What. The.Fuck?
Prying his teeth apart, he detached and eased away. Slender, white-knuckled fingers gripped the blade, the tip tracking his every movement. The small folding knife was his, one he’d long buried in the bottom of his knapsack. The thing likely barely held an edge, but he’d give her credit for resourcefulness. Not that she couldn’t stab it into the thin skin of his neck, and, given the resolute set of her mouth, he’d wager she wouldn’t hesitate to try.
Staring down his nose at his flushed and determined Omega, the initial jolt of fear withered to an abstract husk. Two minutes ago, she’d kissed him like she’d waited her entire life for the chance, and now she pulled a knife on him? What exactly did she think would happen here? One quick flick of his hand would bat the weapon away. Another twist and he’d have her wrist pinned above her head. This attempt at a physical confrontation was a farce, but he’d let her have it to discover what new game she played.
“Don’tmark me.” Her eyes hardened, and the barest of tremors touched her voice. “I don’t want to be claimed.”
A feral grin split his face as he swiped the blanket off her lap, exposing her lower body. She gasped, and the blade hiccupped against his throat but pressed no farther.
Braced above her on one arm, Cal trailed his other hand down her stomach and into her exposed, fragrant, dripping cleft. Sweet, tender flesh kissed the tips of his fingers, a slippery welcome that had him suppressing a pained groan when he withdrew from its humid embrace. Retracing back up her torso, he touched glossy, slick-damped fingers to her bottom lip. “You sure about that?” With his middle finger tucked inside her mouth to rest against her tongue, he asked, “Can’t you taste your desire? Can’t you feel it? Why fight this?”
Her lips closed around his first knuckle in an involuntary suck, and her pupils exploded outwards, the ring of dark blue eaten up by black. Cal grunted at the unexpected suction, at the picture of her hot, pillowy flesh surrounding his. Images ripped through his mind of all the other combinations and permutations of such a sight. His fingers in her cunt, his cock in her mouth, in her pussy, in her ass, her hand wrapped around his dick, her lips sucking his balls, tonguing his hole.
“You want me,” he crooned, withdrawing and snaking one hand back between her legs while shifting the other to span her collarbones. Slowly, conscious of the knife still at his jugular, he tightened his hold, circling her neck. She stilled, her body now anchored in two vulnerable places, subdued but fighting her submission. “Say it, Della.” He nudged his fingers through her sex, homing in on the apex as her hips began to quiver and thrust in time with his slow, steady pace. “Tell me you want this... Tell me you’ve wanted me since I pressed you up against the mess hall.”
A slim, delicate, non-knife-holding hand dug into his forearm, and Cal smiled at the small drops of pain, feeling his cock throb harder at signs of a fight. Interesting. Had he known that about himself?
Reddish hair in a snarl, head thrashing side to side despite his grip, defiance flared in the set of her jaw. “Idon’t.”
A sinister chuckle worked its way to the surface. “Honesty is a virtue for everyone else, but not you? Is that it?” Fingers massaging her clit, he tsked. “Expected better of you.”
“Don’t... care...” she panted, her jaw tight as she gnashed her teeth against the climax building under his fingertips, “what... you expect.”
Craning forward, he ignored the blade as it poked into his skin and brushed his nose against hers, breathing in her ragged breaths like the sweetest dessert. His circling rhythm stuttered, trailing off and then back into sync, becoming erratic and deliberately dissatisfying. Della’s grip on the knife faltered. Its tip danced over his throat, more of an annoying tickle than a true threat. A pathetic, high-pitched whine squirmed past her stoic stubbornness, the hot folds of her pussy spasming in hovering release.
“Tell me you want to come.”
She angled her pelvis upward, seeking out the stimulation he denied her, demanding with her body what her mouth refused. “Don’t claim me.”
Nuzzling his thumb against her clit, he slid two fingers inside her wet inferno, thrusting gently in and out, slow and controlled, simultaneously giving and depriving. “Ain’t talking about that right now. I’m offering to get you off.” He smirked. “That’s what this hungry little Omega pussy wants, isn’t it? Say, ‘please make me come, Alpha,’ and I will. See? Easy as pie.”
The knife jiggled at his throat, small jabs that betrayed her moment-to-moment wavering. Had she realized she posed no threat to him but was too distracted to give it up? Or was she hanging onto this thread of control for other reasons? Reasons having to do more with herself than with him.
“Don’t make me say it,” she gritted out the misery-saturated words.
“All right, Omega,” he said, placating, “put the knife down, and I won’t make you say it.”
As if remembering she still held it, Della pushed it firm to his throat. “No biting,” she said through clenched teeth.
Raw emotion torched the back of his throat. How could he promise that when he’d thought of little else for the last two days? When every muscle in his jaw tingled with anticipation for this primitive act? Frustration mounting, his fingers halted their teasing thrusts, still lodged inside her, but now only a dissatisfying reminder of what she denied him. Denied herself. Deniedthem.
Because, whether she liked it or not, there would be a them. If not today, then tomorrow or the day after. This conviction settled his ire somewhat. He’d waited his whole life for this moment, for this woman, for this homecoming of sorts. What was another day in the grand scheme of his life?
Yet a powerful resistance reared up and rebelled, his inner Alpha roaring.Alphas didn’t court; Alphas claimed.Yeah, he could wait. But why? Whydid he have to? So many choices had been denied to him, so many dreams he’d abandoned. Why couldn’t he take this one beautiful thingfor his own? Here. Now.
Sweat sheened her brow, and turmoil flitted across Della’s face, marring her refined and pristine beauty in a way both tragic and irresistible. “Promise me,” she demanded, voice hoarse with arousal or emotion or desperation, or all three. Cal stroked along the base of her neck, the riot of her pulse throbbing like an accusation.
Alphas weren’t only meant to claim their Omegas. They were also meant to provide for and care for and protect. And, right now, she was demanding protection fromhim. That thought seared his guts like a cattle brand, and shame flooded his bloodstream. His breaths came short and fast as the opposing needs to reassure her and possess her warred in his chest.
“You said no lies,” she persisted. “Promise me. Please.”
The quietpleasewas his undoing. The weight of her terror strained across the one agonizing syllable and shattered his inertia to pieces.
“All right,” he heard himself say, his speech not planned or even known to him but dictated by some place deep inside his Alpha brain. Slowly, his thumb circled her swollen pearl, gratified by a fresh gush of slick against his wrist and the faint mewling sound she swallowed. “Here’s what’s going to happen. First, I’m going to make you come so long and so hard, you’re going to soak this bed with all that beautiful slick. After that, I’m going to fuck you. Slow and deep, and you’re going to come again and again and again. And when your cream is drenching my cock and running down my thighs, I’m gonna knot you right in this hot, soaking cunt, and you’re going to fall asleep stuffed full.” He circled faster, smirking as her breaths caught short and the knife bounced against his skin. “Later on, when I wake up, we’re going to do it all over again. You understand all that?”
Her pelvis ground up hard against his hand, her answer verbal as well as non. “Yes.”
His chin dipped in a solemn nod, the blade scraping a weak threat against his throat. “You do all that without a fight. You come for me like a good little Omega, and I promise I won’t mark till you ask me to.” A flash of shock shadowed her sex-drunk gaze before giving him an eager nod in agreement. Satisfaction buoyed his spirits, the hard-won compromise feeling like a complete victory.Good. Good, Omega.