"I understand." His words come out as a purr, the sound running down my spine and making a beeline for my dick. I shift on the bed, trying to ease the sudden pressure in my pants.
Clearing my throat, I give him another ultimatum, knowing I’m being way too fucking easy on him but I don’t care. I want this. I want Easton and I need to stop pretending I don’t. "AndI'm going to be annoying about it. Every time you start getting all Alpha about something, every time you slip into that hallway version of yourself, I'm calling it out.Loudly. In front of whoever is standing there."
"I'd expect nothing less."
"And you're going to walk with me on campus. Not behind me, not past me, not pretending we don't know each other.With me.Where people can see."
"Yes."
I sit up on my knees, my jaw clenching for a split second as slick gathers in my briefs. The only indication that Easton notices is based on the way his nostrils flare a little. His hands are still holding my face and now I’m inches from his in this position. "And you're going to buy me coffee every morning for the rest of the semester to make up for the one you knocked out of my hand."
His mouth twitches. "Every morning?"
"Every morning, Easton. That's the tax for six months of being an asshole. Consider it a payment plan."
The twitch becomes something closer to a smile and I hate how much I want to see it finish forming. "Come here," I whisper, the words surprising me as much as they surprise him.
I twist my fingers into his shirt and pull him down, closing the distance as his lips ghost over mine. My eyes close and my breath stutters and the warmth in my body that's been building all week flares at the contact. When he actually kisses me, it’s slower than anything else we’ve done.
I pull his shirt over his head because I want to feel his skin against mine and the heat of him pressed against the fever building beneath my own skin. He pulls my t-shirt off and his mouth finds my collarbone, pressing a kiss to the spot where his old bite mark has faded to nothing.
"You can be rough," I whisper. "I'm not going to break." Because some part of me still likes the roughness that comes with Easton.
"I know you won't." He presses another kiss to my shoulder, his hand sliding down my side. "I just want to be gentle with you tonight."
He undresses me slowly, his mouth following his hands, pressing kisses to skin he uncovers like he's mapping me. My neck, my chest, the inside of my wrist, the dip of my hip. My skin is feverish, hotter than it should be, and when his mouth reaches my stomach the slick response is so intense I can feel it soaking through my briefs before he even touches me there.
Something in the back of my brain registers that this response mirrors one of my heat spikes, but Easton's mouth keeps moving lower and the thought dissolves.
He pulls my briefs down and settles between my thighs and I let my legs fall without any of the armor I usually strap on before letting someone see me like this. Easton looks up at me from between my legs before slowly stripping off the rest of his clothes.
When he pushes inside me, a small sound falls from my lips like a desperate plea. He moves slowly, his forehead pressed to mine, one hand laced through my fingers above my head. The intimacy of it is almost unbearable, his body covering mine, while he rocks into me with a tenderness that makes my vision blur.
"Kit," he murmurs against my mouth. "God, Kit."
The pace stays slow. His free hand traces down my side, my hip, the outside of my thigh, pulling my leg higher around his waist to take him deeper. Every thrust pushes a soft sound out of me that I couldn't silence if I wanted to and I don't want to. My body is on fire, the fever building with every roll of his hips, slick drenching his cock.
"Such a good boy for me," he breathes against my ear, so quiet it's barely audible. "So good, Kit."
I close my eyes and sink into it, letting the words settle into the place he carved open the first night, and for the first time since he said them I believe they're true. My body softens around him, my grip on his hand loosening, a sound escaping me that's closer to a sigh than anything else.
He comes inside me with his face pressed into my neck and I follow him over the edge with my free hand gripping the back of his head, holding him against me through the aftershocks, my body pulsing around him. The heat beneath my skin peaks and then settles, soaking through my muscles until I feel boneless.
His knot starts to swell inside of me, the pressure making me cry out as he pushes deeper inside of me before rolling us onto our side. Easton’s hand slips around the back of my neck and tilts my head up for another kiss. I lean into it, his knot pulsing inside of me until I pull back, needing to breathe.
The sincerity in Easton’s eyes is what I wished had happened months ago but it’s better than nothing. I press a soft kiss to his jaw and then to his neck before placing one on his chest. "I'm not forgiving you yet," I whisper against his skin. "But I want to try this. Whatever this is."
"Okay."
"If you say okay one more time I'm going to smother you with a pillow."
His mouth curves just enough that I can see it. I almost let myself smile back. Almost.
EASTON
ThefirstmorningIwalk Kit to class is a Monday and the campus reacts like I've detonated a bomb in the quad. We're crossing the courtyard between the science building and the humanities wing, Kit's coffee in his hand because I bought it for him at seven fifteen like he demanded, and I'm matching his pace which means I'm practically shuffling because his legs are half the length of mine and he refuses to walk faster on principle.
"People are staring," Kit says, not looking at me, his coffee cup lifted to his mouth.
