Page 75 of The Alpha Escort Agency
It's a ring. Art deco with emeralds around a diamond. "Shall we make it official, Alice? Get hitched?"
"You planned this?"
"That isn't an answer."
“Yes. Obviously yes. I'm yours,” she says as she strokes his cheek, rough with the day’s stubble, “only yours."
She pinches the ring between a thumb and forefinger and inspects it.
"I know it's a little old-fashioned. Nan gave it to me — it was her mum's. She thought it would match your eyes."
"I thought you sold all the jewellery."
"No, she kept this. Said she had an inkling I was going to need it. And she was right."
He takes the ring and slides it onto her finger and she doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. Her emotions somersault and flip and dance, and the surf tumbles about against her calves.
He kisses her knuckles, her palm and the crook of her elbow, making his way to the dip of her shoulder and the line of her clavicle. Then his lips meander around her throat towards the back of her neck. He licks at her gland, and she closes her eyes, a slave to the sensation, as he sucks harder, drawing the skin into his mouth, scraping his teeth lightly, and the stars seem to shine more brightly, a sweet singing in her ears.
“Do it,” she says, gripping onto his shoulders, steadying herself, the waves lapping at her feet.
“Are you sure?” he asks, his voice taut, his hold becoming stronger.
“Yes please, Alpha. Please.” She wants this next step too, suddenly unable to wait a moment longer. She wants to be his, permanently entwined with him.
Perhaps it is the biggest gamble of all, falling in love, giving your heart away, knowing there is no way to read the future. Maybe they’ll have many, many years together, maybe only a few short ones.
But it will be worth it. Better to have had these moments of bliss with him, than none at all.
She braces herself as he rests the sharp tips of his teeth on her gland, and it thrums as if it knows what’s coming, his breath igniting her nerves.
And then he bites her, one arm clasped around her waist, the other clutching the back of her skull.
At first it’s all pain, so intense her vision whites and her body screams against it and she wriggles in his arms, but his jaw is locked on her neck, his teeth sinking deeper and deeper into her flesh.
And then it subsides, and an overwhelming, all-consuming pleasure blossoms through her body starting in the very centre of her chest and pumping outward with each heartbeat until the very tips of her fingers, the very ends of her toes, the scalp of her head and the soles of her feet swim in ecstasy and she no longer knows who or what she is.
His teeth remain buried in her flesh for what seems like an eternity. The anchor of a ship lodged in the seabed, holding the vessel firm. The pole of a flag claiming land. Then he withdraws them and she winces, not at the stinging feeling that accompanies the movement, but at the loss of him locked to her.
But she has no time to register it before his tongue and his lips are licking and sucking at the fresh wound, soothing it with the warm wetness of his mouth. It intensifies the tingling feeling swimming through her body and when his hand slides down under the neckline of her dress, cupping her breast and rolling the nub of her nipple between his thumb and finger, she crests right over the peak of the wave, moaning and arching in his arms.
He keeps lapping at her gland until she comes back down, and then he draws back to search out her eyes.
“Are you okay, Omega?” he asks, his voice so deep it seems to reverberate around his chest, his teeth scarlet with her blood.
She nods, lightheaded, floating still.
“How do you feel?” he says.
She rolls her head, testing gingerly the bite on her neck. It’s sore when she does that, but barely, the warm, safe feeling drowning out nearly every other sensation.
“Different,” she says.
“You smell different.” His eyes swim around her face. “You smell more like me.”
She lifts her wrist to her nose and sniffs. Yes, he’s right. Her scent has that chocolate smell about it. Not just masked by it, not how she smells when he’s marked her. No, it’s more fundamental than that, more combined.
“Your turn now, Omega,” he says, leading her out of the water and sinking on to his knees in the wet sand.
