Chapter 9
Knox
I’m wiping down my station when my phone buzzes.
Benji: Someone at this bar just told me my bite mark is hot. Thought you should know your work is being appreciated.
I stare at the screen. The spray bottle in my hand slips, hitting the counter with a dull thud. I read the text again.
We’ve been circling each other in DMs for two days. Not soft—Benji doesn't do soft—but specific. Complimenting my line work. Calling Mars my grumpy dad. But this?
My jaw clicks tight; it suddenly aches as I think of the spot where my teeth sank into the curve of his neck forty-eight hours ago. I can practically still taste his blood.
He’s baiting me. He’s sitting at a bar, flashing my mark to other alphas, and waiting to see what I do. It’s a deliberate, bratty-ass test.
Me: Where?
A pause. Just long enough to piss me off.
Benji: [Location Pin — Byrne's]
I grab my jacket. I know showing up makes me look exactly as whipped and possessive as he wants me to. I don't give a fuck.
Byrne's is a sticky-floored college dive. Not my scene. The bartender—a guy built like a brick wall—clocks me the second I walk in. I ignore him and scan the crowd.
Then I see him.
Blue streak in his hair, heavy eyeliner, combat boots hooked on the rung of his stool. He’s wearing a black goth kilt and a shirt with the collar pulled wide, leaving the angry red bite mark on his neck on full display.
And there’s an alpha leaning into his space. Campus type. Decent build. His hand is hovering way too close to Benji’s elbow. Benji’s half-facing him, giving just enough of a polite smile to keep the guy hooked.
Benji’s eyes flick to the mirror behind the bar. He catches my reflection, and his shoulders drop a fraction of an inch. He got what he wanted.
The random alpha’s hand drifts closer.
Something hot and feral snaps in my chest. I cross the room in ten seconds.
I don’t even look at the random guy. I slide my hand under the hem of Benji’s shirt, my palm flattening against the warm, bare skin of his lower back. I do it like I own the place. Like I own him.
Benji turns. His breath catches, a flush creeping up his neck from the bite mark. His scent spikes—sharp, warm, broadcasting everything his smug face won't.
He gives me a triumphant, challenging look. You came. Now what?
I finally look at the alpha. My scent floods the space, thick and territorial. "He's taken," I say.
The guy looks at my hand, looks at the bite, and does the math. He backs off without a word.
"Subtle," Benji says, taking a sip of his drink.
"You sent me a pin drop, sweetheart. Don't pretend you didn't want me here."
His jaw clicks shut. He doesn't have a fast enough comeback, and the silence is thick with our scents mixing. I lean in, my mouth brushing his ear. "Outside. Now."
He goes.
We hit the alley. It smells like wet asphalt and cold air, but we barely make it two steps before I shove him against the brick wall.
My hands are on him. His mouth is on mine. It’s all teeth and heat and the cold scrape of his nose ring against my lip. I pin his wrists above his head with one hand. He arches off the wall, letting out a sound into my mouth that sends all the blood straight to my cock.
The bar’s bass thumps through the brick. Someone laughs loudly on the other side of the metal door. Benji’s eyes flick toward the sound.
I press my mouth to his ear. "Better keep quiet, then."
He grins, sharp and feral. "Make me."
He fights my grip—just enough to test me. I squeeze his wrists tighter. His hiss turns into a groan, his hips rolling against mine.
"Took you long enough," he breathes, his voice rough. "Thought you'd just send a text."
"I'm here, aren't I?" My free hand yanks his kilt up, and I fist the side of his underwear, snapping the side band in a single motion. His cock springs free, flushed and hard. I slide my hand between his legs. He’s soaked.
Slick and hot, his hole already swollen and leaking. "You're already wet for me."
"That's biology, not a compliment."
"Sure it is." I shove two fingers into him.
He gasps, his head dropping back against the brick. He opens for me effortlessly, and I curl my fingers to find his prostate.
"Jealous of that guy?" he taunts, though his breath is hitching. "He was boring. You're boring too, you're just bigger."
His voice breaks on the last word as I twist my fingers. His hips jerk.
"Keep talking," I growl. I free my cock, the cool alley air hitting me for a split second before I pull my fingers out. He whines at the loss. I hook his thigh over my hip, bracing him between my body and the wall, and push in.
One long stroke. Bottoming out.
We both freeze.
Fuck, it feels right. His body clenches around me, tight and perfect. The banter dies.
Then Benji digs his heel into my ass. "Move."
