Page 158 of Omega's Flight
With a reaction like that, an omega might be excused for feeling a flush of triumph. And maybe a flush of something else too—Cas hadn't bothered to tie his robe shut, and it swayed as he stalked toward me, giving me glimpses of his bare chest and long legs and the dark satiny shorts beneath it. "Come here." I wanted to touch his chest, to lick it and taste him, salt and wolf and sweet, wild musk.
His nostrils flared, and I wondered what I smelled like to him. I uncurled myself and reached out for him. "Come here," I said again, more insistently.
His wolf side was more awake now and he came to me like the predator he was. "I wasn't expecting something like this," he told me, and I could hear the strain in his voice. "You smell amazing." He buried his nose in my hair, his hand cupping my jaw and the side of my neck to hold me still. Delicately, his teeth closed on the flesh at the base of my skull, and then they were gone and he had leaned back, moving farther away from me. "No, we don't need to rush, do we?" He picked up one of the glasses of wine, the candlelight wavering a rich cherry through the dark liquid, and held the edge of the glass to my lips. "Drink."
I sipped from the glass, a shiver of anticipation rushing over my skin. Why was this so arousing? But his eyes, so intense and so focused on mine, were a clue to why my body yearned toward his in a way it never had with Degan. Oh, Holland was so right about this, about everything.
He took the glass away and set it on the table. "What else do we have?" His fingers picked through the assortment of food I'd laid out. Smoked salmon with cream cheese on crackers. Other soft cheeses, rich and salty and completely unlike anything we were used to in the pack. Jelly candies dipped in chocolate and sugar. Raspberries drizzled in chocolate sauce. I'd gone all out, spent every last credit I had on this, expecting to seduce him with it. But as he raised a raspberry to my lips, I realized that I'd arranged my own undoing.
It was, perhaps, the best error of judgment I'd ever made.
C H A P T E R 1 0 9
C as delighted in Raleigh's nearly inaudible gasp of arousal as he tongued the raspberry from Cas's fingers. He was starting to understand now, just a little, what Abel had been talking about, what Quin had alluded to in his awkward, big brother talking about the birds and the bees kind of way. Raleigh's scent hadn't changed much, but it had grown richer and more complex, with undertones of something that Cas couldn't withstand the urge to scent. Mating pheromones, Abel had explained, ever so logical. Natural substances to ensure that the mating happened. Alphas were drawn to it.
Quin had been more plain spoken about it. "It's how you know," he'd said. "You can't ever imagine not smelling that again. You want to roll in it, like finding that perfect patch of dirt and humus. Like a drug. If you tried any in college. But it's your drug and you'll be damned if you'll share it with anyone else, ever." His eyes had gone a little feral with those words, but now that Cas has Raleigh's scent in his nose and mouth, he was feeling feral himself.
Don't rush things. But his hand shook as he picked up one of the crackers with the salmon on it and he nearly dropped it. "Damn!"
"It's okay." Raleigh took it from him and held it up to him. "You eat half, I'll eat the other." His tongue slipped out to wet the center of his lower lip and Cas twitched with the urge to bat the cracker out of the way so he could kiss that lip and the mouth it was a part of. You're a civilized wolf. You will not lunge at the omega like a crazed twelve-year-old, no matter how good he looks and smells. Obedient to his omega's desires, Cas opened his mouth and let Raleigh feed him the cracker. It was good—rich and smoky, though fish wasn't to his taste. The cracker tasted of butter and it practically disintegrated in his mouth, spreading its flavor everywhere. He watched greedily as Raleigh ate the other half, as the jaw worked and the muscles moved, the lips curved and stretched around the mouthful. Soon, old wolf.
"What did you think of it?" Raleigh asked, frustratingly unaffected, or at least not as affected as Cas. But no, wait—there, that look in his eye and the telltale bulge in the front of the ridiculously thin shorts he wore. His scent curled out to Cas, enticingly sweet and earthy, like ripe currants on the bush.
"It was nice. I'm not a big fan of fish," Cas answered mechanically.
"No, me neither," Raleigh said in a regretful tone. "But there's other food." And then, quick as blinking, he slipped into Cas's lap. "Let me show you." He picked up a sliver of cheese, soft enough that it ran down over his fingers as he lifted it. "I liked this one, but it's messy."
