces turned down low behind him, I still read his shock crystal clear. The dim lighting is working in my favor. My cheeks are on fire.
“You’re a virgin,” he whispers, stunned.
“I probably should have told you that first, huh?” I say with a sheepish smile, attempting to lighten the mood a bit.
“Probably should have…” His voice trails off, and he stares down at me.
Judging by the look on his face, now is not the right time to joke about my lack of sexual experience.
He curses so loudly that my panicked gaze darts over his shoulder to the door, terrified that one of my teachers is going to fling it open to investigate.
I push against his chest as I unwind my legs to get down from where he has me pinned against the wall between two bookcases, only to wince at the burn between my thighs.
“Fuck.” The breath hisses from his throat, and his hands clamp around my hips, stopping me. “Don’t move.” There’s a pleading note in his voice I struggle to understand as he stares at me. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me you were a virgin?”
For some reason, Torin's anger really hurts. Tears sting my eyes, and my throat tightens as I push insistently against his chest while blinking rapidly. “Let me down.”
“I hurt you. Shit.” He curses again. But when he gently cups my face and softly kisses the tear sliding down my cheek, I realize it isn’t me he’s angry at.
It’s him.
“You’re not mad at me?”
His burst of laughter is brief and probably a little too loud—so loud that I almost remind him we need to be quiet.
“Why would I be mad at you? I just…” He looks away, rubbing a hand over his face.
“I can’t believe I made this your first time.
There’s a place in hell for guys who do this kind of thing. ”
My body is slowly adjusting to having him deep inside. The burn inside me is fading, and I no longer feel stretched so tight around him. A new sensation is taking hold, and that feeling is growing stronger with each passing moment.
I’m so deliciously full. And that fullness is starting to feel good. Really good.
I swallow my moan and still my body when my hips want to rock. Suddenly, I want to know exactly how it would feel to have Torin move inside me. “What would you have done if you’d known it was my first time?”
He’s not the only one to blame for this. This is on me.
His cock twitches inside me, and I choke back a moan. I wiggle, my body moving independently of my mind. Torin cursed and told me not to with an almost desperate note in his voice. I thought I’d been doing something wrong, maybe hurting him as much as that first thrust had hurt me.
But when a groan rumbles from his chest and I feel him throb inside me, I realize I might not have been making him feel bad when I moved. I was making him feel good. Maybe as good as he’s starting to make me feel.
“Treated my scent match with the care she deserved, not fucked her against a wall in the middle of a party. I’d have gotten you ready for me first. This isn’t how we should have done this.” His voice is soft, and the kiss he brushes across my lips is full of apology. “How many firsts did I steal?”
My hands creep over his shoulders as the need to reassure him nearly overtakes this burning need to rock against him. “You didn’t steal, Torin.”
He’s wedged so deep, I feel every thick inch.
Each vein. Each hard ridge. I need him to move and find every secret place inside me.
“I’m yours. Yours to kiss. To bite.” I kiss the hollow of his throat, and his groan makes my nipples pebble as his cock swells inside me.
“To knot.” My next kiss finds his mouth. It’s soft. Unsure, but genuine.
He cradles my nape, and the sound that escapes him isn’t quite a groan or a gasp, but a combination of the two. “You’re so fucking sweet; you’re going to kill me.”
An urgent ache isn’t just growing between my thighs; it spreads like wildfire through my veins. My skin burns, and I need to be naked, on a bed with Torin pinning me down and fucking me. I wiggle, trying to force him to move.
“I need…” I’m panting so hard I can barely speak.
He claims my lips in a bruising kiss. “What do you need, beautiful?”
“Everything,” I whisper. “Everything but the cold and passionless society matings this school prepares us for.”
“It’s yours.” He punctures each word with a thrust that silences the ache inside me.
My body was made for this.
With my head tipped back against the wall, and eyes closed, I shut out everything except this incredible feeling blooming inside me.
Something is happening to me.
Something amazing.
Torin releases a deep groan with every twist of his hips that sends his cock up and into my body. I move with him, finding his rhythm, and then matching it. My breath catches as a new desperation takes over. I work my hips against his faster. Then harder.
My eyes fly open, meeting Torin’s heated gaze.
“Torin,” I whimper. I’m hovering on the edge of an unknown chasm, and I’m desperate to fall. “Torin.”
He slides one hand between us, skimming along the inside of my bare thigh. His fingers delve under my panties, and his thumb…
“Oh my gosh,” I wiggle and buck as his thumb dances over my clit. “Oh my gosh, I can’t… I can’t…”
A wave of pleasure crashes over me, pulling me under. I open my mouth to scream as Torin’s lips slam onto mine, muffling the sound as I climax around him.
As my body relaxes, he starts moving again, hard, desperate thrusts that force me up the wall.
I grip the back of his suit jacket, nails clawing at the material.
With my ankles locked around his lower back, my body burns all over again.
Every swivel of his hips prompts another whimper and a moan, and I cling to him, holding on as he picks up the pace, pounding into me.
Once.
Twice.
He crushes me against his chest and holds me tight as his cock jerks inside me, a groan rumbling from his throat. The sound vibrates against my neck, and something about it— almost a purr but not quite—comforts and makes me burrow closer.
