Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
PAXTON
Billie smiles as I hand her the coffee in her favorite mug. She sets her phone screen down in her lap, careful to keep from spilling any of the hot liquid. She takes a long drink, her eyes fluttering closed, and then hums in approval.
“It’s perfect. I love when this creamer is available,” she says with another smile.
I settle in beside her, palming her thigh and kissing her cheek. Then I tip my head back and blow out a breath, willing some of the exhaustion to fall away from my body.
“Why did we let Rhett talk me into going out with him last night?” I grouse.
Billie laughs, and my heart swells. “I didn’t let him do anything. You seemed to have fun, though.”
I shrug and lightly push the hem of her slip dress up her thigh a couple inches, luxuriating in the feel of her skin against my own. She snuggles deeper into me, taking another couple drinks of the coffee.
“Bee, if he ever tries to do that again, remind me I’m not twenty-five anymore. My head’s pounding, and I didn’t even drink that much.”
She snorts. “So only four drinks?”
Her voice is warm and full of light-hearted teasing that I unabashedly bask in. I love making her happy. I love getting to hear her laugh and see her smile and feel her relax against me. I sink a bit further into our shared humor.
“You’re supposed to be on my side,” I pout.
She kisses my shoulder. “I am. Just stating facts. You had a good time, though?”
I sigh even as I nod, making sure the sound is exasperated without being truly frustrated.
Billie chuckles again and reaches across me, putting her now half-empty coffee on the side table.
I wrap my arm around her waist before she can resettle next to me, pulling her onto my lap instead.
Her peach scent slowly surround us, and I soak it in.
She leans her head against my shoulder. I run my hand up and down her spine before tracing the shell of her ear and the column of her throat.
“What time do you have to report for the flight?” she asks after a minute.
“One.” I kiss her hair. “You have more houses for us to look at?”
She nods. “I do, but I have other news, too. About Rhett.”
I tense. I can’t help it. I force my voice level. “Oh?”
“He apparently went on a date with Carys,” she says. “They’re scent matches. They figured it out at that party on Halloween.”
For a long minute, I can’t hear a single thing over the roar in my head.
Scent matches.
My cypress scent explodes out of me. Billie only snuggles deeper, unable to distinguish the edge to it that betrays my hurt and fear. I palm her knee, pulling her closer into me, trying to soothe all the angry edges of me I wish weren’t there.
Rhett’s also her scent match. That’s why he smelled of orchids in the locker room yesterday before morning skate.
I’d had to run right the hell out of there before I lost my cool and figured out where exactly her perfume was coming from.
I’d been half-terrified she was hooking up with one of the players.
Which, turns out, I wasn’t actually wrong about that. I’d just never expected my brother to be the one. Not after he hadn’t said a word after Halloween, when Carys seemed to drop completely off his radar just like all of his hook ups and flings.
Instead, they’re scent matches.
Fuck.
“That’s…” I finally manage. My voice is equal parts hoarse shock and polite interest. Flashes of last night pop up with a sudden clarity. “That explains his behavior last night, then. I thought maybe he’d been scolded by Marilyn over something.”
“What happened?” Billie grabs her coffee without pulling away from me, casually drinking it awkwardly, the mug tilted to keep it from spilling on us both.
“Well, normally he’s drowning in partners that want his attention.
Like at Halloween before you and Carys started dancing.
” I twist her hair around my hand, trying to ground myself.
“Last night he didn’t let a single person touch him.
He had a couple drinks, laughed with Kane and me and a few people who recognized him at Slapshots.
We celebrated the win, of course. It’s the first time we’ve managed to string together four in a row, so we were all feeling pretty ecstatic.
Kane and one of the other guys were placing bets on who Rhett would take home.
But he didn’t. He didn’t even buy anyone a drink.
It was odd enough even Kane made a comment about it.
He just shrugged Kane off without any explanation, really, and then headed home not long after that. ”
Billie finishes her coffee and then wraps her arms around me, turning her face into my shoulder. “I told her we could help cover them about going on dates. They’re keeping it secret right now since the season’s rocky and she’s worried what her dad will think about it all.”
True fear rips through me, hollowing out my chest until it’s a miracle I keep breathing at all.
It’s bad enough knowing she’s my scent match…
and my brother’s now, too, while being near her as Billie’s friend.
But having to be in close proximity to both of them?
Risking smelling her perfume out of need like that bar on Halloween?
Jesus, this is literal hell. I’d been so scared this move would be awful for Billie, but it’s actually me that’s finding himself raked over hot coals.
“Yeah, sure,” I say. Anything to make Billie happy at this point. “If you guys want to, then that’s fine.”
She straddles me without fanfare, the hem of her dress pushing to the tops of her thighs, showing just a hint of the simple blue thong she wears underneath.
Her nipples peak through the thin fabric, tempting me.
I run a thumb over one of them, smiling as she shivers.
My dick presses against my sweats, but I ignore it.
This soft intimacy, the warmth and comfort and ease of it, is something I cherish the most about my relationship with Billie.
I’d never had it before her, not in the few serious relationships I’d managed during my early twenties.
“Houses?” I ask, trying to gauge her mood.
