Page 43 of Running on Empty

“Yes… Yes… Like that. Please.”

“But not yet.” I pulled away, giving his cock a stroke. “You like pain.”

Ronan wanted to take over, to make me do what he wanted. I could see that in the way his biceps popped, his whole body strained. But the fact that he didn’t? It did more to settle me than almost anything the others had done since they found me. I was in control, always. So when he let out a huge sigh, collapsing down onto the bed, I knew he’d given me something precious.

His surrender.

No one had ever touched him before and he was edging closer to thirty. He had to have wanted this so fucking badly, but he lay down then, quiet and still and waited for me to decide what I would do.

That let me crawl up his body, my fingers still playing up and down his cock. It allowed me to brush my mouth against his. I could take his mouth as mine now, the kiss getting deeper and deeper until my tongue was tangled with his, just like our bodies were. He could slide an arm around me, wrapping it around my waist and holding me right where I was as his pants broke through our kisses, as his cock got harder and harder, thrusting up into my grip. And it let me do this, something I didn’t think I would be able to do.

I kissed my way down his body, Ronan’s body, not anyone else’s and nothing could get between us now, none of our past. His hands went to my hair, so gentle, just stroking through the strands as I got lower.

“Fuck, Stevie, are you sure…?” he gasped as I licked a broad path from the base of his shaft to the head, tasting only him. “You don’t—”

Any other response was choked off as I flicked a tongue across the head of his cock, licking away the precum that had formed. I tasted Ronan, no one else, my mouth watering for more, so I gripped his cock at the base, pressing the heel of my palm into his knot and went back for more.

They’d forced their cocks down my throat, leaving me aching and gasping for breath, but that’s not what happened here. They’d forced me to do what they wanted, but I gave Ronan this. I sucked him hard, my cheeks hollowing, wanting him to feel the most perfect of pleasures. And he told me I was giving him that over and over in hoarse little rasps, right up until this.

The flat of my tongue was pressed hard against the sensitive underside of his cock, my hand cupping his knot now, squeezing it rhythmically. But mindful of what he’d said about pain, my nails became claws, pricking the sensitive skin of his taint.

“Stevie… Stevie… Oh my fucking god… Pull off, beautiful, if you don’t want this because… fuck!”

I knew he was about to come. His cock flexed in my mouth so desperately hard and he tried to pull away, not wanting me to be forced to deal with it. But I did. He was mine, my mate and nothing that had been done to me could change that fact, so I wanted everything he had to give. My claws dug into his skin, not hard enough to pierce it, but enough to create a little sting and as soon as he felt it, his hips shot off the bed and he unloaded into my mouth.

I swallowed him down, going back for more once he was done, licking him clean like a cat, but he picked me up and laid me down on the bed beside him. There was something almost shy about us as we looked into each other’s eyes. Probably because for the first time, there was no timer in my head, alerting me that now was the moment to get out. The clock of us would tick away forever, loving every minute Ronan was with me.

“Fuck, that was…” He shook his head, eyes reassuringly hazel right now. “Are you OK? You didn’t have to—”

“Are you?” I asked, running a finger down his chest and watching its progress rather than meet his intense gaze. “My claws—”

“Were perfect.” He tilted my chin upwards. “You don’t have to do… that. Any of it, really. I like it…” His voice trailed away as my claws snicked out and I raked one down his chest. “A lot, but it's not a trigger you have to pull to get me off.”

“But you like it and I’m…” I searched for my true feelings about the matter. “Intrigued. Maybe it's something we should talk further about when both of us have our clothes on. Playing like that has rules and shit, doesn’t it?”

I wasn’t sure what I expected as a response, but it wasn’t this.

Ronan’s eyes changed then, becoming purest green and that jagged smile reappeared, full of fangs. His eyes glittered with delight because I hadn’t pulled away.

Yet.

“Oh yes,” he said, not Ronan, but someone else. His voice was deeper, coarser, part growl, part human. “I think I’d like that very, very much.”

Chapter26

Jax

In every alpha pack, each boy grows up fulfilling a certain role. Ronan was the savage defender of ours, Ash, the responsible one and me? I was the… good one. No real role or purpose. I was just obedient, well behaved, never a problem, the relief my mother needed when dealing with three alpha sons and more alpha mates. But I felt something crack inside me when Stevie slammed the door in our faces.

Ash knew Ronan, knew exactly what he was capable of. He’d been clearing up after our brother since we started school. Our brother would leap into a fight with little provocation because there was nothing in him that could tolerate shades of grey. If a kid stepped over a line, encroached on our boundaries? Well, they’d soon discover the error of their ways, something that had us kicked out of our last school before we moved next door to Stevie.

But right now it wasn’t Ronan I was angry with, it was Ash.

I felt no sympathy for my brother as I pulled my fist back, no thoughts in my head, just the sound of my heart beating, my wolf growling as I belted Ash as hard as I could. And when my fist connected with his jaw? I watched him go sailing backwards, completely sucker punched, and I didn’t feel a minute of guilt.

“What the fuck was—?”

“Shut up.” I frowned down at him. “Just shut the fuck up for once. You screwed up.”

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