Long minutes pass as we struggle to catch our breath. His cock stops filling me with heat and begins to soften inside me. I lift my head from where I was resting it against the top of his head, and he lifts his from the side of my neck.
His kiss is tender. “Are you okay?” There’s a relaxed, satisfied huskiness in his voice that makes me think of lazy mornings spent in bed with our arms and legs tangled together. I want that so badly.
“You didn’t knot me,” I whisper, unsure if I should be angry or disappointed.
He kisses my neck, and my body tightens around him, drawing a groan from him. “When I knot you, it won’t be against a wall in the middle of a party. You’re going to be on silk sheets, and I won’t pull out of you all night.”
“All night?” I ask with a grin as I loop my arms around the back of his shoulders. “I think I like the sound of that.”
“I like the thought of taking my mate home and giving her everything she wants.” He’s smiling as his lips touch mine when the sound of approaching footsteps penetrates my happy bubble. These steps are familiar, determined, and a little terrifying.
Ms. Arkwright is the head of Haven Academy. If she’s marching this way, she’s looking for something, and the only omega missing from the ballroom is me.
“I have to go,” I whisper urgently as I lower my feet to the floor and prepare to leave.
When he pulls out of me, it’s the sweetest ache.
It feels so good that I struggle to remember why I have to go.
I have no idea how long I’ve been gone, but it was only a matter of time before someone came searching for me.
Torin clings to me. “Stay. She won’t see us in here.”
I shake my head. “Ms. Arkwright will search every room until she finds me.”
I swear I can already hear doors along this hallway snick open and shut again. It sounds like she’s looking in every room on her way to the library.
A deep crease appears between his brows, but his grip on me never loosens. “I’ll come with you.”
I press my palms flat on his chest. “They’ll guess what we’ve been up to if we appear together, and they’ll throw you out. I have to go alone. Meeting on the dance floor is fine. This… this is not fine. They will never accept us.”
He gives me a long, unhappy look. I’m not happy about this either. It feels like I’m leaving part of my soul behind. But when he releases a frustrated sigh and kisses me, I realize I’ve persuaded him.
“Then go. For now.”
Blushing as I straighten my twisted panties as best as I can, I turn to leave. “I’ll look for you.”
He pulls me back, kissing me hard and deep. “I’ll find you. Stamp on every toe until I do.”
It’s easy to smile, painful to walk away.
My legs are like jelly as I hurry to the door and slip into my heels.
Hoping I don’t have lipstick smeared all over my face, I straighten my dress, relieved that a hairdresser secured my long, wavy blonde hair in a low twist with half a can of hairspray.
I pat down any flyaway strands and hope for the best. There’s no mirror for me to check my appearance. This will have to do.
Before I pull open the door, I turn around.
I can’t see Torin. He’s hidden deep in the shadows between the two mahogany bookcases filled with brown leather-bound books. But I feel him watching me and willing me not to leave, and it hurts all over again when I want to take his hand and run away.
But I can’t.
My family would never forgive me. The teachers would assume he’d kidnapped me, and I might never see my sister again if I humiliated my parents like that. We have to do things properly. “Bye, Torin.”
Bye feels so small and too inadequate to say to my scent match. I should have left already, but invisible strings keep pulling me back to him. I don’t want to leave him.
Torin steps out from the shadows with a small smile and says, “I’m looking forward to meeting for the first time on the dance floor, Juniper Edith Alicia Mabel Harrington.”
“Call me that again and I’ll be stamping on your toes,” I warn him with a smile and a slight narrowing of my eyes. “And it’s June. I’ll always be June to you.”
His smile grows. “I look forward to our first dance, June, and this first will not be as painful as the last. I’ve had dance lessons.”
I’m smiling with happiness, excitement, and anticipation as I open the door and step into the hallway. That smile withers and dies at the sight of Ms. Arkwright, scowling at me from three doors away from the library.
Scowl deepening, she strides toward me. “Where have you been, Juniper? Everyone has been searching for you.”
I start to explain about feeling hot and needing to rest, but she cuts in with a muttered, “Never mind.” Inches away, her nostrils flare and her eyes flick to the door behind me.
Her expression shutters, and she refocuses on me.
“This way.” The hand she clamps around my wrist leaves me no choice but to follow or be pulled along.
Frowning, I hurry to keep up. “This isn’t the way to the ballroom.”
“No,” she says tightly as she leads me away from it. “Your night is over.”
“But Ms—”
“Enough,” she cuts in. “I know everything I need to.”
Panicking, I twist around, hoping to catch Torin’s eye so I can at least mouth to him where I’m going and that he won’t find me in the ballroom. The bonding ceremony is tomorrow night. If we don’t meet—officially—on the dance floor tonight, the teachers won’t see us together to bond us.
I try to slow her down as we near the end of the hallway, but Ms. Arkwright is a force of nature. There’s no stopping her once she’s set on something. The library door swings open as Ms. Arkwright drags me around the corner and out of sight before Torin can step out.
He won’t know where I am or even how to find me. I found my scent match tonight. I gave him my virginity, and then I lost him again.