Chapter 20 – Zale
Chapter Twenty
Zale
I press my lips softly against his, and we both make small sounds of relief. Taking that as a sign to deepen our embrace, my tongue slips into his mouth. Humming and making appreciative noises, so he knows just how starved I am for him, I cup his face. Nubbing my thumbs over his neck, following the touch with small licks and bits, I mingle kisses with scent marking, claiming him. I need him to have no doubts about who he belongs to. There needs to be no question in his mind.
A charred sweetness lingers on the tip of my tongue, sending a shiver through me, making my body feel as I press my hard cock against his stomach.
“If it was the same, without the whiskey and weed,” I reply, my voice low and husky before I kiss him again.
The same?
No. It was better.
Shit. I could become addicted to this.
He places his hands on his chest, pushing me away, slipping out of my hold.
My alpha instincts roar, protesting at the space between us. He needs to be in my arms. Mine. Mine. Mine.
I watch his face change as he tries to shut down. Summoning the snarky attitude I know and have grown to love, he hisses, “Satisfied? Can I go now?”
“No,” I grumble, reaching for him again. Pulling him into my arms, I inhale deeply. This was what home smelled like. Like toffee apples and firewood. Like long nights in front of the fire, and autumn leaves.
Pressing my nose up the curve of my neck before I scrape my teeth against his skin, over that stupid band-aid gently. Should I bite him? Claim him right here, right now. That would eviscerate all traces of doubt. My alpha side loves the thought of it, wanting to rut into him as we mark him for everyone to see. Mine.
As I sat by the fireplace earlier watching him, watching Blake flirt with him, things had started to fall into place brick by brick.
I wasn’t imagining the connection between us. He had been slick for me when I was buried knuckle deep inside him and covered in his cum. That sweet butter smell with the apple tones, the crisp scent layer underneath, were his pheromones. They were being muted or suppressed somehow, so I’d always just assumed it was his body wash or his shampoo.
When I add in the information Hunter gives me about his parents and ‘the ick’, that’s when I realized that this possessiveness I felt towards Shiloh was normal.
It was normal because he was my Mate.
And suddenly it all made sense. He wasn’t just my Mate, but my omega Mate.
Turning us so that he’s pressed against the door, I kiss him until he melts in my arms, going soft and pliant. With a chuckle, I cruelly keep some space between us, loving the way his swimming trunks are tented as he whimpers for more.
When I’ve had my fill of his mouth, I move lower, sucking a love bite on his collarbone. Lower again as I leave small bite marks on his sternum, each one making his hips roll and thrust towards me as his cock seeks out some sort of friction.
Sinking to my knees, I finally peel down the wet swim shorts, tossing them into his bathroom with a wet slapping noise as they land on the tile.
Burying my face in the crease of his groin, I inhale the scent of chlorine on his skin mixed with the charred caramel I know now to be his. It’s stronger now, and a part of me wishes I could bottle up the scent.
Shiloh may be trying to push me away, to draw lines between us by using his sister as a shield, but there’s no denying what his body wants. What it knows—that he is the other half of me.
With one hand firmly on his hip, I let the other wander with feather light touches, following each and every soft curve and hard line of his body.
Covering his face with his arm, he groans like he’s a mixture of angry and horny. The cute little noise of frustration doesn't make me stop, because his twitching cock gives him away. A bead of precum rolls over the flushed tip, and down his shaft slowly, like it’s teasing me.
Leaning in, I let my warm breath brush over his skin. His balls tighten, drawing close to his body and for a moment I wonder if I can make my little omega come just by breathing on him. Mmmmmm, wasn’t that a delicious idea? I store it away for another time. It isn’t the moment for torturing him until he’s weeping for release, that would have to wait.
Ever so slowly, I let my tongue flick out and lap up the precum trailing down his pulsing shaft, working my way up to the fat mushroomed tip of his cock. When I move over his slit, he whines. But if I’m expecting Shiloh to submit easily, I’m wrong. With another moan, he weaves a hand into my head and uses his other to grab my chin, causing my mouth to open. I could stop him if I wanted, but that would ruin the fun I was having as he rubs his tip over my bottom lip, making it sticky and glossy with his precum.
“If you’re going to suck it, suck it, Blackwood.” He growls, and I grin. There’s my filthy Mate.
With a small thrust of his hips, he pushes forward, making me gag on his cock while I adjust to his size. The moan sounds like music to my ears as he tries to cover his mouth and muffle the noise.
Hollowing my cheeks, I pull off to the tip, sucking a little harder before pushing myself back down again until my nose is buried in his pubes. Humming, I let my throat vibrate and close around him, ratcheting up the pressure before easing up again.
