Page 34 of Pack's Promise

“Wait,” I said, “wait, Madison, wait–”

“Alpha, please,” she whispered, her heels hooked around my thighs, keeping my hard cock pressed tight to her body.

“Omega,” I let the alpha slip through, commanding. “Wait.”

She stilled, and I drew back slightly, so that I could see her face. She was looking into the corner of the room, and I followed her gaze to see a framed photo of the three of us: Rian in the center, with Gray and I flanking him. We were younger,young, actually, and smiling in front of a foreign landmark. It had been our first trip abroad together. We’d flown private–an extravagance for us, back then–and stayed in all the best hotels and eaten at all the best restaurants, and Gray had cultivated a taste for French wine and Rian and I had lounged in bed all day with hangovers, finally kissing and teasing and fucking each other back from the realm of the dead to the land of the living.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I want this.” The way she said it made my chest constrict.This, a night? Or…this, a pack? Her next actions sent my hopes spiraling back down. “I want you,” she said, and with one hand, groped between us for my stiff cock, feeling it through the soft material of my pajama bottoms. “I know you weren’t expecting me to show up here, looking like a hot mess, but I swear to you, Lucas, I want this, I need it, I want you to fu–”

I knew I was making a mistake. My logical brain understood the gravity of it, even as I pulled off her shirt, even as I stripped off her pants and my own loose clothing, even as I whipped down the duvet on my bed, snuggling her down into the soft mattress and covering her naked body with my own. As my cock slipped between her legs, into the slick wetness spilling from her, and she whimpered in my ear, whisperingalpha, alpha.As I sheathed myself inside her tight, hot body, forcing my length inside in one forceful thrust, afraid that if I hesitated even for a moment, I’d stop myself.

But I didn’t. I fucked into her, slamming my cock into her willing body, snapping my hips in a brutal, relentless rhythm even as the stretch of my length, the slight swelling at the base growing thicker already, made her arch her back and writhe under me. I knew just what she was feeling, that mix of pain and pleasure that had you balancing on the brink of either joy or misery.

I knew because I felt it, too.

In my chest, just behind my ribcage.

CHAPTERTHIRTY-NINE

Madison

I knew I had,technically, slept with Lucas before. A lot of times, depending on how you counted: was a days-long heatonce, or several times? Was it divided into days, or orgasms, or knots?

But tonight was different:I was sober, not drugged by pheromones and hormones. The lust I felt was all me.

He must have knownI could take it–after all, I’d taken him during my heat, hadn’t I?--but it didn’t stop the cry of surprise that escaped me when I felt his cock, impossibly thick, push into me at once, the sudden stretch making my spasm involuntarily around the intrusion. My foggy memories of heat didn’t include the near-pain of fullness, the feeling of helplessness as he fucked into me again and again, just the satisfaction I had felt, doped up on hormones, as he had filled me with his come until it dripped from my feverish body. I wanted that feeling again now, I needed it with nearly the same desperation I had felt during my heat.

I clung to him,my hands gripping his shoulders as he rutted into me, feeling the muscles work under his smooth, tan skin. “Lucas,” I said, then, “alpha,” and he growled, his eyes finding mine as he thrust his cock into my body and stilled, grinding down for a moment, his length finding places inside of me I had never felt before. His hips ground against my clit, making shooting stars zip through my nerve ending, like the crackle of fireworks.

“You didn’t get enough, omega?”He said, his eyelids heavy. “You need more?” He emphasized the last with a slow thrust, slow enough that I could feel it when the beginnings of his knot slipped from within me, then pressed in again as his hips moved back toward mine. The pressure was immense, like a heavy weight against my sensitive flesh, but I willed myself to relax, to let him in, to only squeeze down when he was fully seated. My mouth was slack, but the rest of my body was coiled tight, needing only that little bit more to send me over the edge.

“Yes, alpha,”I whimpered, the words falling so naturally from my lips that I knew I must have said them a thousand times during the delirium of my heat. “Please.”

I nearly criedwhen I felt the pressure of his cock replaced by an aching, terrible emptiness. He sat back on his heels, and I closed my eyes tight to keep the embarrassed tears in. This is why you don’t remember your heat: the begging, the need, the humiliation of it all. So why did my neediness now, my weak voice and Lucas’s firm one, get me so,sohot? Why was this different? Why had I run from Brent’s apartment when he asked for just a taste of the control I was willingly–more than willingly–handing over to Lucas?

“Show me,”I heard, Lucas’s growl cutting off the confusing stream of my thoughts, and instinctually, I rolled onto my belly, then onto my knees and elbows. I waited there for a long moment, holding my breath, before I felt the firm pressure of Lucas’s hand on my spine, just above my tailbone, then sliding around to my hip. I recognized the pattern of my bruises in the feel of his fingertips.

“Please, alpha,” I sighed, a shuddering, needy sound.

“Fuck, Madison,”Lucas said, from behind my back somewhere, and then he leaned into me, pressing his length into me inch by excruciating inch, until my shoulders and face were flat against his crisp white sheets and all I could smell was rain.

CHAPTERFORTY

Gray

I knewsomething was wrong as soon as we got home from the movie.

For one thing, Lucas was still up, and drinking a glass of my best whiskey, whiskey I knew he thought tasted like burning gasoline.

For two, he reeked of vanilla and a terrible, terrible sour scent, like white wine gone to vinegar.

“Jesus,” Rian moaned, getting himself a glass of filtered water from the fridge. “That was the worst fucking thing I’ve seen in literal years; you made the right decision staying home, Luc. My shoes are sticky, I smell like stale popcorn, and I am nearly three hours closer to the grave with fuck all to show for it.” He pounded back his water. He’d been morose all week, this was the most energetic I’d seen him in days, and I was thankful for it. It was why I had suggested the stupid movie in the first place. I would have been thrilled for his change in attitude if not for the worry creeping up my spine at Lucas’s scent. “I’m going to go take a shower–I can’t sleep like this. I’ll see you in the morning.”

He didn’t invite himself into either of our beds; he hadn’t all week. We were all still tired, I thought, from Madison’s heat, but… I also knew he hadn’t been sleeping in his own bed. I’d seen him creeping from the room with the nest back into his own room, early in the morning and late at night. I waited until he’d gone, and I heard a door upstairs open and close, before turning to Lucas, one eyebrow raised.

“Care to tell me what the fuck is going on?”

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