25. Evans
Evans
Ache. Everything aches.
My skin is on fire.
Burning.
Searing.
Every touch, every kiss feels like I’m being stripped bare.
There’s nothing left but a bundle of nerves.
Raw. Exposed.
My bones feel like they’re itching, hurting, splintering inside me.
There’s a low whining noise, and I think it’s me.
But I’m exhausted, too tired to lift my head.
Stretched open and sloppy, I lean back into him.
My thighs are wet and sticky.
I scent him everywhere.
“Once more, baby.” A harsh, guttural voice pleads.
Hunter.
My alpha.
I whimper as I feel him push inside.
Filling me.
Drowning me.
Chasing away every hollow, haunted space that remains.
Each frantic, hungry, desperate thrust, every harsh breath or protracted moan was branded on my soul, infusing itself to my core.
Sinking his teeth into my flesh again, he devours me piece by piece, laying claim to everything that I am.
Blanketed in the scent of spiced oranges and pine, turpentine and paint, I lose myself over and over until I can no longer tell where he begins and I end.
Gasping, panting, I try to suck in desperate breaths.
His knot expands, stretching, pushing, burning me from the inside.
Soothing me too.
The paradox unravelling everything that I am.
“You can take it,” he murmurs against my lips, stealing the air from my lungs. “You’re so good for me, Benny.”
Benedict.
Evans.
Benny.
Baby.
Every touch strips away the doubts, the anxiety, the thought that this is wrong, that I should not submit to another alpha until everything…dissolves.
Nothing coherent remains.
Nothing but him and I.
Nothing but feral snarls and hungry mouths.
Violent need underpins everything.
Need to breed.
To mate.
To fuck.
To claim.
Need him.
Need this.
“Mine. Benny. All mine.”
Oh goddess, I think I’m dead.
Not in a ‘died and gone to heaven’ kind of way, but in a ‘feel like I’ve been dragged through the spiky gates of the underworld, chewed up and spat out by a three headed dog’ kind of way.
Every inch of me is clammy, and sticky. Swollen and sensitive. Something dried flakes off my chest as I scratch at it. I don’t even want to open my eyes right now. That’s if I even could, because it feels like they’ve been glued shut.
Did I cry? It feels like I may have cried.
There’s a warmth pressed against my back and instinctively I know it’s Hunter. I don’t know how long we’ve been here. Or where here is, since it doesn’t feel like we’re still in the art room. Although vague flashes of being bent over the kitchen counter flicker into my mind.
And in the spring.
Folded over the couch.
And up against the bathroom counter.
On all floors in the entertainment room.
Fuck, I think he even knotted me in the mud by the spring.
Was that why it felt like a herd of elephants had stopped up my spine?
I don’t even really know what happened. Just that I couldn’t let him be alone, not trapped up here alone. There was a restless pull, urging me to find him. To take whatever he had to give.
With my eyes still screwed shut, I know it’s him, my body recognising the feel of him. There’s a faint tug in my chest. My awareness of him seems heightened as I finally take a deep breath—inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale—and rub my eyes.
Staring at the clock on the bedside table I realise that we made it to the bed at some point. Weak sunlight filters in through the crack in the curtain, but I have no idea how long we’ve been trapped in a rut haze.
I should be freaking out right now.
Panic should be coursing through my body, suffocating me like it usually does. Anxiety has always been my constant companion, even if I refused to name it, pretending I was fine with fake smiles.
An arm slides around my waist. Grounding me, anchoring me in the moment.
Growing up in the world I did, surrounded by the wealthy elite, I knew that there was a certain order to things.
Alphas and omegas were two pieces of the same biologically perfect puzzle, slotting together the way nature intended.
Here I was tangled up in something imperfectly perfect.
I’ve never heard of an alpha pairing, as far as I knew, they didn’t exist. What would our housemates and our friends think? What would my father say? What would people back at college? All the guys on the football team?
Everything I knew was shaken, twisted and turned inside out.
But as lips press against my neck, sending a shiver through me, I know I don’t regret what happened. I would do it over again in a heartbeat because it’s Hunter.
Something about him, about this feels right.
The scent of him lingers on my skin, mingling with mine until it’s almost impossible to pluck out distinct notes. This is us. I can feel it in my core, a certainty that wasn’t there before.
Nudging my leg with his, he pushes my knee higher as he tosses the sheets onto the floor. Gentle fingers find their way over my swollen, puffy asshole, massaging softly before scooping up the remnants of cum that have trickled out, pushing it back inside me with a hum of satisfaction.
