Page 13 of Merciless & Mated

The blissful silence only lasted a couple of hours before her squirming next to me dragged me back to wakefulness. I rolled over right onto her and settled between her thighs. Gianna stared up at me with unfocused eyes, her legs wrapping around my waist, her arms locking around my neck, an impatient whine filling the quiet between us.

The fight had melted out of her. Now she needed me, and fuck if I didn’t love being needed. In the haze she’d wanted me, was desperate for me in a way she would never let herself be outside these walls. If I took advantage of that, well, who could blame me? Even the most gallant alpha in the world would be hard-pressed to refuse an omega who was begging and wrapped around them.

I sank into every softness she offered. Other omegas I had played with in the past couldn’t even begin to compare to the beauty spread out beneath me. They had been an experience, a brief interlude, but this omega was mine. If she ever came to terms with that, she could bring me what omegas always brought to their alphas. Peace. Beneath the sex and desire and instincts, that was what I’d always wondered if I could have. Their scents, purrs, and touch could soothe even the most riled alpha, and I think on some level I had always craved that, craved knowing what peace actually felt like. She deserved that in return, though I was doubtful I was even capable of giving it to her.

Gianna sang for me. Her breathy moans and begging cries were a perfect symphony. My little omega was a soprano singing for her salvation. The writhe of her soft curves and lean muscles was a temptation too delicious to resist, so I didn’t. I’d never tasted a sweetness like hers before, never felt a body yield to me in a way that called to every primal instinct I possessed.

“That’s it, omega.” Her core burned around my cock, her heat simmering her blood. She was so fucking wet. Slick dripped from her cunt, easing every thrust.

Her blonde hair was a halo around her, a pink flush ever-present on her heated skin. Every puff of her warm breath against my skin, every delicate sound of desire was like adrenaline into my blood to keep me going, keep me giving her everything she was asking for.

“Come on, kitten,” I soothed. “You know what you’ve got to do.”

Her teeth sank into my skin and I came instantly in a surge of pleasure, bucking hard into her and dropping my weight to my forearms while her little nails dug into my back.

“Fuck,” I breathed, panting as she released her grip and slid her tongue over the claiming bite she’d put on my throat.

I curled one of my hands beneath her head to support it, half-drunk on her sweet peach tea scent, every bit of me shivering.

Gianna settled back down, her eyes still glassy, and red tinting her lips. I groaned when she tipped her head back, offering me her throat on instinct, her hands pulling insistently until I gave in, sinking my teeth into her flesh.

Pleasure kicked me in the chest a half second before the bond roared to life, all of her need and pain and fury pouring into me. There was so much rage simmering in the back of her mind and it was all served up on a platter for me to view. We were kindred spirits in that regard. Some days my own rage was the only thing that propelled me forward.

The clarity lasted for only a moment before the bond dragged me into a rut and I sank into my own haze.

CHAPTER 7

GIANNA

I emerged from the heat spike sweaty and exhausted. Marco’s weight draped across me was better than the weighted blankets I slept with at home. I stared up at the ceiling, unmoving and unwilling to wake him. I felt the bond deep into my bones. Sorting through what was me and what was him was more difficult than I had anticipated. The echoes of myself merged with him so seamlessly. Anger and panic and aching sadness hovered like a specter within both of us. The only difference between the unbridled nature of mine and his was that he’d had more years to learn how to temper the expression. Beyond that shared negativity, a placid calmness stretched out before me. The bond was there forever now. With that irreparable step taken, this asshole was mine. It was difficult to summon up the same hatred as before when so much of him mirrored me.

When the ache in my belly and the dryness of my throat became too much, I shoved at his shoulders.

Marco woke instantly. He looked exhausted, the purple shadowing beneath his eyes making the black eye I’d given him even more prominent. His body stiffened into a defensive position, gaze scanning the room for threats. When he encountered none, he settled back down on me until I shoved him again.

“Get off.”

With a groan, he obeyed.

I slipped into the bathroom to relieve myself, and after I washed my hands, I shoved my mouth into the flow from the tap, chugging down until I no longer felt like I might keel over.

Marco was on the phone when I emerged and he set down the receiver when he noticed me. “I ordered more food.”

I stood in the doorway, arms crossed over my chest. Who the hell was the man I had been tied to for life? “Tell me everything.”

“About?”

“You.”

“I’m not that interesting,” he replied.

“Tell me anyway. I don’t even know your last name or how old you are.”

“Vero, and I’m thirty-nine.”

“Keep going,” I insisted.

He huffed a laugh and stretched out atop the sheets, linking his fingers and setting them beneath his head. Part of me was a bit offended he didn’t view me as a threat anymore. He wouldn’t expose himself like that to someone he was worried about. “I grew up in a shit-ass family, even lower on the totem pole than yours is. Poverty and violence were the bread and butter of my childhood, until I got big enough to fight back and earn money. Bianca saw a spark of something in me when she was rising up the ranks under her father and dragged me up with her. It’s a pretty similar story for the others in her inner circle. None of us were in any position to rank high enough to matter until she decided we were important, and once we had her favor, our families gained resources and properly established themselves in the city under her.”

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