Chapter 5
Benji
His hand is on my wrist. Thirty seconds ago, I was winning.
I had him against the wall, his cock down my throat, his legs shaking.
I swallowed, wiped my mouth, told him to remember that, and I was walking away.
Now Knox Rivera’s fingers are wrapped around my wrist, his mouth is near my ear, and my body—my completely shameless body—is already leaning back into him.
I yank my arm. "Let go of me."
He doesn't let go. His grip shifts. It's not harder, just more deliberate.
He turns me so I'm facing the wall, his chest flush against my back.
His mouth finds the side of my neck, below my ear.
Right where a claiming bite would go. His scent hits me, fresh and sharp, and my knees do that pathetic thing where they forget how to work.
"Sweetheart," he murmurs against my skin.
I want to rip his throat out. I also want him to say it again.
My cock is hard again. Or maybe it never went soft, I genuinely can't tell anymore. His hands are on my hips, pulling me back against him. I can feel him through our jeans, thick and hard against my ass, and my brain shorts out.
"Fuck you," I breathe.
He laughs against my neck. His fingers undo the waistband of my jeans and pull them down. I don't stop him. I should. I could. I don't.
My jeans drop to my thighs. The cool air hits my skin, and I'm wet.
Embarrassingly wet. Slick coats the insides of my thighs.
Knox makes a low, appreciative sound and spreads his hands across my ass.
I'm braced against the wall, palms flat on the plaster, forehead resting between my arms. This is not what was supposed to happen tonight.
His mouth starts at the base of my spine. A press of lips, slow and deliberate. Almost soft. I hate it more than anything he's done tonight. The rough stuff I can file under hate sex. This I can't file under anything.
His mouth moves lower. His tongue traces down, and my whole body goes tight. I know what's coming, and I refuse to give him the satisfaction.
Knox's tongue slides flat through my slick, one long, wet stripe right up my hole.
My hands curl into fists against the wall.
I bite the inside of my cheek hard enough to draw blood.
He does it again, slower. His thumbs spread me open, his tongue dragging through me, and the groaned rumble he makes vibrates straight into my bones.
He's not rushing. He's taking his time like we've got all night, and my ass is the only thing on his schedule.
The patience is infuriating. I can't fight someone who won't fight back.
His tongue circles my rim, pressing in. I clench my jaw. I'm not going to moan. He already gets my body; he doesn't get to hear me fall apart too.
"You're so fucking wet for someone who hates me," Knox says, his breath hot against my skin. His tongue pushes inside me. I press my forehead into the wall so I don't make a sound I can't take back.
He eats me out like nothing else exists.
His tongue fucks into me in slow strokes, then pulls back to circle my rim, then slides deep again.
His hands grip my hips hard enough to bruise.
My slick is running down my thighs now, actually running, and Knox licks it up.
He makes these low, rough, grateful sounds against my skin, and every single one goes straight to my cock.
"You can keep pretending," he says between strokes. "But your body's honest, sweetheart. Your body's been honest all night."
I hate him. I hate that he's right, I hate that my legs won't hold, and I hate that my cock is aching hard and he hasn't even touched it.
"Tell me you don't want this." He pulls back just enough to talk, his lips brushing my skin. "Go ahead, Benji. Say you don't want it."
I open my mouth to say it. What comes out is a moan. Loud and raw.
He chose that exact second to curl his tongue and suck at my rim, and my whole body just gives. The sound is out before I can catch it, desperate and humiliating. I can feel Knox grin against my skin. I'm going to kill him. The second I remember how my legs work, he's dead.
He doesn't stop. He goes harder, like my moan was permission.
He works me open with a focus that makes my thighs tremble.
He's good at this, and it's clearly not an accident—the angles, the pressure, the way he reads my body and adjusts.
I've had alphas go down on me before, but none of them did it like this.
Like my ass is the best thing they've ever tasted.
"There it is," he murmurs.
A slick-wet finger slides in alongside his tongue, finding my prostate with the accuracy of someone who memorized me the first time.
That's the thing that guts me. He remembers.
I wasn't forgettable. He cataloged my body, kept the information, walked out anyway, and now he's using it to take me apart.
A second finger joins the first. He presses that spot while his tongue works my rim, and I can't hold back anymore. Gasps and moans and Knox's name spill out of me. I'll deny every single one of them later.
"That's it," he says, tender and filthy at the same time. "That's my boy."
My cock is dripping. My thighs shake. I'm going to come. It's building low and tight, just his mouth and his fingers and the bond cranking every sensation past what I'm built for. He hasn't even touched my cock. It doesn't matter.
