Page 110 of Gemini Queen
“I see what you want now, Lucius Aries.”
I need to put real distance between us—and quickly. I should never have ignored my instincts and abolished that protective distance between us in the first place.
“Clearly,” I state firmly, “you’ve had a bit too much to drink, Mr. Romanov. I do think it’s best that we call it a night.”
I rise to my feet with as much composure as I can summon and stride decisively for the door.
The thunk as he tosses the bottle aside precedes the crash of shattering glass when it rolls to the floor.
I abandon all semblance of decorum and break into a dead run.
But after my long lope through the forest, I’m far from fresh, while he’s never been more determined. Still, my own desperation lends wings to my feet. I’ve nearly managed to reach the door when his lithe weight crashes into my back and drives me face first into the wall. His arms wrap around me from behind and his hands lock on my shirt. He tears it open, buttons flying in all directions, and drags it off my shoulders.
I’m struggling to heave him off, but it’s a struggle in panting silence, because it would be disastrous for the others to find us like this, reeking of liquor and all but naked in a student’s bedroom. Yet it’s hardly a fair fight because he’s been training for combat with Ronin, who’s the highest-ranked fighter at Icarus, while I’m admittedly more a scholar than a warrior.
These factors explain why I’m still struggling to throw him off when the twin spikes of his fangs sink deep into my shoulder.
I gasp under an exquisite double stab of pain and pleasure.
Shifter instinct takes over completely. I fall absolutely still, panting and shuddering under his dominating bite. He’s completely untrained in shifter ways; he was raised Mogadon, which means he doesn’t have the skill to administer a disciplinary bite. In any event, a disciplinary bite isn’t what he’s seeking.
He’s just sunk his teeth into my flesh in a goddamned mating bite.
This remains the reality although I can barely comprehend the fact that I, the dominant alpha in my swiftly dwindling race, have just accepted a mating bite from another alpha.
“Damn you, Vasili,” I gasp, clawing at the wall for purchase. “This is outright disobedience. Cease this scandalous outrage. At once!”
My brain is reeling and I can scarcely even think. But what I can grasp is that he’s only part shifter, so this may not be a proper bite. If only I can end this fiasco quickly, perhaps I’ll suffer no untoward effect.
But my wolf, my wolf who would never accept a mating bite from another alpha, my wolf is strangely quiescent.
“Oh God, Lucius,” Vasili says thickly against my shoulder. Twin trickles of hot blood spill over my skin. The languid lap of his tongue drags out a moan I can’t contain. “Is this the way you do it?”
“That is most definitely the way,” I gasp. “Vasili, for the love of the risen Christ…”
With every atom of my essence, I intend to order him to stop. But the inevitable effect of a mating bite is stealing insidiously through me. I’m thoroughly unnerved and thoroughly distracted. It’s also the case that his wicked tongue is making my predicament a hundred times worse with every swipe. When he begins nuzzling my wound affectionately, every infernal thought in my head vaporizes into smoke.
This is classic alpha tending behavior, and he’s doing it entirely by instinct.
Under my trousers my manhood is rising for him, hard and urgent, notwithstanding this untenable situation in which I find myself. My unruly wolf seems somehow to be accepting this submissive posture beneath a subordinate alpha.
A submission which, for me, is entirely without precedent.
I too am acting by instinct.
“Notwithstanding my horrible reputation, I’m not entirely a monster, you know,” he whispers between kisses so tender I can’t believe it’s him giving them. “If you truly want me to stop doing this, darling, then tell me like you mean it.”
With desperate resolve, I gather oxygen into my lungs and summon the necessary words. Then his hand slides down my abdomen to wrap over the bulge straining the crotch of my trousers. A delirious sense of anticipation spirals through me. All my breath spills out in a jagged gasp.
“I didn’t think so,” he murmurs against my skin, kneading my swelling shaft in a mesmerizing rhythm. “Do you like the way this feels?”
“Please, Vasili,” I groan, and the naked need in my own voice appalls me. It’s all I can manage not to rut into his grip. “If we do this now, there’s no going back.”
This line of argument ignores the fact that if he has indeed succeeded in inflicting a mating bite with his sharp baby fangs, there’s already no going back. I’m already his. I’m already as good as beneath him in his bed, eager and begging for his cock.
That’s something else I’ve never tolerated from anyone.
I’m referring to being on, well, the receiving end of another man’s passion.
