Chapter 19
Addie
Leo’s on me the second we step inside the small beach shack.
I can see the ocean clearly from the glass sliding doors at the rear of the house.
The sun is rising over the waves peeling beautifully from the lip.
Lefties. I know this break. A lefthanders beach break more suited to Leo as a goofy footer than me, except he’s never had my skill.
I smirk, excitement building—head high, that’s a decent swell for summer.
I need to find a board, strip off, hit the water and feel those waves under me.
I’m tugged back against Leo’s chest and my need for his knot crashes into this other need, reeling me back in.
“I can wait?” Leo says against the shell of my ear. His cock is a long, thick line digging into my back and his voice is strained. I know he would wait, though. He’d join me if I asked.
I spin in his hold, go up onto my tiptoes, and whisper against his lips. “After.”
He growls and scoops me up with his hands under my thighs, and I wrap my legs around his waist and kiss him. His cock bumps up against the material of his jeans covering my hole, and I slick up in response.
Leo’s tongue slides into my mouth and I groan.
He rumbles, tangling his tongue with mine.
His alpha side has receded, but I can feel it lurking.
Watching him beat Benji to death with his bare fists had been alarming, terrifying, exhilarating.
My omega slicked up at the sight of it, while the rational side of me was horrified.
I pull back. Leo’s face is caked in dried blood. Benji’s blood.
He gets us through a doorway and lowers me onto the bed. Staying close, he brings his hands up to cradle my face. His knuckles are crusted in even more blood. I should be disgusted, but my cock throbs and my hole is so desperate for him the ache rivals what I felt in heat.
My alpha killed a rival for me and I’m fucking exhilarated over it.
I can’t help it. If I let all morality go—and really, what place is there for morality with regards to the alphas who run The Nest—then I’m allowed to feel what I feel.
It was fucking hot. I wasn’t even scared for him.
Benji never stood a chance. My beautiful, gentle Leo was savage with rage.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything hotter.
“Off, off,” Leo murmurs against my lips as his hands skim over my skin, bunching the shirt, singlet, and hoodie under his hands.
“You too,” I pant out. God, but I need his skin. His cock. His knot. I still can’t believe this is real. I’m free. With Leo. We’re bonded.
I shove my hands under his shirt and hoodie, trying to get it off while I’m blinded by my own clothes bunching over my face.
It gets tangled and Leo growls. I start laughing.
My head pops free and Leo stares down at me.
He cradles my face and sways forward to kiss me, his lips curling on mine.
I giggle into the kiss, giddy with this freedom.
Leo runs his hand down my side, teases the top of the belt and waistband. I stop laughing. I need his knot, right now.
I break the kiss. “Naked.”
Leo sits back and rips his top half off, then goes for his pants and undoes them with fumbling fingers. As each inch of his skin is revealed to me, I reach down and squeeze my hard cock with a groan.
By God, but he’s gorgeous. The muscles on his impressive frame just swell, and there’s so much of him.
He was always someone to look at—I’d steal glances at him when he was stripping out of his wetsuit.
The smooth lines of his thighs, the roundness of his ass, his flat stomach, and the promise of swelling pectoral muscles.
But now all that potential has been met and he’s a young alpha about to enter the decades of his prime.
“Keep looking at me like that and I’m not gonna last,” he says, blushing.
I grin up at him. He’s not going to last? I could probably come just from staring at him. But he’s not getting away with not fucking me, biting me again.
“You better last,” I tell him, trying to put some boldness into the words. “I’ve been dreaming about your knot.”
Leo groans. “Addie, Jesus.” He goes for my belt. “Can I?” He flicks his eyes up.
I roll my eyes. I can’t help it—is he serious?
“Don’t have to ask. I’m your omega, remember?”
Leo shakes his head. “I always have to ask. I don’t own you.”
I frown at him. He literally owns me. I want him to own me. I know my scent has dropped out.
“Hey, hey,” Leo says softly and blankets me with his body. He slides his hand behind my nape and tilts my face up. “You’re mine and I’m yours, but I’m not … I’m not ever gonna make you do … stuff.”
“You’re not making me,” I say and roll my hips up, my thick cock rubbing against his. “I want you.”
Leo shudders, squeezing his eyes closed. “I know, but I mean, I’ll never just presume, okay? You’re my best friend.”
My stomach flutters. He’s my best friend too, and we probably always will be best friends above and beyond being mates.
“Promise me you’ll tell me if you don’t wanna do anything, all right?
” Leo asks, his eyes searching mine. God, he’s so earnest about it.
I knew he’d make the best alpha, even when we were fourteen and I wasn’t sure if he thought I was less since I’d presented as an omega.
I was still sure he’d be the best alpha.
“I promise, but, umm …” I drop my gaze to his lips, down to his throat, watch him swallow audibly. “It’s safe to assume I’m always gonna want your knot.”
