Page 63 of The Alpha Experiment
Crap, I’d forgotten that.
But Colin got there first—luckily, since I’d forgotten the damn keyword. “Catushey,” he muttered. “Let me go.”
I heard the straps slither off of him and fall to the floor with a quiet thump. He raised his arms up, giving a stretch, and then let them land wrapped around me, one hand at the nape of my neck and the other resting possessively on the swell of my ass.
Without thinking about it, simply because I had to, I lifted my head and pressed my lips to his.
Chapter 19
No Tax Write-Off Is Worth This
My mouth covered his for a long moment, just enough to feel the heat of him and the shocking softness of his lips, before he jerked his head back like he’d been electrocuted, leaving me open-mouthed and blinking down at him in shock.
“Don’t,” he said hoarsely. “Newt, don’t do that!”
I couldn’t possibly have been more flushed, sweatier, or wider-eyed than I already was. Maybe he wouldn’t see the signs on my face of the crushing, squeezing, agonizing pain that shot through my chest at the look on his.
“Sorry,” I forced out through a throat that felt like he’d wrapped his hand around it again and choked me out. “I—sorry.”
I turned away, desperate to escape, to run and hide—but I had nowhere to go. His knot held me in place as surely as those cuffs had held him, and if I tried to pull off of him I really would get ripped to pieces.
Instead, I put my head back down and felt myself being ripped to pieces in a different way, facing away from him, squeezing my eyes shut to keep that prickling feeling behind my eyelids from turning into something he’d notice.
Something I’d have to acknowledge.
Colin sighed, and he started stroking his hand from my neck down to my lower back and then up again, a slow, steady sweep along my spine.
Soothing me.
Patronizingme, more like.
I bit my lip, hard, but it didn’t stop the heavy heat in my eyes from gathering.
Colin cleared his throat. “I’m so sorry about your mattress. I mean, it wasn’t the greatest, but I think it’s a goner. I’ll buy you a new one, dude.”
Dude. Seriously? Colin had called me that a thousand times, and I’d hardly even noticed, just like I didn’t notice when he called his car or the guy at the grocery store ‘dude.’
And he was trying so hard to hit that note of goofy, lighthearted teasing.
It fell flat, and the word ‘dude’ echoed in my ears, my breath coming faster, my teeth nearly gnawing a hole in my lower lip.
I lay draped over him, feeling his heartbeat and the motion of his lungs, my legs splayed over his hips, his cock still pulsing deep inside my body, his hand rubbing my back.
What choice did I have but to try to pretend?
“This is—is research, right? So I can probably write it off on my taxes.”
That fell flat too, to my ears; my voice came out strained and tense. But Colin laughed, and I jolted up and down on top of him with the motion of it. His knot tugged at me, and I winced, having to force my hips down to keep it from hurting.
That pressed it against my prostate again. I let out a little moan as the pleasure of it pulsed through me.
I lay miserably tense, my body singing with satisfaction while my mind churned with humiliation. Colin didn’t say anything else. Maybe he realized how futile it would be. Maybe he was just as miserable, desperately waiting for his knot to go down so he could get the hell away from me.
Apparently kissing was on the veto list.
And I’d known that, or I should have. I hadn’t kissed him out of scientific curiosity. That made it automatically off-limits.
I’d simply kissed him, because he had his knot in me, and I needed my lips on his and his tongue in my mouth and the taste of him, and I’d expected him to wrap me tighter in his arms and…
