6. Chapter 6 #2
Roman made himself pull back, got off the bed, and stripped out of the rest, his eyes locked on Lance’s the whole time, those trusting, half-dazed eyes the only thing holding his restraint together.
“Volcanic,” Lance breathed, raking his gaze over him. “I run hot, but you’re volcanic. I just slicked your shorts.”
“My shorts,” Roman said, smug.
Lance slid off the bed onto his still-bruised knees, crawled forward, and looked up at him. “I could suck you off, if you want,” he offered, running a hand up the bare skin of Roman’s stomach.
“Back on the bed.” A muscle jumped in Roman’s jaw, his nostrils flaring. “We’ll play after.” He was holding on by a thread, and Lance’s mouth, his hands, every soft touch only frayed it.
Lance arched a brow and smirked. “Such an alpha. It’s always a good time to play.” He knew he was poking a bear. He rose and turned his back, facing the bed, then looked over his shoulder. “Face down or face up, baby?” He gave a little wag of his hips.
A groan tore out of Roman. One step and he had an arm around Lance’s waist and tipped them both onto the bed. “Hands and knees.” He gave Lance’s ass a slap with a playfulness he didn’t feel.
Lance lost the shorts and moved into place, and Roman leaned over his shoulder and pressed against him, so slick and ready it cost him everything not to push in and claim him on the spot.
His breath skated across the back of Lance’s neck while he prayed for control, for the patience to make this good. One hand curled at Lance’s waist, the other wrapped his cock and stroked, slow, as he murmured in his ear, “Tell me you want to be mine.”
“You’re an idiot,” Lance huffed. “I was yours the second you asked, before I even answered. I want to be yours. Only yours. Forever yours. Alpha.” His voice dropped almost to nothing.
“You’re my alpha.” A shiver went through him.
He’d been sure he’d never get to say those words to anyone, least of all the one who’d stolen his heart when he wasn’t looking.
“Just what I want to hear.” Roman brushed his mouth over the back of Lance’s neck.
“The part after ‘you’re an idiot.’” He pushed in on a slow, careful thrust, Lance’s slick easing the way, and seated himself to the hilt in that heat, aching to move.
He set a rhythm, stroking Lance in time with his hips.
“Perfect. You’re perfect, babe,” he breathed.
The drag of him, the heat of his mate around him, wound Roman tighter. Their scents filled the room. Lance gripped his hand and pushed, trying to drive the pace, needing more, needing it to stay exactly like this.
“Oh. My. Alpha.” Lance gasped as it built, his body tightening around Roman, coaxing him deeper, to stay, to take, to claim. “Why can’t we purr? It’s not fair, I really want to purr right now,” he managed, shoving back harder.
“Purr?” Roman faltered and nearly pulled out. “Idiot,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Half human, not cat. That’s why.” He couldn’t believe he was grinning, but that was the Lance effect, never letting him get too far up his own head, dragging lightness into the middle of everything.
He found the rhythm again, watching what made Lance shake hardest. “Like that? Kiss me,” he demanded, and stretched to catch a messy kiss at the corner of his mate’s mouth.
The taste of him, the scent, drove Roman half-wild.
He thrust harder and harder, every sound out of Lance ratcheting his need.
“That’s it. That’s it.” Faster, both of them now, his stomach clenching, the knot at the base of him swelling, locking him in place.
Driving deep, holding Lance tight. “Now, baby. Come with me.”
Lance couldn’t have refused his alpha if he’d wanted to.
And as he broke, as he howled and clenched around Roman and the world went white, Roman set his teeth into the muscle where Lance’s shoulder met his neck and bit down, claiming him.
The bond they’d snapped into place in the shed pulled suddenly tight and molten, a second circuit closing on top of the first, and the pleasure doubled back through both of them so hard Lance’s cry cracked in the middle.
Not pain. Never pain. Roman tasted copper and Lance and mine all at once, and held the bite while it took them both over the edge together.
Roman wrapped an arm around Lance’s waist and reared back onto his knees, pulling his mate up with him, holding him tight, not an inch between them as they rode it out.
He licked once, slow, over the mark he’d left, and felt Lance shudder with the aftershock of it.
Then he turned Lance’s face to the side and kissed him, this time as his mate.
His. A low growl rolled through him as he did, their mouths joined the way their bodies were. Mated for life now. One path. Always.
When the last of the tension drained out of him, he murmured, “Now you may purr.”
Lance barked a laugh. “Next time. Next time I’ll have my phone ready with a purr app cued up.” He let his head fall back on Roman’s shoulder, baring the fresh mark without thinking about it, and Roman couldn’t stop looking at it.
“One purr and finishing’s going to be a problem,” Roman said with a shudder, chest heaving, holding on like he’d never let go. For the first time, the knot, which would keep him locked to a partner a while after, didn’t feel like an inconvenience. The opposite. “I love you.”
“Ditto.” There was a smile in it. Lance settled back against his chest and let the alpha hold him up. “What do you want with the pack? Stay, or start our own?” He doubted the Leitners would take them now. “They won’t love me tainting your bloodline.”
Roman traced his stomach and chest and breathed him in. “Don’t worry about me. I love my pack, but you know I’m a loner at heart. You’re my pack now. The only one that matters. They give you the respect you’re owed as my mate, we stay. They don’t, we go. There’s no in-between.”
“A lot of them loved you once. When you vanished, I saw it. So maybe they’ll remember, and it’ll help them come around.
And our pups, if we ever have them, will be full-blooded.
There’s no case on record of a half-blood and a full-blood making a half-blood, so all that ‘sullying the bloodline’ talk isn’t just ancient, it’s nonsense.
” He kissed Lance’s shoulder, near the mark.
“For the record, even if half-blood kids were on the table, I’d choose you. Every time.”
“Seeing as I’m off my suppressants, pups might be a sooner-than-later conversation,” Lance said with a small laugh.
“And if they don’t accept me, we start our own pack.
I’m good either way. Although I might want to kick a few of them in the nads before I forgive them. Just once or twice. I promise.”
“That can be arranged. I’m not a prince for nothing.” He gathered Lance close. “So. What are you doing the rest of the night, Jules?”
“Having hot, wild sex with Romeo, of course.”