All I feel is savagely aroused.
I stumble out of the bathroom, a towel around my waist and a heavy cloak of shame around my shoulders, and all but collide with Branson.
“Oh,” I say, displeased. “You’re still here.”
He looks like he’s been to hell and back. His hair is a mess and his chest is heaving. His fists are balled at his sides and a massive erection is tenting his pants. The mark on my neck and the brand on my chest both spasm when I see him.
It’s not so much that I decide to go to him. It’s more that, between the mark, the bond, and my dick, the decision is made for me. I close the space between us in three or four wobbly strides and throw my arms around his neck.
The bond hums on contact, a deep, warm vibration that swims through my veins and lulls me into a different state of mind. A state of mind that whispers that I’m where I belong. That I belong in Branson’s arms, and he belongs in mine. That I’m right where I need to be. Where I’ve always needed to be.
For his part, Branson appears stunned by the events of the morning. He blinks slowly, not bothering to close his half-open mouth.
“Please let me help you,” he slurs. “Please, Lucy, let me lick you. Please. It’ll make you feel better. I know it will.”
I honestly can’t tell if it’s a remnant of my heat, a side effect of being bitten, or if Branson is simply the sexiest man in existence and thus impossible to resist. Either way, I drop my towel and turn my back on him.
He whimpers at the sight of me. Him, Branson. A big, hard man. A strong, rugged alphawhimpersbecause I’m naked for him.
Big hands drag down my body, down my back, down my hips, as Branson sinks to his knees behind me. He parts my ass cheeks gently, more gently than I thought an alpha with an old-fashioned face could do such a thing.
He hisses when he sees me. I flinch in embarrassment, my neck and ears heating when I think of what I look like back there. I reach back quickly with both hands and try to cover myself, but he catches my wrists and holds them firmly at my sides.
I crane my neck to look at him, expecting to see a smug smirk, or worse, a trace of disgust. Jokes about ruined holes are something all omegas have been subjected to at some point in their lives. It’s something that’s been used to shame us for eons, and though things have gotten much better in recent years, the generational trauma done to my kind persists.
To my surprise, I see Branson sitting back on his heels, head lolling to the side, mouth open wider than it wasbefore. His eyes are fucked up. His pupils are big and black.
“You look as drunk as a skunk,” I tell him.
“Ung feel ash drunk ash a shunk,” he replies.
Despite myself, I laugh, and he does too, though I’m not sure what he’s laughing at.
He raises an unsteady hand and points directly at my asshole. “Ffeautiful omega,” he slurs.
He looks completely ridiculous. He’s looking at my hole and cooing, making silly sounds like the ones you usually make when you see a puppy or kitten, or something you love.
A strange thought takes hold, and I speak before I have time to dissect it. “Do you like how it looks?”
His head sways from side to side, then up and down, and he shrugs one of his shoulders. He looks up at me, and his expression changes from inebriated to animal. Intoxicated to absolute alpha. His nostrils flare and his eyes darken.
He raises a hand and gently—so, so gently—runs a single fingertip over my hole. It’s a decadent caress. A soft, sweet storm of sensation.
“I like knowing”—his tongue curls seductively around his words—“that it was my knot that did this to you.”
I crumple, doubling over and bracing myself with my hands and elbows on the bed, as Branson flicks a soft, wettongue directly over my opening. I cry out, and he soothes me with a long, thick stripe that lights up the underside of my overfull balls, my taint, and my hole. He doesn’t rush. He simply laves every sensitive part of me until my legs are unable to hold me up.
Saliva and venom sink into my skin, into the sore parts of me. I’m such a mess, and I’m so fucking susceptible to suggestion that I swear to God, I actually think what he’s doing to me might be making my ass feel better.
“Do you want me to make you come?” asks Branson, punctuating the question with a series of short, quick flicks that make me moan loudly.
“Gguck,” I say, nodding my head furiously and clawing at the bedsheets.
Fortunately, Branson understands that in whatever primitive language I’ve devolved into, what I’ve just said meansfuck yes.
He reaches around and takes my dick in his hand. He doesn’t stroke as much as he holds me. He holds me in a way that makes me feel completely contained. Completely enveloped. He keeps licking my ass, rimming the sense clean out of me, as my hips thrust frantically. It feels unreal. A perfect balance of pleasure in my dick and my ass. A flawless cocktail of bliss. An endless circle of euphoria thatlights a bright-gold sphere. I see it in my mind, and I feel it in my chest, around my heart.
It pulses twice, three times, and then unholy heaven breaks loose.
