Luca strokes my hair back from my face, lazily thrusting between my lips as much as our position will allow. I could suck him so much better from my hands and knees, but I know this is all part of Simon’s plan. His game to make me soar.
He does. He takes me higher, to the precipice of pleasure and leaves me there, strung out on pure desire, every nerve in my body burning for him.
Simon watches me intently, focused on how I take Luca into my mouth. Alternating every stroke of Luca between my lips with his fingers thrusting deep into my cunt. I whine as I approach my peak, as Luca’s knot swells at the base of his cock, thick and red. I shift just enough so I can squeeze it in my fist, wishing I had the leverage to take him in both of my hands.
Simon sucks my clit into his mouth and flicks his tongue against the sensitive bead and I soar. I scream and I thrash, and Simon chases every cry, not letting me come down until Luca bursts down my throat with a growl. I nuzzle my alpha, nosing the spot where his hip hinges, where his scent is potent, powerful and intoxicating, but then I look up.
Simon wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and I fly into his arms, clinging to him, finding his lips with my own, tasting myself on his tongue. I whimper, rubbing against him. “I want to make you come, too,” I whisper.
“Soon, beautiful. I’m not in any rush. Now c’mere.” He pulls me back into the softness of the makeshift nest, cuddling me close, stroking my bare back until every muscle in my body relaxes, until I lie, spent and beyond satisfied, in his arms. But as I still beside him, emotion trickles from him like water from a leaking faucet.
Doubt.
Doubt I try to push aside as Luca shifts up behind me, kisses my shoulder, and holds me just as close. I brush my lips against Simon’s in a chaste kiss. “Will you at least come back to my cottage so we can cuddle pile all night? It doesn’t have to be tonight, but maybe for… for my birthday?”
“That’s coming up, is it?” he teases. “Did you want a Coffee Crisp cake or a Strawberry Kit-Kat cake?”
It’s not an answer. Not really.
“Just want you,” I say around a yawn. “Okay, and the Strawberry Kit-Kat cake, I guess.”
He laughs, his body shaking, and for just a moment, I can pretend I have his whole heart.
But it’s when I go back to my cottage with Luca, Marcus following behind us, that I realize what’s truly going on. Simon’s holding back. He’s not all-in like he said he was.
CHAPTER24
Iget a text from Cassian as I’m walking to History of Magic that afternoon and squint down at my phone, not even realizing he had the number. But of course he does. Cassian, somehow, knows just about everything.
I stare down at the message, my heart kicking in my chest.
“Who is it?” Luca asks, protective alpha energy rising to the surface.
“It’s… Cassian. And he wants to talk tonight.”
“Cassian wants to talk to you tonight, on the Feast of Saint Valentine?”
I frown. “So it seems.”
“What do you want, princess?”
What do I want with Cassian Leclerc, the only alpha to ever ask for my father’s blessing? I already know there can be no future for us, not with him mated to another omega. Still, that seems less and less true by the day. Whoever she is, she isn’t a Fairhaven student, but perhaps she lives in the city of Fairhaven like Grace Cassidy used to. But he never talks about her. Saints, if I had a mate, I’d never be able tostoptalking about them. I’m already a babbling mess about Luca and Simon, and Luca has yet to give me his mating bite. Simon I’ll never be able to mate. Only an alpha can bestow a mating bite.
Yet why would Cassian lie about such a thing?
“We destroyed each other,” I say quietly. “With a few choice words from my father, we… we broke each other to pieces.”
“Maybe it’s not about your relationship, but something else? I hate to say it, but that alpha is involved in every aspect of your life.”
I shoot him a sour look but type out a quick message to Cassian.>
Another message pings through from my teenage love.>
Saints alive, one of the most romantic spots on the whole of Fairhaven’s campus and Cassian wants to meet me there at midnight on the Feast of Saint Valentine? Surely he knows the myth of the bell tower just as well as every other Fairhaven student. A kiss beneath the bell tower is a promise of forever.
Sure, it’s just a silly superstition, but…
“At the base of the bell tower tonight at midnight?” I shoot Luca a pointed look and he relents with a grin.
