I tell my Alpha to shut up. I’m only giving Zenevieve kisses because it makes her happy. It’s not for me.
And yet…
I caress her face and her throat, marveling at her beauty. The ache in my body that for once is sweet instead of torturous. “I’ve always hated my ruts, but gods, you make this wonderful.”
She opens her eyes. “But why do you hate your ruts?”
I press my forehead to hers, and confess my most painful, sad, and shameful secret. “Because they’re so lonely.”
“Oh, Stesha. I’m here with you. You’re not alone.” Zenevieve presses kisses all over my face.
I wrap her tightly in my arms and breathe her in. How I’ve missed her. Maybe now things can go back to the way they were. The two of us and our dragons, happy together. “You’re so sweet to me. You nearly died. If I’d lost you, I don’t know what I would have done.”
“I’ve missed you, Stesha. I hate not speaking with you. I just want to go home and be with you.”
“We’ll fly home as soon as the storm’s over. Our home.”
Tears fill her eyes, and she smiles more than ever. “Really? You mean that?”
“Of course I mean it. I just want you home with me.” I kiss away all her tears.
“But we can’t go yet,” she tells me. “I can still hear the wind. It’s too dangerous to fly right now.” Zenevieve’s fingers caress my mouth right over my dragines, and I almost succumb to the urge to bite her fingers. I mustn’t bite her. If I do it once, I won’t be able to stop. Her touch roams my body, and she hums in pleasure. She strokes her fingers down my bare chest, dawdling below my navel and just above the waistband of my underbreeches. As her fingers skim my flesh, I can feel her looking at my knot.
She gives me a doe-eyed look. “You’re so hot and swollen. I’m worried you’ll die if we don’t do something about it.”
“Of course I won’t die. What are you talking about?”
Her lips twitch. She’s teasing me. I lower my head and kiss her, pinning her beneath me once more. In this position, with my body heavy on hers, there’s friction against my knot. Without realizing I’m the one moving, I slowly push my hips against hers,my knot rubbing against her sex through our underclothes. She moans into my mouth, and my ache of need doubles. Maybe I will die, my flesh splitting open from violent desire.
“Gods, I ache between my legs,” Zenevieve whimpers.
I lift my head. “You do?”
She sinks her teeth into her lower lip and nods. My dragines throb. I’m envious of her teeth in her flesh. I crave for it to be my teeth.
A distant part of my mind is telling me we’re taking things too far. That there’s a good reason why we should slow down, even stop. Wait out the storm fully clothed. She’ll survive the torment of sexual frustration, and so will I.
I can’t really make myself listen to reason.
I caress her waist, and then slide up and cup her breast, easing my thumb over her nipple, just to see what my touch might do to her. Zenevieve cries out, tipping her head back and exposing her lovely throat to me. Desire pours through me. I picture ripping the last of our clothes aside and sinking into her.
Fuck, it’s all I want.
I groan and press the heels of my hands against my eyes. That darker, hungrier part of my rut is edging up on me, the part that makes me rip pillows open with my teeth, shred my belly and thighs with my nails, and fantasize endlessly that I have Zenevieve beneath me, and my knot is slamming against her as I fuck her hard. Every rut since she left me I’ve thought of nothing but her.
“The storm is dying down, isn’t it?” I ask hopefully through gritted teeth.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Fuck,” I mutter.
Sweet little Beta.
“Stesha. Your scent smells different,” she whispers. “Stronger. Thicker.”
“I know.”
Sweet little Beta who wants to be so good for me. So willing. So needy for me.