“Fuckkkkk.”
“Why do you feel so good?”
I want to tell him it’s because I was made for him, but I’m not ready to stop sucking him off just yet. Instead, I hook his leg up over my shoulder, spreading him wide for me as he now buries both hands in my hair, using the grip to steady himself. I don’t care if he tears out my hair like this, as long as I get to have another taste. Another lick. Another suck.
It will never be enough, I realize as the sweet toffee notes spike, getting thicker and stronger as he writhes beneath my hands and mouth.
Grabbing his ass, I squeeze, making him and reward me with a spurt of precum. He tastes like toffee apples, the kind you have at the carnival during the autumn festival.
Shiloh makes a muffled grunting noise as I pull apart his cheeks and slide a finger along his slick crease. So wet, and it was all for me.
Gently I rub my finger over his puckered rim in a circular motion, spreading his stickiness over the sensitive ring of muscle. Glancing up, I watch as he throws his head back, thrusting into my mouth like he hates me while moaning for me, like I’m his salvation.
Taking my other hand, I cup his balls, massaging and tugging on them while still swallowing him down like he’s the air I need to breathe.
Teasing him, I work the tip of my finger inside his tight little hole, enjoying the way I’m rewarded with a small gush of slick. It covers my hand, releasing another burst of pheromones into the room. I want to be buried inside him, stretching him out as he takes my knot. The image of him, flushed and begging beneath me makes me impatient but I know I need to wait. This isn’t the time or the place. We shouldn't even be doing this, and it wouldn’t be too much longer before someone realized we were missing.
As I push my finger deeper inside, his head drops, green eyes locking with mine and it’s like the entire world tilts on its axis, only instead of it being off course, everything is perfect. This was how it was always meant to be.
“Zale…” he whispers, thumb stroking my cheek in a rare moment of tenderness from my prickly little hedgehog. It quickly morphs into desperation as I press my finger against that little bundle of nerves in his ass.
Now that I know he’s an omega, and that he's made for me, I pull out and slide three fingers back inside him without hesitating. Omega’s bodies are designed to take an alpha knot and birth children, they stretch much more easily than a beta would but it also means that they need a little more girth to make them feel satisfied.
If my mouth wasn’t full, I’d grin. That explained the huge tentacle toy with the knot. He wasn’t a size queen beta, he was an unsatisfied omega.
Still bobbing up and down on his cock, I start fucking him in earnest with my fingers, making sure to apply pressure every time I move over his prostate.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I can’t—” he begs, trying to push me away as he loses control. His thighs are trembling as his body struggles to stay upright. His hips buck, making half aborted thrusts as I strip away everything between us, leaving him a quivering overstimulated mess. Tears leak from his eyes as he bites into the back of his hand with another whimper. Fuckkkk, those noises.
I pop off his cock with wet noise, “You can baby. You’re going to come for me and give me every last drop.”
This time when I take him back in my mouth, I suck harder, making him pull back and fuck himself on my fingers, which are pressed against the nerves inside his ass. We keep going like this for a few more moments, but it’s the final tug on his balls and my thumb pressing against his taint that proves to be the final nail in the coffin as my mouth floods with reams of cum, hot, sweet and thick. I swallow it down, keeping my fingers buried inside him as he rides my face slowly, eking out every last wave of pleasure.
When it’s finally too much, he drops to the floor with me, and I bundle him into my arms, letting our pheromones combine and soak into our skin. He doesn’t even realize how perfect he is.
I’m kissing the top of his head, tracing lazy patterns down his arm, inhaling the scent of him when I feel his body stiffen.
I hate this moment. The moment afterwards, when he regrets everything and wants to pretend like it never happened. It kills me a little inside each time he denies the bond between us.
Mossy eyes look up at me, and just as he’s about to open his mouth to say something I know will sting like a million tiny paper cuts, a voice calls out.
“Zale, are you up here, babe?” Millie‘s voice carries down the corridor causing Shiloh to shove me away, as he scrambles across the floor with a horrified expression.
“You need to leave,” he hisses as he stares between me and the door as we listen out for oncoming footsteps. Silence.
“Zale?” Millie shouts again.
Reaching for him, I whisper, “Stop pushing me away.”
I don’t know what I’ll do if Millie walks in right now, but she isn’t my concern. He is. Goddess, I wouldn’t be in this mess if I’d realized sooner that the connection between us wasn’t going away. My relationship with his sister would already be over and he wouldn’t be cowering by his bed, worried that she was about to discover what horrible people we were.
