Page 20 of The Omega's Alpha
And then he stopped tormenting me, and began to climb slowly up my body. I felt his fingers on mine and only then realized I’d tangled them in my hair. I’d have a sore patch on that side of my head later—it already ached distantly, easily ignored in the heat of Quin stretched out on top of me. I smiled at him and raised my mouth to his for a kiss. He gave it to me, then, his eyes fixed on mine, he reached down between us and made us one.
I gasped and tried to pull him closer as he slid inside. Oh, I was so ready for this, on fire for him. Quin buried his face in my neck and groaned, then bit me gently in the meaty part sloping into my shoulder. I laughed in delight and dug my heels into the small of his back. “Quin,” I whispered and kissed his temple, his ear, his mouth when he turned back to me. My joy was tainted with a thin edge of sadness, that this was only mine for as long as he didn’t find a suitable mate, that I hadn’t been offered to him in the first place, but they were temporary sorrows, too weak to survive this ecstasy.
He thrust and I sensed the power in him, so tightly leashed. I wondered if he ever truly let go, and decided that the place for him to do so would be with me. So I tightened my legs and thrust back at him, as fierce as any alpha was supposed to be, and rode him as well as he rode me.
Something crashed, glass tinkling away over the floor, but we were both so wound up in each other that it might as well have been happening in a room halfway across the enclave. Quin slipped an arm underneath my hips and raised himself on his knees, bringing me with him so my shoulders still rested on the bed, but the rest of me floated in air, trapped in the iron strength of his body.
He leaned into his strokes, one hand denting the mattress beside my head, his face almost directly above mine. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from him, not even when he dropped his pretense of civilization and gentleness, and took me the way I wanted him too—hard, determined, not accepting any reluctance on my part to let him bring me orgasm. I wanted it to last, to see him drop the last shreds of his control, but that was probably a foolish wish when dealing with the Alpha. He rode me until I lost my words, lost track of everything except how he felt, and how he made me feel, while my entire body slowly turned inward and gathered all that joy and pleasure and erotic excitement into a tightly wound ball at the base of my cock, just waiting for one final thrust to set it free.
Quin leaned down for a last kiss, shifted his grip on my body andpushed, and my world exploded. The ball of aching desire unrolled itself, and I clutched at him while it had its way with me, terrified I’d drown beneath its weight and at the same time, grateful for the end of my need. I hung off him like we’d been glued together and rode out his own final climb to orgasm, until he crushed me with his own need to be as deep inside as possible. And, as his muscles slowly relaxed, like the gradual drift of the clouds on a sunny day, I held him gently and kept him safe until he was himself again.
Chapter Eighteen
Quin only lethimself rest against Holland for a moment before he levered himself off to the side and pulled Holland into the circle of his arm. Holland seemed utterly content, which was good, because Quin wasn’t confident of his ability to string two coherent words together yet. Except for, “You okay?”
“Mmm,” Holland murmured, and pressed himself closer. “You?”
“Yes.” He closed his eyes and tried to pay attention to nothing but the heavy relaxation in his limbs, the sheer rightness of where he was now. Except it wasn’t right, not by shifter society’s standards. Humans did this all the time. But not shifters. Not with omegas.
He’d done it now. Abel was going to kill him. Except that he somehow felt like his and Holland’s non-relationship had been heading this way the whole time. “So, now that we’ve done this, I guess we should talk about setting a date.” He wasn’t exactly mate material, with his days mostly taken up with the surprising business of the Alpha’s position, and his nights still on loan to his nightmares, but he’d make it work.
“Date? To do this again?” Holland’s voice sounded lazy, replete, entirely satisfied. “How about tomorrow?” He stretched and somehow managed to rub his body against Quin’s all the way down. “Maybe tonight. Or this afternoon.” He subsided into almost cat-like bonelessness.
“No. To get mated.”
“You don’t want to be mated. I don’t either,” Holland said, stealing Quin’s power of speech carelessly. “No one mates a repudiated omega.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
Holland shrugged and burrowed into Quin’s side. “It is what it is. I don’t care. I realized the other day that I don’t need to worry about what people think of me, because they’re going to assume the worst. So, if I’m going to be blamed for that sheep, I might as well eat it.” He laid his teeth against the curve of muscle in Quin’s shoulder and bit just hard enough to tent up the flesh, his tongue flicking over the skin like lightning. “Delicious.”
“I don’t want to be responsible for the reputation it’ll give you.”
Holland let go of his mouthful and shrugged. “You won’t. I’ve already got it, or we wouldn’t have had that little incident in the park. Leave it alone, Quin. I’m not going to tie you down over a bit of fun and relaxation.” There was a momentary hitch in his voice, then it went back to normal. “You can’t say you aren’t a lot more relaxed now.”
“Holland—” Quin said, and pushed a little with his power.
Holland sat up, the previous comfortable presence replaced now by a ball of fury. “You’re the Alpha, and if that’s how you’re going to play things, then I guess we’re getting mated. But I’m not lifting a finger to plan it, and just so you know, I’m barren, so don’t expect pups.” He stumbled off the bed and began hunting for his clothes. His eyes were bright and wider than usual, the light from the bedroom window gleaming off tears just waiting their chance to escape down his cheek.
He stomped into his jeans and jerked at his t-shirt, getting tangled up in the cloth in his rage. “I don’t need your pity, or your rescue. I think you’re handsome, and I was looking forward to having this thing between us until you had to settle down and start a family. I wasn’t looking for help, or someone to rescue me.” He yanked the t-shirt into place and turned toward the bed and its stunned occupant. “I’ll tell Bax he needs to look for another replacement. I don’t think it’s a good idea now for me to work in the office.” He bent down to fish a sock out from under the dresser.
Quin shut his mouth and stared at this vision of fury. “I’m sorry. It was an asshole thing to do. Don’t leave.”He’s gorgeous even when he’s tearing a strip off me.And maybe it was for the best. Quin wasn’t interested dumping his issues, no matter how much improved, on someone yet, but he wasn’t going to deliberately do something without considering the impact on Holland. It stung, though, because he’d long since grown out of his sex with random partners phase. His first sight of Holland had been his first sight of someone he wanted to explore the possibility of a future with. Once he had the knots worked out of his psyche. “Is it mating itself you’re against, or just mating me?” he asked mildly, wondering if Holland was being the smarter of the two of them.
Holland stood and faced him, that single sock clutched in his hands in front of him. “I can’t have pups.”
Quin gazed solemnly at him. “Yeah.”
“What’s the point of an omega that can’t have pups? Especially for a man in your position.”
“Uh huh.” There was something very omega about what Holland was saying, something that reminded Quin of the way Bax was sometimes. “And?”
“I don’t want more than this.”
Did his tone hint that he was saying this as much to convince himself as to convince Quin?Play along.“Okay.”
Holland stood in front of him like a wolf at bay, poised on the edge between fight and flight. “I mean it. I’m not a suitable mate, and I’m okay with it. If I could have pups, it would be different. But I can’t.”
“How do you know?”
