And that leaves Valak.
Valak is hard because I don’t know him, but I want to. Now that Lincoln has left and taken my submissiveness with him, I don’t hide what I want from my face when I look at Valak. His jaw is gritted closed, his nose flared wide.
“What?”
“If that is your pussy I smell, I wonder how it will smell after I cram it full of my come?” He barely opens his mouth to speak, and his voice is so deep I feel it tumbling teasingly over my skin. And the way he leans over me, means each breath he takes blows his scent into my face. He lets go of his hold on his alpha side and the room bursts alive with his distinctive smell and his undeniable alpha power.
My mouth falls open as I start panting. But it looks like he’s just getting warmed up because he takes a step closer, so close he could touch my nose with his.
“Here’s the deal, Lennon. I go caveman. It’s not something I can control, and I don’t want to. In the real world, someone looks at you wrong and I will make sure they find something else to look at. Someone says something bad about you and I’ll make it so they never utter your name again. I won’t be able to leave what happens in the bedroom as something that stays there.”
“Oh.”
Wow, I impress myself with my eloquence. Of course Valak adds more goddamn fuel to the fire in my core, and my preconceived ideas of a lonely future.
“If we fuck, Lennon, we fuck past your heat. We fuck often too. And you let me in, and you never shut me out. You give me what you want to give Lincoln, and that is complete control over your safety and wellbeing. Different context but same level of credence. I don’t want your independence, so make sure you don’t misconstrue those things. But you will teach me how you work, how to be with Ares, and you’ll show me how you can look after yourself. And when I say enough is enough, you concede because you know everything I do from the point I ram my cock in your cunt, is as good as a wolf taking his Luna. If you want to walk away from that, I know I am not meant to be yours.”
He nods, signalling he’s done. And he turns and walks away, leaving me alone with a messy pussy and a head full of racing thoughts.
19
LENNON
Normal people make decisions using their head and their heart, but right now I’m seriously considering adding my pussy to the process. Which is why I’m not making any decision and am shivering my ass off in a cold shower. I have to freeze my heat to let me think properly.
In business, I have crazy insight. I see a person and instantly know if we’ll work well together or we won’t, and for some reason, I never allowed the same consideration in my private life. Or maybe I did, because while Gus was so right for me, I knew he was only right for me then. I knew straight away he was never going to be a long-term lover.
As the cold water tempers my heat to a more manageable level, the absence of my heightened desire gives me a chance to get some of my concerns into better alignment. I know what the biggest issue is—my safety, but more accurately it’s my freedom. I look at the issue from every angle, apparently losing track of time, because the door bursts open and a very angry looking Noah glares at me through the glass.
“I have spent the last twenty-two minutes listening to your fucking teeth chattering. Look how blue your lips are, Lennon! What were you thinking?”
Noah barrels towards me, inciting Ares to stand up, but Noah pretty much hip checks him out the way to wrap me in a towel.
“Tell your dog not to attack, Lennon. For god’s sake, what have you done to yourself?”
“Ares, wait,” I say, my teeth chattering, before refocusing on Noah. “I’m trying to figure things out, Noah. I don’t have any suppressants.”
“You don’t figure things out by putting yourself into danger like that. What were you thinking? How about asking for help!” He towels me dry, rubbing me gently but insistently before he uses the shirt off his back to dress me, bundling my hair up in a little turban before he holds me to his chest.
My face is pushed against his left pec as he tries to warm me up, and hot damn not only does Noah smell like spicy pepper, but he’s got a glorious chest: defined, tanned, and covered in the right amount of hair. The heat radiating off him sinks into my bones, and his scent undoes everything I spent the last twenty minutes trying to do.
“Noah, why were you waiting out there?” I have to ball my hands into fists not to touch him all over.
“To tell you there’s no question in my mind that I’ll be included as a heat partner if you’ll have me. I’m so frustrated and irritated with myself because I didn’t say yes to your offer to work with you last year.”
“That’s okay. I get it,” I mumble.
“Get what? The way I want to throw my life away just to be pack with you? The way my whole body feels like it’s about to catch fire when you look at me. The way I can’t do anything but be near you? What do you GET?” He all but screams, but of course Noah catches himself at the last moment.
“Look at me, Noah. I. GET. IT!”
Noah growls, losing all control and barking loudly at me. His voice thunders, filling the small space as much as his scent that explodes out of him. “Then open your fucking legs and show me.”
I open my legs wide enough to hitch them on either side of the vanity where he’s set me.
“Ares, out,” I say as I lean over and kiss Noah’s chest. My mouth latching around one of his hairy nipples. I nibble and lick them enough to leave my glistening mark.
He chuckles, a very un-Noah like noise as he drops his hands to the top of my inner thighs before he hooks them under me and drags me right to the edge of the marble.
