Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Emily
“Almost there.”
Jared pushes open the bedroom door with his shoulder, his elbow finding the light switch, and the lamps on the nightstands flood the room in warm yellow.
He bends to sit me upright on the bed, and he works the buttons on my shirt open. The flannel parts, and cool air hits my burning skin.
I gasp at the contact, my head tipping back, and Jared doesn’t pause. My bra next, the hooks undone with a twist of his fingers, before his hands are at my belt, dragging my jeans down my hips. My underwear follows, leaving me bare with the heat rolling off me in waves.
“Lie back,” Jared encourages, his hand on my shoulder pushing me onto the bed.
The cotton is blessedly cool beneath my back and thighs, and the relief is dizzying. Then the need surges back, twice as demanding, and I grab him by the T-shirt to yank him down.
As he settles beside me, my teeth graze the stubbled skin beneath his jaw, and the growl he releases vibrates straight to my core.
His clothes. I need them gone. I push his T-shirt up, and he helps, pulling it over his head in one motion. His skin warms beneath my touch, the lean muscle firm under my palms, and I drag my mouth down to his collarbone, licking away the salt of the day and nipping at his racing pulse.
“Em.” He cups the back of my head, fingers threading in the hair at my nape, and he holds me there while my mouth works lower, mapping his sternum, the flat plane of his stomach, the trail of hair below his navel, and lower.
I yank his jeans down with both hands, my mouth still moving, and he lifts his hips to help. His cock springs free, already hard, and I wrap my hand around him, and his pulse races here as well.
When I lower my head, the first touch of my tongue draws a broken sound from him. His hand tightens in my hair, his hips thrusting, sinking his length deeper into my mouth until he nudges the back of my throat. I take him deeper, throat swallowing around him, and his whole body goes taut.
His jaw clenches as his throat works, his focus on the ceiling as he fights a losing battle for control. Right as he nears the edge, I replace my mouth with my hand, stroking him until the tension in his thighs eases.
“Fuck, Em, please.”
I move to straddle him, his cock slick against my inner thigh, and I position myself, my hand between us guiding him to where I’m already wet and aching.
I sink down without waiting, the pleasure of it ripping a shout from my throat. He fills me, hot and thick, but there’s no time to relish the sensation of him pulsing inside my body.
My hands brace on his chest, and I ride him hard. Deep, rolling strokes that pull groans from him with every downward thrust. My pheromones thicken in the room with each movement, crushed clover gone bright and green, saturating the air until they coat my own tongue.
Jared grips my waist, and he meets me thrust for thrust, his hips lifting off the mattress to drive deeper.
His sea-glass green eyes find mine, dark with want, his jaw set and his breath coming in short gasps. On each downward stroke, his composure cracks, and the sight of it drives my pace harder, my thighs burning, my hands sliding from his chest to his shoulders, gripping hard enough to leave marks.
The climax builds from somewhere deep, a pressure that spreads outward, and my inner walls swell, my lock engaging with full force.
As my body seizes around him, my hips roll through the pulses, and a guttural, animalistic sound tears from the depths of me. Jared’s hands lock on my waist, and he thrusts deep as his knot swells, fighting the squeeze of my lock as he shudders through his release beneath me.
The pressure sends another wave of pleasure through me, and my hips keep grinding in circles, working through the aftershocks. I bend forward, my forehead resting on his collarbone, my breathing hard.
Jared’s hands stroke up my sides, his touch gentling as the worst of the wave passes. His chest rises and falls beneath my palms, and the bond between us hums, heartbeat racing in tandem.
The lock releases slowly, my body yielding around Jared’s softening cock.
I lift my head, my breath still uneven, and catch the scent of fresh linen on sun-warmed cedar blooming into the pheromone-saturated air of the bedroom with a warmth that cuts through the bright green of my own scent like sunlight through cloud cover.
My Omega.
My body screams for him.
Leif stands in the doorway, his burgundy shirt unbuttoned and hanging open, his chest bare beneath it. His mauve-taupe hair is damp at the temples, his periwinkle eyes dark and fixed on me with an intensity that has my stomach dropping.
I can smell every note of him, layered and warm, and the bond pulls tight with a demand to Mark him and make him mine.
I’m off the bed in a flash, crossing the hardwood expanse, and I grip his jaw, his skin heating under my touch as I claim his lips in a kiss.