“I can’t do this, not now.” He pleads, eyes glassy with tears and I pause my fingers just inches away from his foot. I didn’t want him to cry, I couldn’t bear what this was doing to him. “Not this weekend.”
Time.
He was asking for time. I told myself earlier I’d give it to him, but then when I’d seen Blake flirting with him in the hot tub, that had all gone out the window. I was letting my alpha brain make decisions, and that was rarely a good idea. Instincts weren’t logical, they were raw and based on need. I needed him. But to have him, we had to think a little more strategically. Rushing into this would ruin everything.
Withdrawing my hand, I push off the floor and get to my feet. He’s pulled the quilt off the bed, wrapping it around him like a cocoon.
“Fine,” I conceded softly, “but we’re in this together.”
He doesn’t look like he believes me.
“Zale?” Even her voice was grating on me now. Scrubbing at my face, I sigh and open the door. That wasn’t fair. It wasn’t her.
It was me. It was my brain, rejecting her for not being him .
“I’m just taking a shower,” I shout back, stepping out into the hallway. Shiloh doesn't even pause, moving quickly to close the door and I hear the soft snick of the lock, I sigh. “The chlorine from the tub was making me feel all weird.”
Leaning over the balcony, I hope that she doesn’t try to come upstairs. The pheromones may be weak, but they're still drifting out from Shiloh’s room and into the corridor.
“Want me to join you?” She’s standing at the bottom of the stairs, leaning against the post in her bikini, twirling the string on her hip seductively.
Waving her off with a fake smile, I say, “Nah, it’s your birthday weekend. Go enjoy your friends. I’ll only be five minutes.”
“If you’re sure…” She hesitates, but we can both hear our friends cheering out on the patio and the sound of glasses clinking.
Millie loves being the life and soul of the party, and if I wanted her to come upstairs, she would, but she would much rather be where everyone else was. It was a good thing I wanted her to go away.
“Yeah. I’ll be there now in a minute.”
My shower is hot and quick, but I take extra time to scrub myself even though I hate doing it. Why was I always having to wash away the scent of him, when I wanted to be etched into my skin. When he finally accepted that he was my Mate, I was going to invite him over, fuck him into a whimpering mess and then make him roll around in all my clothes, just so that I could surround myself with his pheromones.
When I come downstairs, I find the guys in the kitchen, grabbing more steaks and burgers from the fridge while Millie is back in the hot tub, surrounded by her omega friends.
Hunter’s sitting on the counter, swinging his legs while he chews on a red Twizzlers from Shiloh’s snack cupboard. “Why do you look like someone spat in your tacos?”
“That’s…an oddly specific descriptor.” I raise my brow and he just shrugs.
“Where’s Shiloh? Blake asks as he pulls out another beer, popping the cap and handing it to me but I shake my head. I needed more water in my system, not alcohol.
Evans chuckles, clearly a few too many beers in as he stares at us with glassy eyes. Either that or it was mixing with the painkillers he’d taken earlier. “I didn’t realize you had a thing for the beta?”
“He’s cute, and kinda feisty,” Blake lifts his shoulder in a lazy half shrug, avoiding my gaze.
Yeah, Shiloh was cute.
And feisty.
And smart.
And hardworking.
And fucking mine.
Stepping towards Blake, I lower my voice into a growl. “Stay the fuck away from him.”
“Woah, man.” He raises his hands, surprised by my sudden flare of aggression as he steps back against the counter. Our gazes lock, and we glare at one another, tension crackling between us like electricity. “Calm down.”
“Just…stay the fuck away,” I snarl, trying not to draw attention but at the same time needing him to know his place.
“What’s your prob—Oh. Ohhhhhhh.” His eyes widen in surprise before he lowers his gaze in submission. We may not always be dominated by our secondary genders, but there were times when an alpha will couldn’t be ignored. Like when placing a Claim on a Mate. Blake was free to challenge me, but we both knew I’d win.
“What’s oh?” Evans asks, slurring his words as he tries to open a bottle of water with his teeth, oblivious to everything like usual.
Hunter’s eyes move between Blake and me, a slow smile spreading on his face. He chuckles, nudging Evans with his shoulder. “Don’t worry about it.”
Finally managing to open the bottle, Evans squeezes it a little too hard, making water splash out and all down his bare chest. He barely seems to notice that he’s dripping as he begins sniffing the air, his tongue flicking out over his bottom lip. “Seriously, can anyone smell toffee? Who’s hiding it because it’s a total dick move to bring caramel and not share.”
I freeze, if the others could scent Shiloh and the pheromones are leaking out all over the place, that could only mean one thing. His heat was coming.