She shakes her head. “I need you before you’re gone again.”
I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
I pull her dress over her head, letting it fall to the floor at my feet, not waiting to strip out of my own shirt.
Instead, I run my tongue down her sternum, letting my beard scratch up her skin while I soak in her taste and touch and the way she feels in my lap.
I close my eyes to savor it even more. Her peach doesn’t grow any stronger, the same faint perfume caressing the edges of my senses.
My cypress overwhelms it in only a few seconds.
I palm her hips and bring her down into me, grinding against her.
She hums, the sound cutting off with a startled gasp as I pull a nipple into my mouth, sucking lightly.
Her stomach tightens, and goosebumps race across her chest. She shivers when I pull away and her wet nipple tightens in the sudden cool air.
As I give the same attention to her other nipple, I trace the edge of her panties, letting a finger slip beneath them and slowly move across her clit and then her opening, her body already wet and ready.
She only tolerates my teasing touches for a minute.
With a whine, she pushes me away, her second nipple tightening in the sudden air.
She gasps, but it doesn’t stop her from ripping my shirt off and dropping it off the back of the couch.
She’s just as impatient with my sweats, rising just enough that she can push them down until my dick springs free, already hard and ready for her, leaking a bead of precum onto my stomach.
I push into her warm hands as she wraps them around me, gritting my teeth as she tightens her grip and strokes from root to tip and back.
“Bee,” I grunt.
Her fingers trace my knot.
“You want it today?”
It’s something I always double check even two years since she first worked up to taking my knot. Knotting for Betas can be painful if they’re not ready for it, no matter how much work they’ve done to train their bodies to take one. The last thing I want is to hurt Billie.
She nods.
“You want me to grab—”
I cut off, unable to form the rest of the words, watching in rapture as she pulls her panties to the side and lowers herself onto me. The slide’s an exquisite torture, her body clutching at me like a damn fist. I suck a breath in through my teeth, my stomach clenching.
“Jesus, Bee,” I manage to gasp. “Every time, it’s like the first time. It’s so fucking good, sweetheart.”
She smiles one of those soft smiles most people never get to see.
Without a word, she guides my hands to her breasts.
I flick her nipples as she slowly rides me, rocking into me until our hips grind together, and then she rises again.
With every downward slide, she takes just a bit more of my knot, her cunt stretching around me.
Her breaths shudder out of her, her chest shaking with them.
Everything about her is beautiful, absolutely perfect.
I press a kiss between her breasts and then in the hollow of her throat before capturing her lips. She lets her tongue tangle with mine.
Heat builds between my hips and at the base of my spine.
I pull away from her with a groan, letting one hand trail down the center of her until I can circle her clit the way I know she prefers—soft, slow strokes that match the way she rides me.
Her breath catches on a whimper. Her eyes are hazy with her pleasure.
Smug satisfaction rips through me at the sight.
“I love you,” I murmur.
She nods, then laces her fingers with mine that are still massaging her breast.
“Bite me?” she asks.
My heart fucking stops.
“Bee,” I whisper. “I thought you wanted to wait for the wedding.”
She shakes her head. “I want it. I don’t want to wait another eight months. Let me feel you like that now.”
I don’t fight her on it, trusting her to speak the truth. She doesn’t rush into anything lightly.
“Where?” I ask instead.
She traces my collarbone, the touch featherlight. I nod, swallowing down my own nerves. I circle her clit again, smirking when she trembles in my hold.
“Pax,” she gasps.
“I know. You want it before or after my knot?”
She grinds down into me, taking nearly the entire thing. I resist pushing it up into her, knowing it’ll send her right over that edge she’s dangling over. Her chest is flush with the pleasure, her thighs shaking with the effort of keeping herself back that final half inch.
“Before.” Her voice is so rich, so hazy, it shoots a bolt of lightning down my spine.
I let my lips run over the smooth line of her collarbone. Her body trembles. Her heart races under my tongue as I kiss the unbroken skin. She grinds down into me and then pauses, stilling her entire body, twisting her hands into my hair. I set my teeth against her skin.
“I love you,” she whispers.
I bite down, hard and fast enough to break her skin in a way I’ve never done before. At once, her emotions flow into me, her pleasure and satisfaction and need. She cries out, her pussy clenching around me so tight, I’m shocked it isn’t an orgasm.
“Fuck,” I grunt. “Jesus fucking christ, Bee.”
Before I’ve recalibrated around the influx of sensation, she rises again and then plunges down.
I act on instinct alone, responding to her need now sitting squarely under my sternum as much as her physical movement.
I palm her hip and push up into her, wedging my knot inside her.
I groan into her neck, my own release hitting me like a sledgehammer to the back of my head.
I can’t see for nearly a minute, everything more intense because of the bond now forged between us.
She cries out again, harder and more desperate, then drops her head against my shoulder, her breathing rapid and uneven.
I run my hands over her back and my lips over her ear and down her throat. After a minute, the tension in her body fades, and she collapses fully into me. Her arms wrap back around my waist, and she sighs in contentment that echoes in the bond.
“Much, much better than looking at houses,” she murmurs.
I can’t help but laugh and pull her even closer into me.
“No argument there, sweetheart.”