Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
MAX
Once we’d settled in, heat swept us away, pulling us both under its sticky haze for several days. It gave me a new understanding of why people chased the high of a heat with their mate.
I didn’t have anything to compare it to, so I wasn’t sure what to make of the way Atlas looked at me in the quiet aftermath of a wave.
It was like he wanted to devour me whole.
I also wasn’t sure whether the connection zipping between us whenever we touched was normal or something special, but it felt… primal.
Just like the delicious dream I was having.
Atlas had his face buried between my cheeks, lapping at my well-fucked hole until I dripped slick and saliva. His leftover cum mixed in, too, from the countless times he’d come with his knot in my belly.
The scent of heat and sex permeated the air, sewn into the sheets neither of us wanted to wash. I lay on my stomach, sleep-heavy and unmoving, with my cheek pressed into a soft pillow while he tended to me.
Heat burned in my belly, and my hole pulsed with need, ready to suck his cock back in where he belonged.
Sensing what I needed, he wordlessly crawled up until his thighs bracketed my own, mounted my hips, and pushed inside with little resistance.
He groaned quietly, draping his sleep-warm body over me.
I sighed into the perfect fit, both the most relaxed I’d ever been and soaring.
My alpha knew me; we were so in tune with one another that he sensed what I wanted, what I needed, even in our sleep, and woke up just to give it to me. He smelled the heat on me and gave me what I craved before any of the discomfort of being empty could touch me.
He was perfect. He was mine.
Please be mine.
The bed rocked me slowly into greater awareness, and I came to just enough to relish in a reality so beautiful I never wanted it to end. A wave really had started while we slept, and in our delirious, instinct-driven state, he’d jumped right into making me feel good.
His warm, hard body drove into me from above, practically smothering me with his weight.
“Mmph,” I said in greeting, before gasping when his cockhead bumped against my breeding gland. Fully ripe, it was like orgasming over and over every time he thrust deep enough.
“Morning, sweetheart,” he grumbled. Atlas’ gruff, sleepy voice was so unfairly hot it warranted writing a letter to my representative in complaint.
I squirmed, shifting my hips to tempt him into giving me more. No matter how many times he jammed into that button of pleasure, or how far inside I felt him, or how much cum he filled me with, I always wanted him deeper.
In response, he snaked an arm, covered in tattooed tentacles, around my neck to put me in a faux headlock, leaving my airway clear but immobilizing me. The other hand threaded through mine where I grasped the sheets for leverage.
Fully pinned, I could do nothing but take what he gave me.
Bicep jail, I thought with a hysterical giggle, before another thrust stole my breath. Fingers still interlocked, he dragged my hand underneath me and pressed it to my stomach.
I blushed. I was self-conscious of the way my belly had softened, almost forming a pouch to make room for my full womb. I’d caught him staring at it a few times and wondered if he thought it was gross.
“Feel that?” he asked, words punchy and short.
“Wha—oh!” The tip of something hard moved inside me, forcing my belly to subtly distend. Was that… his cock?
“God, you’re perfect,” he growled, teeth dragging across my scent gland. At this point I was convinced the mask was the only thing keeping him from biting me. “So full of me already and you still have room for more.”
I gasped when he flipped me onto my back and thrust in again, dangling my legs over his arms.
“Wanna see it,” he slurred, eyes wild. While my heat took a natural course of peaks and valleys, Atlas only seemed to grow more intense, more feral as the days went on. “Wanna see my cock in you.”
I followed his gaze down to where his cock did indeed bulge out of me on every thrust. It was obscene. Forbidden. It looked monstrous, like he was a great big creature who’d caught me on a full moon and forced his way into me.
I fucking loved it.
“Wanna feel it.” He pressed his hand onto my stomach, right over the bulge. It shoved my breeding gland down, now a direct target for the head of his cock.
I cried out, eyes rolling as my orgasm slammed through me.
He was as far in me as anything had ever been. When his knot swelled, locking him inside, he continued to press down, rocking right into that spot.
Home. He was home.
