Page 29 of Rejected Sold Mate
Rhie’s eyes flickered around us, but she didn’t try to run, “I just needed some air. Go back to your party, Jayce.”
“Easy,” I held my hands up like I was trying to comfort a frightened animal. Something about Rhie made me feel like she was on the edge of giving in to the shift so she could escape me, and I wanted to prevent that. “I can tell something's wrong. Let me help you.”
“You can’t,” the words came out almost as a sob, and when she finally turned to run, I lunged to grab her by the arm, hauling her close to me. Her body was dwarfed by mine, but she wasn’t still, writhing in my grasp. Her skin was damp with sweat, and when I lowered my nose to her hair to breathe in her scent, her scalp was damp, too. “Let me go, Jayce, or we’re going to ruin everything!”
I was drowning in her scent, greedily inhaling it from her hair and neck. When my nose grazed her scent gland, Rhie cried out, but it wasn’t in pain…
Oh, shit. My head cleared enough for one thought to make its way in. “You’re in heat.”
The phrase sank like a stone between us, and in an instant, Rhie stopped fighting me, going limp in my arms. She didn’t just smell good; her scent was actually making me intoxicated, the need to have her growing with each breath. But it was tempered by the knowledge she’d been suffering in silence, when I could have eased her pain hours ago if she had been honest with me.
“You’ve been holding this in all night, hurting, alone? Why?” I demanded.
She leaned back into me, her back against my chest, her body giving in even as her mouth still argued, “Because it’s not your problem,” she snapped, voice cracking. “I just wanted to get through it by myself, but you just couldn’t leave me alone—”
“By yourself?” I interrupted, incredulous. “Rhie, you can’t. The pain, when you’re mated and denying your heat—”
“Ican!”Rhie yelled, trying once more to pull away from me, but then she softened all at once, spinning in my arms so she was looking at me with huge, glassy eyes. “I can’t. You’re right. I can’t.” Then, her hands clamped onto my biceps, and her voice took on a panicked tone. “Please, Jayce. It hurts.”
That single word, please, broke all of my restraints. I’d never been angry at her, just frustrated, but at her surrender, it all flowed into a hotter, more demanding emotion. My mate, my Omega, in heat, in my arms, begging me to give her what she needed.
What we both needed so fucking badly. God, I wanted her more than I’d ever wanted anything.
“Rhie,” The words grated out of me as I dragged my lips over her jaw. I had to be sure. I didn’t want there to be a single regret. “What are you asking me to do, baby?”
“Everything,” her words were like salvation. “I need you.”
It was enough. I closed what little space was left between us in a heartbeat, my hands on her waist, crushing our bodies together until I couldn’t tell where I began and she ended. Rhie made the final move, standing on her tiptoes and pressing her mouth to mine, breathing my name.
“Jayce,” she sighed, shivering with anticipation, “Jayce, please.”
Please. That damn word again. I surged against her, letting her feel just how much it affected me.
“Yes, mate,” I promised, “You don’t have to beg.”
Chapter 15 - Rhie
I'd been drunk before, ranging from tipsy to nearly blacked out when I was younger and stupid and had first been given access to alcohol, giddy and laughing with friends that never spoke to me again once I left my first pack. Then there'd been the time my childhood crush and I, right after I'd turned 18, had shared a joint and spent the night with our heads in the clouds, emptying the fridge in my parents' house before we were caught.
All that is to say that I wasn't a stranger to being intoxicated in one way or another. I'd even had two heat cycles under my belt. But being in heat with a mate bond thrumming in my chest, and said mate wrapped around me, was something altogether different.
Alcohol, weed, and even my first few heats were something that happened to me. The heat that hit me after I'd become Jayce's mate wasn't just changing me; it was changing the entire world around me. Or at least that was how it felt, at the moment.
I wasn't giddy or laughing, and while I was starving, it wasn't for food. It was for Jayce, my Alpha, my mate.
He was being careful, and a distant, not heat-addled part of my brain appreciated that. Once I gave in to the heat, I would have been more than happy to have him take me on the forest floor, fill me up until the ache in my core abated, but Jayce had a hold on his feral side so strong that it was almost unbelievable.
When I kissed him, he kissed me back, hands roving over my body, but never pushing me forward. He was waiting for me, wanting me to make the next move.
When the first kiss broke, I pulled away, breathing hard, “You're really okay with this? This isn't going to change things between us?”
I'd tried to fight it, I really had, but the truth was, I needed him. More than I'd ever needed anyone, or anything, and it was impossible to hold back now. The ache that had started hours ago had grown, and I could feel the slick running down the inside of my thighs.
Jayce's eyes were dark, storm cloud gray. His voice was a low growl when he replied, “I want this. Want you. More than you can imagine.”
I knew we weren't the type to talk about our feelings, but something about the night felt fragile, and I needed to hear him say the words. I kissed him again, but when we broke apart, I kept talking.
“Are you sure? You said—”
