Page 29 of Lucky or Knot

The bed creaked and thumped underneath us as we bounced up and down, and Raven’s hair flew around his head as if it had a life of its own, his slim shoulders peeking out through the strands. He held me tighter and tighter between his knees and rode me as if he didn’t care if it hurt.

Raven must have been close to coming too, he had to be, because I needed him to come first this time. No hands, no mouth for kisses, so what could I do to…but I did have my mouth, didn’t I?

“You have me at your mercy,” I gritted out, wishing it wasonly meant to get him off and not a hundred percent true. “You going to come all over me? Hmm? Paint me with that pretty cock?”

He looked up sharply, wild-eyed, hair flying around his face. “Yes,” he panted. “Yes?”

His expression twisted into something desperate, and he thrust his hips back, impaling himself harder and deeper.

Through the pounding roar of my own blood in my ears, I managed to say, “Come on, Raven. Hold me down and make me knot you.”

Self-serving too, maybe, but good enough for him, because he stopped, shaking, coming in pearly ribbons all over my shirt, and clenching so hard that it ripped the orgasm out of me, my back arching and my clawed fists tearing up what was left of the bed underneath us.

Raven cried out, high and wild, trailing off to a little whimpering moan as I filled him with pulse after pulse, thrusting up to stuff my growing knot inside. He writhed, pushed back on me, and took it—and then toppled forward and landed on my chest with a long, low sigh. My whole body shuddered with aftershocks, every one of them jolting through him and rubbing my knot against his sweet spot. More small moans, and his fingers flexed against my shoulders.

But he didn’t move, even though he’d lain down in his own sticky mess. Gods, I wanted to lick it off of him. Instead it’d just ruin my shirt. What a waste.

I closed my eyes and drifted.

Chapter 10

My vision unblurred as my heart slowed a bit, and I blinked up at the ceiling, staring at a crack in the paint until it came into focus again. Raven still hadn’t moved, his hands resting on my shoulders. His fanned-out hair concealed his face completely. If I tucked my chin slightly, I could feel it, silky-soft and cool. The scent of it mingled with sex and sweat and magic, all lemony sweet and musky.

His relaxed weight on my chest gave me an ache deep inside it that had nothing whatsoever to do with compression of my lungs—he wasn’t big enough for that.

Raven probably hadn’t gone to sleep, but he had gone totally limp.

As if he trusted me. Not to hurt him, not to take advantage of having him tied to me with my knot…and possibly even to protect him.

He’d said he didn’t trust me, but maybe he really had meant it only as a commentary on my clumsiness and not in a more general sense.

Although if I were him, I might not trust any alpha, anywhere, ever, and in that post-nut clarity that swept over me as I lay there in the quiet, scenting Raven’s bone-melting deliciousness and savoring his slight body draped over mine, I wished to all the gods I hadn’t said that stupid bullshit about “if you were mine.” That must’ve sounded like more of the same to him. Another day, another alpha wanting to own him.

No doubt he’d be really impressed if I explained that it wasn’t the same at all, because I was nothing like Cunningham.

Right.

On the other hand, my hands ached like a bitch, so I’dneed to at least convince him to let me free them from the mattress.

“Raven,” I said softly.

“Tony,” he murmured without moving, and something that felt like one of my ribs, but wasn’t, cracked and twanged.

“I’m going to get my claws unstuck. Half my arms are buried in the bed.” Nothing. “Am I allowed to touch you now?”

His slight motion in response could’ve been a shrug. Anyway, he hadn’t said no, so I started dragging my hands out of the fluff and springs and threads that had wound around them, my claws scraping unpleasantly as I tried to retract them.

Raven shuddered. “That’s a horrible noise,” he complained muzzily, lips moving against my chest.

My sudden desire to protect him from all horrible noises in the future had to be a sign that I’d finally lost my grip on reality.

At last my hands tugged free, bits of mattress stuffing floating up into the air and settling around us like dusty, sneeze-inducing snow. I flexed my fingers, getting my claws retracted all the way, and then—he really hadn’t said no. With infinite care, holding my breath, I let my hands drift down onto his bare back, one in the center and the other on his ass, honestly, not his back. But I couldn’t resist that soft curve. So smooth, so round, so lightly jiggly. And when I squeezed his cheek, I felt the tug of it inside him, around my knot, in his tightly plugged hole full of my come—

“Is that a purr or a growl?” Raven asked, sounding slightly more alert, if breathless. “I can feel it more than I can hear it.”

“No, tigers can’t purr,” I said without thinking.

His head popped up, eyes glittering, hair hanging all around his face in a tangled, silky web.

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