He pulls back. Just for a breath. His fingers still inside me, his tongue lifting off my rim.
The absence is so sharp my body lurches backward, chasing him.
A pathetic whine tears out of my throat.
I hear him exhale against my skin—a controlled, deliberate pause.
He wanted to feel me break before he put me back together.
Then his mouth is on me again, harder. His fingers curl with intent, and he pushes me over the edge.
I come, and it shatters through me. My cock pulses hard, untouched, spurting against the wall in thick waves.
My whole body seizes. Muscles lock rigid—thighs, abs, the arches of my feet.
My hands claw at the plaster. Slick gushes against his mouth.
The sound that rips out of me is basically a sob.
I can't stop it. I just shake apart while Knox holds me up with his arm around my waist, his mouth still on me.
My hole clenches around his fingers in helpless spasms. My knees buckle. He catches me, his arm tight around my stomach, his face pressed against my lower back. For a few seconds, I just hang there, trembling, held up by the man I spent all night trying to destroy.
We don't move. I'm breathing in shudders. His face is against my back, his arm around me. The hallway smells like both of us. My omega is purring about it in a low, satisfied way that makes me want to put my fist through drywall.
Then Knox presses his lips to the base of my spine.
Just a quiet, warm, careful kiss. Like I'm something worth being gentle with.
My whole body leans into it before I can stop myself.
That's what breaks me. Not the orgasm, not the rimming, not the filthy things he said. The kiss. The anger was holding me together, and this is something else entirely. I'm not built for it.
I pull away sharply, yank my jeans up, and turn around.
Knox is still on his knees, looking up at me.
His face is entirely open. The smirk is gone.
The cockiness is gone. It's just raw and wanting.
If I look at him for one more second, I'm going to ask him to stay, and asking people to stay is the one thing I promised myself I'd never do again.
"Get out," I say. It comes out thin and shaky. It sounds nothing like the first time I said it tonight. Something shifts behind his eyes; he hears the difference.
Knox stands up slowly. He doesn't argue. He fixes his jeans and walks to the door. He's not dragging it out, but he's leaving room. He opens the door and looks back at me over his shoulder.
"I'm not done," he says. The worst part is, he means it.
The door closes behind him with a quiet click. No slam. The sound of it is worse than if he'd banged it off the hinges.
I stand in the hallway and breathe. My phone is on the kitchen counter. I pick it up, my thumb hovering over Grandma Ruth's name. She'd know what to do. But she'd ask the one question I can't answer yet, and I'm not ready to be that honest with someone who actually loves me. I put the phone down.
"Benji."
I turn around. Shay is leaning against his bedroom doorframe, arms crossed, looking halfway between horrified and completely unsurprised. He's been here the whole time.
His eyes move over me. The flush, the swollen mouth, the jeans that definitely aren't the ones I was wearing an hour ago, the way I'm gripping the counter for structural support.
"What the hell was that?"
"Don't."
"That was him. The steps alpha. Knox."
"Shay, don't—"
"You're on your third pair of jeans tonight, Benji." His voice is flat, but almost impressed. "I'm not a math person, but even I can do that equation."
"There's no equation."
"There is absolutely an equation, and the answer is that you fucked him. Or he fucked you. Or some combination that I don't need details on but am clearly getting anyway because my room shares a wall with this hallway."
I press my hands flat on the counter and stare at the ceiling.
My body is still humming, oversensitive.
I can still feel Knox's mouth on me, his arm around my waist, his lips on my spine.
I'm out of performances. Every version of "I don't care" I own is used up.
Knox took them apart piece by piece, and now I'm standing in my kitchen with nothing left between me and the truth.
"He's my mate." The words fall out of me.
My omega hums in my chest, a satisfied vibration I want to claw out. Nothing about this should feel right.
Shay stares at me. His eyes go wide. He sets his jaw, deciding how to handle this.
"You are so fucked," he says.
I laugh. It sounds awful and hollow, one wrong breath from a breakdown, but it's real. Shay's mouth twitches at the corner. We stand in my kitchen, breathing in the smell of Knox and sex and something permanent. He's right. I am so fucked. At least someone finally said it.
I lean against the counter and cross my arms. The laugh dies.
"I'm not forgiving him," I say, my voice steadier now. I press my tongue against the back of my teeth. "I'm not done being angry. He doesn't get absolution just because biology says so."
I swallow hard.
"But I'm not walking away from it either. Not yet."
Shay looks at me for a long moment, then nods once. Like that's the first thing I've said all night that makes sense.