"I can fix that." Cas put his mouth around the entire bite and the tips of Raleigh's fingers as well. Closing his lips over them, he sucked the cheese—salty and sharp—from Raleigh's skin. In other circumstances, he might have laughed at Raleigh's gasp, but the rapt way his omega watched while Cas mauled the ends of his fingers with teeth and tongue made him determined to wring more of the same kinds of noises from the other shifter.
When he'd cleaned them entirely, he reached behind himself and fumbled another piece of a different cheese for Raleigh. This one was soft and crumbly, and he had to mush it together between his fingertips to get it to Raleigh's mouth. There, they repeated the process, only with Raleigh the one performing indecent acts on Cas's fingers, until Cas near shook with need. He took back his hand and pulled Raleigh's mouth to his, one hand delving beneath the silky robe to work at the waistband of the shorts. "Off," he snapped.
"I haven't finished feeding you yet," Raleigh said breathlessly, but he laughed and wiggled his hips until they could slide the shorts off. "Are we doing this here?"
"I want to feel you," Cas told him and settled him back on his lap, bare thigh to bare thigh. The bottom of the robe puddled on the floor, and hung dangerously close to falling off Raleigh's shoulders.
"Maybe you should take your shorts off too?" Raleigh suggested.
"If I do, everything else is coming off. Thought you wanted to feed me?" Though the idea of just tearing everything off and taking Raleigh right there on the creaky sofa was gaining traction with him.
"Try this, then." Raleigh leaned toward the table, wrapping a piece of cheese in a paper-thin piece of meat no larger than Cas's first two fingers. "Holland gave me some of this once. He says it's really popular in Europe." He held it to Cas's mouth and watched with wide eyes, satisfaction gleaming from every part of him as the flavors exploded in Cas's mouth. "I only have a bit," Raleigh said apologetically. "I thought this would be the night to pull it out, though."
"That's amazing." And probably expensive. Cas immediately made plans to have some next year about this time, as a sort of anniversary like the humans did. "You did good."
Raleigh blushed. "I'm glad you're enjoying it."
"I'm enjoying you," Cas told him honestly. "You could have just opened the door and said, have at me, and I would have enjoyed it. But I'm flattered that you thought to do this for me."
"I wanted you to know that I appreciate you." Raleigh leaned over for another meat-wrapped piece of cheese and if he squirmed a bit more on Cas's lap than was entirely necessary, Cas wasn't going to complain. He was going to have to speed up the proceedings though, or it would be all over for him soon. The curve of Raleigh's hip under his palm led his hand naturally lower, until he'd cupped the entire curve of that cheek, his fingers ever so slightly curling into the space in between. It made Raleigh's breathing catch, and then Raleigh was feeding him again, his face nuzzled in close to Cas's.
Surprisingly, they did end up finishing most of the food, though the salmon went to waste. But when the last raspberry had been shared between them, Cas took Raleigh's face in his cupped hands and kissed him soundly. "Let's go make a pup," he whispered and groaned at the answering whimper from his omega.
Cas got to his feet, holding Raleigh steady against him, then bent and picked the other man up off the floor. Raleigh clung to him, showering kisses over Cas's cheek, his ear, the side of his neck and the crook of his shoulder as he carried Raleigh to their bedroom and laid him on the bed. It had already been turned down and the bright scarlet of Raleigh's robe made a dark puddle in the middle of the white sheets, with Raleigh a pale centerpiece like the center of a rose.
"Come here," Raleigh said and beckoned to him. Cas let his own clothes fall to the floor and crawled onto the bed, settling in the open invitation of Raleigh's thighs. Here, like this, he smelled like every good thing. His mouth tasted of the wine they'd drunk and the meat they'd eaten, and underneath it all was desire and the smell of omega.
Raleigh curled around him, arms and legs holding him close. Cas fed at his mouth, his body on fire everywhere Raleigh touched him, palms warm on the skin of Cas's back, thighs strong and welcoming. The satin was cool against his forearms and the backs of his hands, Raleigh's chest and belly a flaming contrast.
"Don't wait," Raleigh whispered in his ear and reached down to flatten his hand in the hollow of Cas's back. "I want you now." He bit at the side of Cas's neck and jerked his hips, his cock gliding slickly against Cas's own.