He yields on contact, a soft, broken whine escaping him. His hands come up to grip my shoulders as I back him into the doorframe, my body flush with his, the heat of him radiating through the open shirt.
His hands slide from my shoulders to my back, pulling me closer. Through his khakis, his hard dick ruts against my stomach, begging for attention.
Gripping his waist, I spin him away from the door and walk him backward with one hand at his chest and the other finding his belt. He moves with me, trusting me to guide him to where he needs to be.
The back of his knees hit the mattress, he sits, and I’m on him before he can rebalance, my knees bracketing his thighs, my hands working the open shirt off his shoulders.
The belt comes undone, his zipper lowers, and I push everything off his hips in one motion, laying him bare.
Dark mauve hair dusts his pecs and narrows into a happy trail before gathering in a trimmed bush around his pretty pink dick. It’s hard and flushed at the tip, heavy where it rests against the inside of his thigh.
I lean down, lips brushing his jaw before drifting to the soft pulse beneath his ear. His hand tangles in my hair, holding me steady as I ease forward, my breasts sliding over his chest, my hands settling on his shoulders.
I trace tiny circles with my tongue on the hollow of his collarbone, then sweep upward to his throat. He shivers, spine arching, and I linger with my lips there, my breath feathering over his warm skin. My fingers drift down his broad back, mapping each ridge of muscle until I cup his hips.
I slide back far enough to guide the head of him to my slick entrance, and he fills me, inch by inch, hot but also gentle despite the need my pheromones will have triggered in him. I gasp, hands clenching his strong thighs, and he moans deep in his chest as he stretches me open.
Heat blooms through my body as the soft part of his dick, midway up the shaft, unfurls and flutters open, teasing my channel, ready to be bred. I tilt my hips, riding him with more care than I did my Alpha, my breath slipping out on each fall of my hips.
Leif’s hand at my lower back keeps me anchored as I find that sweet spot where thrust and flex meet.
His dick quivers in time with the pleasure I spill, soaking into those living folds.
Sensations overload my system, and my heart races.
In the back of my mind, the loss of not being pregnant still lingers, but at this moment, all I can think about is quickening my Omega’s womb so he can carry our pup.
I lean forward, kissing behind Leif’s ear, and he shifts beneath me to tilt his head, giving me his nape.
My own pulse throbs, and I grip Leif’s shoulders, hips rolling faster now, meeting the gentle suction of his dick, and heat blooms low in my belly, pressure coiling tighter until I can’t hold back.
With one last, deep roll of my hips, my teeth find his neck, and I bite down hard enough to break skin as my lock engages, my inner muscles rippling to hold him open as I spill over him.
He moans and shudders, holding me tight, until our heartbeats settle.
I nuzzle his fresh Mark as my lock eases, and I lift off him carefully, my hand sliding to his dick to ensure his slits have all closed with my release still inside. He pushes into my fingers, soft now, but still sensitive.
Before Jared slides off the bed and pads toward the bathroom, he helps Leif lie back and covers him with the quilt. I turn to track Jared’s movement when my attention catches on Grady, who sits in the worn leather armchair in the corner of the bedroom.
I’d sensed him peripherally the whole time, but hadn’t realized how long he’d watched us. Now his hazel eyes are dark, his cheeks flushed and chest rising with quick breaths.
It seems my Beta enjoyed the show.
I slide off the bed and stalk over to kneel before him. My hands find his face, his trim beard tickling my fingertips as I bring my mouth to his, gentler with my Beta, who my instincts demand I claim, but who doesn’t share that same drive.
His mouth parts, and his tongue seeks mine, learning the flavor of the rest of his pack through me.
When I break the kiss, his eyelids sit at half-mast, and my name escapes him on a breathy sigh. “Emily.”
Purring, I kiss along his jaw, lingering at the hinge where bone meets throat, his pulse fluttering beneath my lips. My hands work at his shirt, buttons sliding free, and I push the fabric off his shoulders. I trail kisses down the column of his throat, nipping at his pulse.
He inhales in short, shallow bursts as I drop lower, my mouth finding the flat plane of his stomach, tongue tracing the lines of muscle down to his navel. He releases a groan and grips the arms of the chair, his knuckles turning white.