My vision blacked out. I bared my neck, all logical thought about discussing the consequences of mating gone. I just wanted him to bite me.
“Do it,” I begged, unable to stop myself. “I want you. Claim me, Atlas.”
Claim us! My omega wailed.
He let out a broken sound. His teeth skated off my neck, digging into the pillow next to me. I wasn’t aware of anything after that, except the never-ending ache of a bond once again, unclaimed.
When the wave finally passed and his knot softened, he stumbled out of bed just long enough to grab a cloth, a bottle of water, and some pretzel sticks.
“Drink,” he said, passing me the water first.
I sat up, caught somewhere between needy omega goo and indignation at his bossy tone. “Well, hello to you, too.”
He smirked, but it didn’t reach his eyes. They were bloodshot again, and he looked like he hadn’t slept the night before. “Sorry. I thought we’d already exchanged our morning greetings.”
I rolled my eyes and took the water from him, gulping down half of it before I came up for air.
“That’s what I thought,” he said, snatching it back and finishing it off.
The way his throat bobbed with each swallow made me forget whatever comeback I had planned. I was certain it would’ve been brilliant.
I let my eyes wander down the rest of his gloriously naked body—except for the mask, of course. I didn’t want to think about that itching desire to rip it off his face; I just wanted to drink in every inch of exposed skin I could.
Tentacles swirled up his arm to reveal the octopus’s body draped across his shoulder blade.
Three hammerhead sharks swam in a line down his spine, their bodies curved as if fighting a current.
Finally, and least surprising, he had a grim reaper skeleton tattooed across his right ribs, with the scythe cutting across his abs in a bloody gash.
I’d tasted them all, and would again, before this was over. Actually, I’d start now.
“Why do you like ocean animals so much?” I asked, crawling across the bed to run my fingers, and then my tongue, along one tentacle.
He rumbled and sat down, pulling me in to straddle his lap. Lifting the mask just enough, he dragged his cheek across mine. Those calm, soothing pheromones surrounded me, so overwhelming my eyes drooped.
“Always have, since I was young,” he said.
I peered into his eyes, waiting for him to continue. He did that a lot, giving just enough of an answer to address the question without adding anything of depth. Sometimes, if I waited patiently, he’d expand.
Other times, he wouldn’t.
It must’ve been my lucky day, though, because this time my patience paid off.
“My mom used to take me to the aquarium where I grew up,” he said, flicking the hair out of my eyes. “Just us two. I don’t know how she’d know, but when I was having a bad day at school, she’d come pick me up and take me to get ice cream and go see the fish.”
He avoided eye contact, but his hands gently cradled me closer. “It was never busy on the weekdays, and everything was so quiet and blue. I could sit and watch the animals swim around the big tanks for hours.”
“Was school hard for you?” I asked quietly.
He chuckled. “Everything was hard when I was a kid. I couldn’t sit still and learn to save my life.
I’m not stupid,” he said, tensing up. “But I just didn’t process things the same way other kids did.
The aquarium was different, though. I had every plaque memorized and could recite the docent’s speeches word for word. ”
I leaned forward and kissed along his collarbone. “No one in their right mind would think you’re stupid. You’re crazy smart. How long have you been a vigilante avoiding the police? That takes a lot of brains and guts. Whoever made you feel that way is the stupid one.”
He held me tighter and nuzzled his nose into mine. It made the butterflies in my stomach take flight.
Suddenly, I remembered something. “I think I read an article the other day about the aquarium here in town. They just finished renovations. Or maybe they added a new tank? Something like that. We could go together!”
His eyes shuttered. “Max…”
The butterflies in my stomach dropped like stones. My heart ached, and I felt sick. All at once, I’d realized how much I didn’t want this to end, and then remembered he’d said it had to. “Sorry. Never mind.”
I rolled off the bed. I couldn’t look at him.
“Wait—”
“No, it’s okay,” I said, fighting to keep my voice from breaking. “I’m going to go clean up.”
Without looking at him, I shut myself in the bathroom and turned on the shower so he wouldn’t hear me cry.