Page 43 of The Alpha: Part One
I trace my fingertips down from his temples to his jaw and he takes a ragged breath and sits up, bringing me with him. His own hands stay on my hips. Stiff. Tight. Like it might hurt him to even wiggle a finger. Then I get it. Then I start to understand.
“Are you afraid of me, Seth? Or for me?”
He takes another shaking breath and swallows loudly, then answers, nearly choking on the word. “Both.”
Both. He’s definitely afraid of me, which is ridiculous, I’d never hurt Seth, but if something happened to his past omega, it would make sense for him to be afraid of so many things in relation to having a connection to me. But being afraidforme? Of all the things Seth makes me feel, in danger isn’t one of them. I feel like he’d destroy himself before he’d ever hurt me.
“Seth,” I say, running my fingers through his hair again, tugging on the longer ends at the back. “I’ll never hurt you.” I bend down to brush my nose against his. “And you wouldn’t hurt me.”
“You don’t know that.” The words sound like they cut into him, like the consonants have hooks on the ends of them, tearing him on the way out.
I kiss his forehead. “Yes, I do. Will you let me kiss you? I really want to, and you need it.”
He nods, but he still doesn’t look at me. Putting my hands on either side of his face, I cover his mouth with mine. He doesn’t do anything to help the kiss, but he doesn’t pull away. That’s okay. If he didn’t want this he wouldn’t have said yes. I just have to be careful, go slow, until he feels better.
I give him slow, lingering kisses, just gentle presses of my mouth against his, until he takes another of those shuddering breaths. I let him feel my smile against his lips, then ask, “more?”
His nod is hesitant and jerking, but it’s there. His hands still haven’t moved, but now his fingers are spread wide. I curl my fingers against his scalp and tilt his head just a little farther so I can give him a deeper kiss.
I lick into his mouth, sliding my tongue against his, letting myself taste him, and he makes a little sound in his throat. I've never really been on this side of this situation. I've never been in a position to coax someone through a kiss. His small sound is more than enough to encourage me, though. Every hitch in his breath makes me ache for more.
“Don't stop,” he rasps when I gently pull away. “I don't want this to stop. I won't touch you. I promise. I won't move at all. Just...don't stop.”
The desperate undertones in his voice border on panic, his eye wide and staring into mine, his brows pinched. He moved his hands to the back of the couch at some point during the kiss and he's gripping it so hard that his knuckles are white. Is this what it looks like when an adult is starved for touch? No, not touch-starved, that isn't it. He's close with the pack back on the East Coast, and I've been as affectionate with him as I can be since I met him. This is something related to his past, but I can't think of a single reason for him to be afraid of touching me.
I trail my hands down his neck and across his shoulders along the stretch of his arms. “What if I want you to touch me, Seth?”
“I,” he closes his eye and leans his head back against the couch, “I can't. I'm sorry. I just --”
I lean in to run my nose up his arched neck from between his collarbones up to his ear, taking in deep breaths of his scent. “What if I touch you?” I whisper. “How would that be?”
His throat clicks with his swallow. “Good.”
“Good,” I repeat, and drag my hands back to his shoulder. “Because I want to touch you.” And then I do. I pull his shirt over his head so I can slide my palms across his chest and sides. I touch every part of him that isn’t covered. I even lean to the side to brush my fingertips over the parts of his calves that I can reach.
“I love your freckles,” I hum. “I want to kiss all of them, but that might take a while.” He smiles at my silly joke. He isn’t pulled quite as tight, but he’s still a far cry from relaxed. He’s still hard, though. I’m doing my very best not to grind against him. It would feel so good to create the friction I need so much, but we need to take this slow. We need to make sure he is okay with every single thing we do before we do it. It’s frustrating for me, but in the most fun way. Like working hard to earn a reward, and I get the feeling that once Seth finally lets go, he’s going to give me the best reward.
“I’m going to kiss some of them, though. Starting with these.” I lean to kiss a cluster of freckles on the top of his shoulder. “Then this one,” I move to a freckle sitting by itself in the place where his neck meets his shoulder. He sucks in a little breath when I press my lips there, so I let that kiss linger before I move to the next one that isn’t quite on the side or the front of his neck, “and this one. Want me to stop?”
He shakes his head, not lifting it from the back of the couch. If I had one of the twins under me like this, I would be doing everything I could to get them to take control and flip us over; but with Seth it’s different. He needs to be willing, but he's a passive participant in what we’re doing, and that’s okay. I’m very much enjoying being in control and knowing I will get to keep that control.
“Good.” I kiss his throat. There aren’t any freckles there, but I want to taste him. He makes a gasping sort of sound when I swirl my tongue around his Adam’s apple. I immediately pull back. “Too much?”
He squeezes his eye shut and gives another tight shake of his head. His fingers are digging into the padding on the back of the couch so much that I’ll be shocked if it doesn’t tear. He’s still as hard as ever, though. Such conflicting reactions.
“Did that feel good?” I ask, stroking across his chest again.
After a few breaths he answers. “Yes.” But his eye is still shut, his brows scrunched together in one of those expressions that means something is either very good or very bad. It is very obvious that he’s torn between wanting this and having a hard time with it. I don’t want Seth to push through being uncomfortable. I want everything we do together to be something he wants and fully enjoys. The trouble is that I don’t know what’s making him uncomfortable.
“We can stop. We don’t have to do–”
“No,” he says, his head snapping up. “No, I want this. I want all of it. I just don’t know if I can…finish it. I don’t want to disappoint you if I can’t.”
I might be disappointed if he couldn’t finish what we start, but I would never hold that against him. Maybe we need to go about this a different way. Maybe I need to go another direction to help take the pressure off of him.
“How about this,” I say, putting my hands on his cheeks. “This is going to sound terrible and very selfish, but I have a good reason. Since you’re worried about me being disappointed, how about we worry about not disappointing me instead of you finishing. We can have all kinds of fun without worrying about that. And if you do finish, that’s just an extra treat. Does that help at all? And we can work up to worrying about you finishing”
“I don’t understand.”
