I burst out laughing then, because it was true. Damn, it was true, but I thought of Henri and Fabian, able to hear their animated banter in my head with ease. Sometimes, he pushed me into things that I actually wanted but was too scared to ask for. I told him just that.
“Yeah?” He cradled my jaw in his massive hands, not letting me look away for a second. “You gotta know what I’m pushing for next. I’ve kept him locked down tight for what feels like too long, but he’s fighting my hold. This serves as a den, and you’re in his territory.” His eyes went from hazel to perfect silver. “It’s time for the alpha to take his omega.”
Had he been holding out on me deliberately? Right now every touch felt so much more immediate. I could smell the moisture in the air, the flowers outside, but most of all, him. He filled up my lungs, but that wasn’t enough. I needed more, and I let that slip with one little moan.
“You need it too, don’t you? Needy little omega.”
He tore off his jacket, tossing it aside like it offended him, then came his shirt, which was where I stopped him. When we’d been together, it had been a hazy fever dream of sex, but this? I stared up at him as I ran my fingertips across his chest. This was Sage and Lucien, not alpha and omega. He held himself still as I mapped every inch of him, the tracery of veins down his arms, those hard muscles in his biceps and forearms, the small medallions of his nipples, then the swoop of his collarbone. When I slid my fingers across his taut abs, I felt them jump under my caress, right up until I reached his jeans.
“Touch me for a bit, Sage. Take your fill, but not for long. I fucking need you, and unh…”
I peeled his jeans away and tore them down his legs, then his stretchy boxers. There it was, that thick, curving cock that had given me so much pleasure. He watched me oh so closely as I pressed a kiss to the skin of his groin, almost but not touching.
“Sage, baby, please…I need to touch you. I need it so fucking much.”
I tore my clothes off with undue haste, then sprawled across the bed, something he noted with a sharp toothed smile.
“You’re the Big Bad Wolf. Come and get me.”
58
“If we do this, it changes things,” Lucien warned me as he crawled across the bed. “I’ve been trying to hold off. The therapist—”
“You’ve been talking to a therapist about me?” I asked.
“Well, yeah, among other things. She told me to wait until things were solid, but…” His eyes shone like the moon just then. “I have been waiting. For an alpha, this feels like months, but I need you to know something.”
He moved until his body covered mine, making me feel somehow tiny and small by comparison.
“I’m not knotting you, not unless you’re ready to be mine—it’s why I’ve been holding off. If I sink my knot into you, my fangs will come quickly afterwards. If you’re not ready, I’ll lick your little pussy until you come, then maybe finger you, rubbing the heel of my palm on your clit as I push them inside you…”
If his eyes were hypnotic, so was his voice. Deep, rich, and dark, it promised me all of the things, if I just said yes.
So I did.
He wasn’t expecting that. I saw it in the way his eyes searched mine, his throat working to ask more questions, to argue further, but somehow, I had disarmed the beast by giving him exactly what he wanted.
“This will be the way it is, going forward, won’t it?” I asked, but I knew the answer. I felt it now with a kind of certainty I’d seen in them but not felt, not until now. “We’ll do whatever we can to give the other person what they need, choosing them over and over, because they’re the other half of our heart. You didn’t have to fly me halfway across the world to show me that, but…” I let out a sigh, almost able to feel the fabrics of Henri’s gowns on my skin. “I love that you did.” I separated my thighs then, and he settled between them, hard and wanting. “I love your persistence. I love the sweetness that lurks beneath this pushy prick persona. I even love that you push, just push us together, Lucien, promise me that.”
“Always.” That was the only word I got before he kissed me, so very softly. “Always you, always us.”
For some omegas, taking a mate came from a long and protracted courtship. Others were all fangs and claws, raking at each other in their desperation to get to their mate. Ours was a combination of those things, of hunger and need, but also something much quieter.
Initially, that was just kisses, soft ones that had no distinct edges, blending from one to the other, layering on top of us until we were wound tight in them. Then his hands slid down my body, my entire length, and I didn’t feel the need to push away or redirect his hands. This was him, this was right. This was Lucien. He pushed my thigh to one side, stroking the tender skin on the inside of it as his head dropped down, those messy kisses scattered all over one breast, then the other, forcing my spine to arch to try and direct it where it needed to go. When he captured one nipple with those full lips, the stubble of his chin abrading the skin around it, everything got so much sharper.
I could hear the far-off sound of cows mooing, the increasing chatter of the birds as they prepared for night, the wind in the trees, and him—his ragged breaths, the shift of his body against mine, the increasingly faster slip of it. It felt like he sucked all of me into his mouth, treating me to great rolling waves of pleasure, until finally, I gasped his name.
My wolf mate jerked his eyes up to meet mine, his fangs flashing in what could have been interpreted as a snarl, except it wasn’t. He was laying claim, ready to defend territory he had decided was his, licking my nipples as he stared into my eyes. Only I was his, just as he was mine, so I pulled him up, up, until our bodies slotted together like two puzzle pieces. I felt open, aching with it, right up until he slid deep, filling me up, piercing me through.
“Lucien…”
I sobbed out his name, unable to formulate any sentences, all powers of speech robbed from me as he pulled out and then slammed back in. I hated the withdrawal but craved the return, my hands slapping down on his hips, mine bucking up to meet him stroke for stroke.
“Lucien…”
I was begging for it now as his eyes bore into mine, watching my every response and altering his pace, his depth to cater for that. He saw the point where that curved dick pressed hard against something that had me clawing at his back, and he went back over and over for that until I started to scream. I was coming apart, but he was just getting started.
My nails raked across his back, becoming claws, and he hissed his response.