“Mmmm, need your plug.” His voice is croaky, but he sounds more like himself than he did when I first came back to the cabin. There’s no underlying snarl or that wild energy oozing from every pore.
I hiss, oversensitive and sore as he buries two fingers in me until he’s knuckle deep. “I don’t carry it around with me. Idiot.”
Hints of shame and regret prickle on my skin. Shame for the way he had to help me, and regret that we could have been close like this sooner if I hadn’t been determined to draw that line between us.
A moan bubbles up my throat as he pegs them against my prostate, bringing me back to the present.
“Need you full of my cum.” His words are punctuated with kisses and bites along my shoulder. A flash of panic flares in my chest. What if his rut isn’t done?I don’t know if I can handle another knot.
“You know I can’t get pregnant, right?” I say, squirming into his hold rather than away for some reason.
It’s like my body and my mind aren't quite aligned after being wrung out like a dirty dishcloth for the last couple of days. “You may have missed it, but I’m not an omega. You’re barking up the wrong tree. ”
That doesn’t stop him as he keeps making me lose my mind.
“Doesn’t mean we can’t try.” I’m not sure I like the determination lacing his words, as if it’s a challenge. As he grinds his already hard cock between my ass cheeks, catching on my hole and his own fingers.
“Did you know clownfish are all born male? But the dominant one transforms into a female for breeding.”
“What?” I blink. How very Hunter to come out with one of his random little facts right now. It doesn't matter that he’s currently trying to work his fat cock back into my ass or that his teeth are scraping against my neck.
“Fuck, you’re perfect.” He wraps a hand around my cock, satisfied when he feels how slick I am. Jerking me slowly, he draws a needy hiss from my lips. “That bogwitch never deserved you.”
I rock back against him, everything lazy. Slow. Indulgent. “Bogwitch? What? Do you mean Sad—”
Grabbing my face, he silences me with a kiss. “Shhh, don’t summon the succubus.”
He murmurs sweet things against my neck, and with every hushed word of praise he brands onto my skin, it’s like something chips away inside me. That is until he decides to remind me that I came hands free again with my knot partially inflating.
Bastard.
An alpha should be able to control his body, that’s what my father had drilled into me over and over again before my first rut.
I had impeccable control. The last three years I’d been sharing heats with Sadie and I never knotted her without being in control or without using protection.
Losing my mind, letting that control slip through my fingers was never an option. But with Hunter, it was compulsory.
“How do you even have energy right now?” I grumble as he pulls away, laying on his back.
As if I weigh nothing, and I’m not huge compared to his lithe frame, he pulls me so that I’m laying positioned on top of him. “I’ll always have energy for you, Benny.”
Rolling my eyes, I bury my face in his neck, inhaling like he’s my own personal brand of heroin.
“Why don’t you get on top and that way you can control everything?”
“I’ve used that line a time or two myself.” I snort, calling him out as I writhe against his body before placing a kiss on his collarbone.
Ignoring the obvious lie, since Hunter hasn’t let me control anything since I stepped inside the cabin, I still shift, placing my knees on either side of his hips. It’s like my mouth says one thing, but my body does another.
Making a small half grunt-half moaning sound as his tip notches against me, I lean into whatever this is. His large hands grab my hips, rocking me against him slowly, my dick between us.
“We can take it slow, baby.” Promises, promises.
“The speed isn’t the issue.”
“No knot if you don’t want it,” he swears, claiming my mouth in a sizzling kiss that has my toes curling. What is wrong with my body?
Hunter kisses me, saying sweet things, making all sorts of promises and as much as I’d love to say it’s the lingering after effects, I know this is all him. This is different. This isn’t rut sex.
My body moves automatically, craving that closeness between us, eager for his touch even though I’m overstimulated and sensitive. I’m glued to him, desperate for connection as my skin presses against his.
Even the thought of being away from him right now causes a tightness in my chest.
No, I need this. Need him. Mate.
Pressing on his chest to sit myself up, I lean forward and guide his cock against my opening. With a slight wince, I sink down on him, pushing through the burn because I need this.
I let him fill me, inch by inch until there’s no room for anything else. He consumes every thought. With a shallow gasp, I dig my nails into his skin, leaving marks that peek out from beneath his ink.
After days of being knotted frantically, this feels different.
It's slow, almost sensual as his hands wander up my thighs, stroking, soothing while I moan and mewl softly. This isn’t a battle for dominance and control, fighting to take what we need from one another. Leaning forward, I press my forehead against his. Our breath coming in heavy pants is in sync.
This is surrender.
How can something that feels so right, ever be wrong?