Page 8 of Bloom in Darkness

“Easy,” I tell him, catching his hips before he can force himself too quickly. My grip holds him steady even when he makes an impatient sound and tries to sink lower. “Let it open you.”

Astra growls something under his breath and tries again anyway. I keep him where I want him, letting my knot press against him gradually until his body starts stretching around it. His breathing turns ragged, every inhale breaking against the next while his fingers dig into my forearms and his hips rock helplessly against the pressure I won’t let him rush.

“Bryn.” My name comes out wrecked enough that I feel it everywhere.

“I’ve got you.” I shift one hand higher along his side and keep the other locked around his hip, holding him steady while my knot pushes a little deeper.

His forehead nearly touches mine. All I can hear is his breathing and the wet sound of his body moving around me before he whispers, “Then give it to me.”

I lift him slightly, line him up, and drive upward. My knot pushes through on the next thrust, stretching him around the widest part until his body takes all of me.

Astra screams again as he opens around it. His orgasm hits almost at the same time, his cock jerking between us and spilling hot across my stomach while his hole clamps hard around my shaft and locks the swollen base inside him. His whole body shakes over mine, fingers clawing at my shoulders as pleasure tears through him.

I come deep inside him, hips rocking shallowly against my knot while every tight pulse of his body drags more out of me. A rough sound tears from my chest, somewhere between a growl and a roar, before breaking down into a purr I couldn’t stop if I wanted to.

Astra sags over me, and I catch him against my chest, one arm around his back while the other keeps him settled carefully over my knot. His breathing slowly evens against my throat. He stays sprawled over me while my purr vibrates through both of us. Eventually Astra lifts his head and gives me a dazed little smile.

“Breakfast?” I ask, because there isn’t much else my brain is capable of producing while he’s still locked around me.

Astra laughs softly against my chest. “If this is how all your first times go, I can understand why your Alpha has no problem with your knot.”

Heat climbs into my face, and his dazed smile widens the second he catches it. I groan and pull him back against my chest before he can start, rubbing one hand slowly down his back while I wait for my knot to ease. “Get some clothes on when this goes down, pretty boy. I’m taking you to the diner to feed you.”

Caelan

I claim the back booth because it gives me a wall at my back, a clear view of the door, and enough table space to spread out my phone, two folders, and the list Lorcan sent me at six-thirty this morning. Breakfast for the office is boxed up somewhere behind the counter, and I’m halfway through answering a message about tomorrow’s fighter rotation when the bell over the diner door chimes.

I look up automatically and find Bryn walking in first. That alone isn’t surprising. He comes here often enough that the waitress stopped asking whether he wants chocolate chip pancakes months ago and simply brings them unless he says otherwise, though he would deny being predictable if anyone accused him of it. The man is a complete slut for those pancakes and somehow still thinks nobody has noticed.

The surprise is the Omega beside him. Astra’s blond hair is still a little mussed, green eyes moving over the room while one of Bryn’s hands rests low against his back as they walk. His attention moves quickly, taking in the exits, the booths, the people already eating, and then settles when Bryn guides him toward me.

Bryn spots me almost immediately and smiles. That gets more of my attention than Astra does, because Bryn smiling in public before he has food in front of him is rare enough that I lower my phone completely. He crosses the diner and slides into the booth across from me, broad shoulders taking up more than his share of the bench. Astra follows him in, settling beside him close enough that their thighs touch under the table, then finally looks at me properly.

His eyes widen. “You’re him.”

I lean back against the booth and study him over the rim of my coffee. “That depends entirely on what he told you.”

His attention flicks toward Bryn. “His Alpha?”

“We’re not anything,” I say, because technically we aren’t, even if the answer has sounded less convincing lately. Bryn grunts beside him, earning a look from me. “You disagree?”

“No.”

“Good.” I take another drink of coffee before adding, “He fucks well, though.”

Astra blinks at me, clearly not expecting that answer. Then his mouth twitches while Bryn gives me the flat look he saves for moments when I’m entertaining myself at his expense.

Astra leans closer to Bryn and inhales near his shoulder, casual enough that I almost miss what he’s doing until his eyes flick back toward me.

“I can smell you on him.”

Coffee goes down the wrong way. I cough into my fist while Bryn sits there looking completely unsurprised, which somehow makes it worse.

Astra’s face warms a little, but he doesn’t retreat from what he said. “It works.”

I set the cup down carefully before I embarrass myself further. “That may be the nicest thing anyone has ever said about my scent.”

Bryn’s mouth pulls faintly at one corner. Astra looks between the two of us like he’s trying to work out whether he has wandered into something strange, and from his perspective he probably has.