Leo groans and kisses me, and I meet him with the same desperation. I’m absolutely dripping for him, but he’s not making any moves to get my pants off. I slide my hands down his back and grip his ass, dig my blunt nails in and hope he gets the message.
“Okay, okay,” he pants out when he breaks away, his focus shifting to my pants.
He makes short work of getting me naked and flipping me onto my stomach. I gasp. Leo slides his hands up my calves, over my thighs, and cups both ass cheeks in his palms. His tongue licks a long stripe up my hole, and I moan.
He starts fucking me with his tongue. I shove back against him, wriggling in his hold trying to get more, to get everything. Leo’s groans vibrate through me as he takes me hard and fast with his mouth.
He pulls back and his words ghost over my skin. “You taste like … I can’t stop, Jesus, Addie, you taste like …”
I can’t wait for him to finish that thought.
“Please,” I beg, my voice high.
Leo comes up behind me. His palms land beside my head as his thighs cradle mine. I’m caged in, his breath hot on my neck, his thick cock nudging against my hole. Before I can beg again, one hand disappears as he lines himself up and pushes inside.
I throw my head back as his hand lands back on the bed. He rolls into me, his cock carving me open—even with the slick, he’s a lot to take outside of heat. I cry out, and he sucks kisses onto my throat, his growl muffled against my skin.
It’s not a slow or gentle fuck; it’s rough and brutal right from the get-go. I shove myself back into it, frantic for more of him. His groin slaps against my ass with a smacking sound, my slick squelching around him. I crane my head back and he meets me, more panting into my mouth than kissing me.
His knot swells and he breaks the kiss, lips trailing down to my mating gland. His breath is hot and wet on my skin. I’m begging, my pleas a chant over our panting breaths and the slick sound of our mating as he rails me.
Teeth sink into my skin, tearing the flesh open as he locks into place inside me and erupts. I gasp and white out as I start to come around him, my cock kicking against my belly and shooting come all over the bedspread.
Leo snarls, sinking his teeth into my mating gland as he pumps into me, the grind of his hips tight against my ass. His chest is slick with sweat, creating a delicious slide against my back. All I can do is moan as I come around him and fall even deeper into the bond.
I can feel his pleasure as if it’s my own, and he’s feeling pleasure all right. There’s no rational Leo now, and I’m the same. We’re an alpha and omega—a claim, a breeding—and nothing can come between us.
A rumbling feeling starts in my chest, pushing up to my throat. My lips part around it and I start to purr. Leo’s crushes me to him, his responding growl a warm, possessive rumble against my back.
I wake up to the feel of Leo’s knot deflating inside me.
“Okay?” he asks immediately.
We’re on our sides. Leo’s propped himself up, his fingers carding through my hair, pushing it off my face. He leans down and drops a soft kiss on my temple.
“Yeah,” I breathe out, sated and so relaxed I barely recognise the feeling.
I purred myself to sleep, held tight in Leo’s arms. I haven’t felt this peaceful in years.
Not since the last time Leo and I sat on my couch rewatching The Endless Summer—because even on the cusp of realising his dream, Leo was encouraging mine—the night before he left for the military. The memory makes tears well in my eyes.
“Addie,” Leo says, sounding a lot more awake. “What is it? Did I hurt you?”
“No, no.” I turn and he slips out of me. I smile up at him. He’s frowning, his scent alarmed. “I’m so damn happy, it’s leaking out of me.”
Leo smiles, a bit unsure. “You’re sure? I mean, me too. God, me too. But … you never used to cry.”
He traces his forefinger under my eye, catching the tear.
“Omega hormones,” I say because, well, it might be? Who knows. All I know is I’m happy. And I could be a lot happier.
“Hey,” I say and grin up at him through my tears. “Are there some surfboards around here?”
And now Leo laughs. “If there aren’t, I’ll go buy you one right now.”
I snicker, but I can feel down the bond that he’s dead serious.
Fortunately, there are boards, though not sized for my height and weight. Doesn’t matter, I can make it work.
“I’ll get you a new one,” Leo says with authority once we’re on the beach.
I grin over at him. The smell of the ocean crashes in front of me, colliding with the offshore wind and mingling with Leo’s scent. I don’t think I’ve ever felt like this before—the kind of happiness that’s too big for that word.
After more than three years in hell, here I am in my jocks with the sand beneath my bare toes, my alpha’s come trailing down my thighs and said alpha huddling close beside me, determined to get me whatever I need, whatever I want. I’ve landed in heaven.
“Even with a lefthander and a shitty board, I’m gonna kick your ass,” I tell him and wink.
Leo’s answering laugh catches on the wind and swirls around me.
I break into a run, the water splashing around my feet. Flinging the board ahead of me, I land on it and start to paddle out. Leo’s beside me, keeping pace, and when I turn to beam at him, he’s already watching me back, his smile and scent as familiar to me as the ocean under my board.