Without looking up, I tug open his belt. His zipper follows, and I ease his jeans down far enough to nuzzle the warm skin of his inner thigh.
With slow circles of my tongue, I explore the crease where thigh meets hip. The flat of my palm rubs over his hard, aching cock. His breathing fractures into short, uneven gasps, and when I finally take him into my mouth, the sound that tears from his throat is raw and unfiltered.
I work his crown with mouth and tongue as I wrap my hand around the base, reading every twitch of his hips, every catch in his breathing.
His fingers stroke the hollow of my cheeks and the tautness of my lips. “Em, I want to be inside you.”
I pull off him with a pop, and I finish stripping off his pants, lifting his bad leg with care and easing the fabric past his ankle.
Then I lift him and carry him to the bed, where he sprawls out on the mattress.
Jared and Leif are there, too, cuddled up as Jared helps Leif sip water, but I ignore them for now, all of my attention on my Beta.
His hard cock hugs his stomach, and I straddle his hips, fist his base, and sink onto his length.
The stretch is good. Deep. His hands find my hips, and he thrusts up into me. I purr in approval and rock down to meet him, careful to support myself.
I brace my hands on either side of his head as I move with him, reading each shift of his breathing, each small adjustment of his hips beneath mine.
His bad leg braces against the mattress, and I keep my body tilted forward, watching the way his jaw loosens, the way his eyes stay open and on mine, the flush spreading across his cheekbones and down his throat.
His hold tightens, his thrusts quickening, and my release sweeps over me in an unexpected rush. I try to pull off, but his grip on me holds me in place as he seeks his own pleasure, and my lock clamps down.
He groans, then whimpers, his palms pushing at my hipbones, and his breathing shifts to short, panicked gasps. “Em, wait, something’s wrong.”
My body clenches around him in rhythmic pulses I cannot stop or reverse, and I try to keep him still so he won’t hurt himself. “Grady, it’s okay.”
But he’s not listening as he lets out a pained cry, and I’m helpless to do anything but ride out the lock while the man beneath me fights for breath.
“Grady.” Leif crawls over to grip Grady’s jaw, turning his head. “Look at me. Listen to my voice. Breathe with me. In through your nose. Slow.”
Grady’s breath catches, holds, and releases in a ragged exhalation that shakes his entire body.
“Again,” Leif says. “In through your nose. Out through your mouth. Slower this time.”
Another breath. Slower. Grady’s hands are still on my hips, but the pushing has eased, his grip shifting from resistance to simply holding on. His eyes close, and sweat dampens his forehead, and his chest rises and falls beneath my hands in time with Leif’s measured instructions.
The lock begins to ease by painful degrees, my body yielding around him, and the moment I have any control back, I lift myself off him in one careful motion. His cock slips free, and he groans, his hand flying to his bad knee where it’s bent at an angle that must hurt.
“I’m sorry,” I say, the words coming out wrecked. “Grady, I’m—”
“It’s okay.” He doesn’t look at me as he slides off the bed and limps over to his cane. “I just need—” He stops, swallows hard. “I’ll be in the living room.”
He doesn’t wait for a response as he limps out of the room. His footsteps move down the hallway, followed by the soft creak of the living room couch as he settles onto it.
“I’ll check on him,” Leif murmurs as he grabs his pants and goes after Grady.
Jared’s arms come around me, and I lean back into the solid embrace. “He’s fine. Leif’s with him. Breathe, Em.”
I try, my breath coming out ragged, catching on an almost sob if I had the energy for it, and Jared’s arms wrap around me from behind, his purr vibrating through my back.
The next cycle is already building, the heat surging back through my system.
Ruts don’t care about broken moments or scaring your partner.
It wants.
It demands.
It takes.
Jared’s purr shifts, deepening, and his mouth finds the curve of my shoulder. “I’ve got you. Don’t fight it. I’m right here.”
I close my eyes and let the next wave take me because there is no other option. No fight left in my body to resist the biology driving me back into Jared’s arms. I lose myself in the warmth of his skin, in the hardness of his body.
And then Leif is there again, and I do my best to breed my Omega, to open his body and pour myself into him. Then Jared is guiding my mouth onto his cock, and Leif is behind me, demanding more, more, more.
When the Rut breaks the next morning, we’re exhausted, bodies sticky and limp from exertion.
And Grady is gone.