Pace’s question shatters the warm, safe bubble he’d built around me, and memories barrel to the front of my mind.
I see my father’s cold eyes, smell Bruce Sterling’s suffocating scent, and feel the way that awful alpha’s hands groped my body in my father’s office.
A cold dread washes over me, extinguishing the last of my pleasure. I try to shut down, to close my legs, and escape back into the numb place in my mind, but Pace won’t let me. He leans back down, forcing my legs to stay open and covering my body with his own, still pushing his big alpha cock inside me.
It’s wonderfully distracting, a physical anchor in a sea of fear, but it’s not enough to erase my memories.
“Talk to me, Jude. How did you end up in that alley?” he asks again. It’s a firm question, but not a command. I could ignore it if I wanted, but I suddenly feel compelled to tell him.
I feel so safe.
It’s stupid to feel that way with an alpha who snatched me off the street and then forced himself inside me, but I can’t help the way I feel.
“My father…” I start, the words hard to find with him still rutting me. “He…he arranged a mating. To his business partner. Bruce Sterling.” I try my best to explain. “I was scared. My heat was starting, and Bruce was in our house. He…he touched me. He groped me in my father’s office. Forced his tongue in my mouth.”
Pace sucks in a sharp breath, but he doesn’t interrupt. He just keeps rolling his hips, a slow, steady rhythm that feels strangely comforting.
“I’ve lived my whole life disappointing him,” I whisper, the confession feeling like a tear in my soul. “The second my mother died, I was just a burden he had to handle. A reminder of the mate he wanted so badly to forget.” A rush of the awful things my father has said to me flashes through my mind. “I’m sure he’s figured out I’ve run away. He probably hates me even more.”
That gets Pace’s attention. He stops moving, his body stilling over mine. He looks down at me, his brown eyes blazing with an intensity that makes my breath catch. “It doesn’t fucking matter what your fucking father feels,” he says, his voice a low, dangerous growl. “You belong to me now.”
Something like joy blooms in my chest, bright and terrifying. I know it’s just my heat that’s making me crave him, that once this is over, I’ll be horrified and scared all over again. But right now, in this moment, I just want to belong to someone who loves me. Not someone looking to seal a business deal, but someone who actually cares. And Pace…heseemsto care. Even though deep down, I don’t really believe that.
After all, he’s in rut and would probably say anything to keep me calm and willing. Once my heat passes, this kind alpha won’t want me anymore.
No one good will ever want me.
“Look at me, Jude.” He cups my face, his thumbs strokingmy cheeks. “I promise you,” he says, his voice thick with emotion. “You’ll never feel anything less than adored for the rest of your life.”
Then he kisses me.
The second his tongue touches mine, a soft cramp starts to build in my belly.
Another wave of my heat is picking up, burning through my body. Pace senses it and starts to move his hips again. His hips roll, edging the pain away. He breaks the kiss and moves down, sucking hard at the scent gland located just beneath my ear. More slick pours out of my body, my cock growing hard against my belly.
But then, without warning, Pace moves, pulling his cock from my body.
I whimper, but the sound is cut off as he manhandles me onto my hands and knees.
There’s no gentleness in it, only a raw, primal purpose.
Then in one wild thrust, Pace starts fucking me like a proper alpha, taking what’s his.
One hand presses down hard between my shoulder blades, forcing my face into the soft sheets. The feeling is indescribable, a devastating mix of humiliation and bliss. It’s like having an alpha fuck the life out of you, leaving you with nothing but the pleasure he gives you, my own cock forgotten as he chases his release inside my body.
“Fuck!” Pace slaps my ass, the sharp crack echoing in the room, followed by the sting of his hand squeezing my flesh. He spreads my cheeks wide, and I can feel his gaze on my most private place as he watches his cock disappear into my hole. “Look at this perfect ass,” he grunts, his voice thick with lust. “It was made just for me.”
I can only manage a breathy moan in response, but Pace isn’t happy with that.
“Tell me,” he commands, his voice a low growl. “Tell me whose hole this is.” His cock slams forward, hitting my prostate dead-on, and I cry out. “Who do you belong to?” he repeats, his rhythm punishing.
“You!” I yell out, the word torn from my throat. “I’m yours!”
The pleasure in my body grows, a tidal wave that crests and then crashes over me. I come all over the mattress, a pathetic spurt of cum dribbling onto the dark sheets. A deep, satisfied groan rumbles from Pace’s chest at the feeling of my body clenching around him.
“Look at all that sweet cum,” he purrs.
Dazed, I lift my upper body, looking down at my own body. My cock sways wildly with sticky strings of cum as Pace continues to rut me hard.