I slam into him. The brick scrapes against his back through his shirt, but his hands are free now, his nails biting through my jacket into my shoulders. I fuck up into him hard, pinning him to the wall.
Footsteps echo at the far end of the alley.
Someone cutting through. I clap my hand over Benji's mouth on instinct, pressing him flush against the wall.
His eyes go wide and dark above my fingers.
He lets out a muffled moan against my palm, his slick heat clenching around my dick. The footsteps pass.
I don't move my hand. Benji's tongue drags hot across my palm, and I nearly lose my fucking mind.
I slide my hand to his jaw, tilting his face up. "You think some random gets to stand near you while my bite's on your neck?"
"That's not possessive, that's just rude," he pants. "I was having a nice conversation."
"You were performing." I drive into him on the word. "You wanted me here."
"Fuck you."
"You are. And you're loving it."
He opens his mouth to fire back, but I change the angle, hitting his prostate dead-on. Whatever he was going to say turns into a loud, wet groan that echoes off the brick.
Then, I slow down.
I shift from hard, punishing strokes to a slow, deep grind. I press him into the wall with my hips, rolling in thorough circles. Making him feel the drag. The stretch. The head of my cock dragging over his prostate on every single pass.
Benji's eyes snap to mine. "What the fuck are you doing?"
"Waiting."
"For what?" He rolls his hips, trying to force the pace, his heel digging harder into my ass. I don't let him. I keep it agonizingly slow.
"For you to stop performing."
"I'm not—harder, Knox, come on—"
"No." I pull almost all the way out, then push back in, slow and deep. He arches, his nails digging into my shoulders, a frustrated whine tearing out of his throat. "Give me something real. Stop putting on a show."
He fights it. He calls me an asshole, demands faster, harder, more. I just keep grinding. Slow. Deep. Taking him apart piece by piece, watching his face for the exact second his armor cracks.
It takes a minute. He’s stubborn as hell. But the pace works. His insults get shorter. His breathing gets ragged. His fingers stop clawing and start holding on.
His head drops back against the brick. His eyes flutter shut, and the sound that rips out of him has no snark, no brat, no words at all. Just raw, helpless need.
I reward him. My hips snap forward, hard and fast. He cries out, his legs locking around my waist. I fuck him exactly how he wants it, wrapping my hand around his slick, leaking cock.
The pressure builds low and heavy in my groin. My knot starts to swell, stretching him wider with every thrust.
Benji feels it. Instead of tensing, he grabs my hair and yanks my face down to his.
"Give it to me." Raw. Direct.
I push my knot past his rim, and we lock.
We’re stuck. Standing in a dirty alley, his back against the brick, my knot buried deep inside him. The stretch forces us still. I can only grind in small pulses, every movement sending a shockwave through us both.
My thumb works the slick head of his cock, and Benji comes over my fist, his body seizing around my knot. The look on his face—honest, completely undone—wrecks me.
I come seconds later, the climax tearing through me. My mouth drops to the claiming bite on his neck. I don't bite again. I just press my open mouth to the scar, breathing against the raised skin, tasting him.
Benji's hand tangles in my hair. He holds me there, keeping my mouth pressed to his mark. I let him. My cock pulses inside him, knotted to my mate behind a dive bar, and I'm completely fucking ruined.
The adrenaline slowly bleeds out. The alley air bites at my sweat-damp skin, freezing where my shirt is bunched up. The bass thumps against the brick. Benji’s hands are on my neck, his fingers tracing the short hair at my nape.
I rest my forehead against his. His eyes are half-closed, the bite mark red and wet from my mouth. I could make a joke. Something about dumpsters and alley sex. I swallow it down.
"You wanted to know if I'd show up," I say, my voice cracking. "I'll show up. That's the part I can't figure out how to stop."
The words hang in the freezing air. Every instinct I have screams at me to laugh it off, to spin it, to put the swagger back on. I don't. I just watch his face.
His fingers stop moving. The sharp, defensive edges of his expression soften.
"Don't make me regret believing that," he says quietly.
The knot finally releases. I pull out, both of us hissing at the separation. Benji’s boots hit the asphalt. We stand there in the dark, righting our clothes. Benji wipes his stomach with what’s left of his underwear, muttering something about dry cleaning.
His hands are shaking as his kilt drops into place. I watch his fingers tremble against the denim, remembering my own hands shaking the night I bit him. I don't point it out.
We’re dressed. The silence is heavy, filled with everything we aren't saying.
Benji turns toward the street. He takes a step, then pauses, looking over his shoulder at me. He doesn't ask if I'm coming. He just waits.
I follow him out of the alley.