by Aiden Bates
I laughed against his mouth, resting my forehead against his. “You looked like the kind of man who knows how to make a man like me see stars, Harper.”
His grin matched my own, our lips stretched tight as we fought against our smiles to kiss a little more. “Oh, darlin’. By the time I’m done with you, you’ll be seeing more than just stars.”
Then, Harper’s hands were on my shoulders, pushing me back onto the mattress hard. I bounced a little, staring up at him with stars already glittering in my eyes as he pulled his shirt off and unbuckled his belt.
“You’re gorgeous,” I breathed again, shaking my head slightly. I was awestruck by him, his size and muscles and scars. Completely stunned.
“You’re not so bad yourself, handsome.” Harper kicked off his jeans, tugging down his boxers after them to make his cock spring up eagerly.
I blinked, momentarily taken aback. His cock was, in a word, big. Thick enough that I knew if I wrapped my hand around it, my fingertips would fall just short of meeting. If I took him into my mouth, he’d make my jaw ache. And his length… Harper’s cock looked heavy as he took it between both of his fists, stacking one on top of the other and still leaving an inch of shaft plus the tip uncovered.
“Oh, god,” I swore, my lips falling open in surprise. “You’re not going to fit.”
“Mm. Don’t know about that.” He stroked himself twice, then pressed my knees open and moved between them. His fingers dipped between my ass cheeks again, gathering up my natural lubrication on their tips. When he pulled his fingers away, they were connected to my hole by a long, sticky strand of honey that glistened in the light. “You’re dripping wet, Nick. Must want it pretty bad.”
“Oh, I want it,” I assured him, nodding my head as I sank my teeth into my lower lip. “It’s just…”
“Just what?” He hesitated a moment, letting the length of his cock rest atop my own rock-hard erection as he smoothed his hands down my ribcage. “Don’t tell me you’re scared of me, Nick Paulson.”
“Scared isn’t the right word,” I said with a laugh. “You’re just…bigger.”
“Bigger than you imagined?”
“Bigger than I’ve ever had before.” I gnawed on my lip again. “And…and I haven’t been with anyone, not since the baby…”
He folded his body over mine, sucking my lip out from between my teeth and into his lips instead. “Mm. We don’t have to, you know. I could just keep blowing you. Get you off that way. No pressure—I don’t need to bury my cock in your ass to enjoy you.”
I worked my hips against his, feeling the weight of his cock pressing down against mine. His length throbbed at the slight stimulation, drooling precum down from his tip onto my own.
“I want you,” I professed, nodding as I felt the hunger for him well up in my chest with a white-hot heat that couldn’t be ignored. “Fuck me, Harper. Please.”
He pulled away for a moment, looking down at me with interest, before nodding and smiling again. “Okay,” he agreed. “But we’ll go slow. Wanna take my time with you, Nick.”
Taking his cock into his fist again, he trailed it down my inner thigh, painting me with his precum everywhere he touched. Harper dipped it beneath my balls, pressing his cockhead against my sensitive perineum hard enough that a surprised moan of pleasure escaped my lips.
Harper’s green eyes glinted with delight, repeating the motion before placing his tip against my tight, soaked hole instead. He reached down beneath his cock to press a thumb into me, pulling it down slightly to stretch me just wide enough that his tip could find purchase.
I held my breath. Moment of truth—would he fit, or wouldn’t he?
With a slow, firm thrust, Harper put pressure on my hole. I could feel my ass aching to accommodate him, opening up for him like a flower in bloom as he slipped inside.
“There,” Harper sighed, closing his eyes as his tip popped inside me. My ass immediately clenched around it, squeezing him tight. “Fuck. Goddamn, that’s good.”
“Mm,” I moaned back to him, feeling my fingers tremble as the sensation of being filled coursed through my nervous system. “God…yeah. Fuck. You’re perfect.”
“Want more?”
My eyes met Harper’s as I nodded, whimpering. “Please. Please.”
Harper fed me his cock inch by glorious inch, withdrawing slightly to recoat his shaft with my honey before plunging back in all over again, a little deeper each time. I could feel my ass throbbing to take more of him, opening up for him a little more with every thrust then clenching back down to squeeze him with my tightness. We worked in tandem, a conscious care tempered with a primal need that neither of us could ignore. But as Harper sank half of his cock in me, something shifted that changed the pace.
My body knew what to expect from him now. Lubrication flooded from my hole, covering his hardness with hot, sticky wetness as my ass worked beyond my control, pulling him deeper and deeper inside.
“You feel so good, Nick,” Harper panted, his thrusts increasing slightly in speed. He rested his elbows on either side of my neck, wrapping his hands around the back of my head and cradling it for purchase. With another kiss, he probed deeper still, rocking in and out of me with a steadily quickening speed.
I could only moan and gasp against his mouth in response. My heart was pounding in my chest, crashing against my ribcage with more desperation at his every thrust. Heat coiled in my core, reaching out tendrils of pleasure that flickered through me like loose flames.
He was good. More than good—he was perfection. Exactly what I’d been needing. Exactly what I wanted. Harper’s pace matched my body’s desires exquisitely, leaving me wanting more with every withdraw—then giving it to me in spades, edging me towards an orgasm that I’d spent more than a month positively aching for.
This was why I’d been so helplessly desperate to find the Alpha who’d knocked me up, I quickly realized. Not for practical reasons—though, of course, there had been those as well. But beyond that, my pregnant body had been craving the comfort of an Alpha’s touch. The solace in his body moving against mine, putting all the wild ebbs and flows of my hormones to proper use. The safety of his strength. Harper provided it all for me and then some, tempering the increasing roughness of his hips with sweet, passionate kisses in between the ragged gasps of our mingling breaths.
“Oh, fuck,” I panted, feeling a spike of pleasure drive clear through me as his hips slammed up to press hard against my balls. They’d already been tightening in anticipation of an orgasm, but the realization that he was nearly all the way inside me almost pushed me over the edge completely.
My fingers scrambled for my own swollen, stiff shaft, which was aching to be squeezed and stroked as well, but Harper’s hand beat me to it. Instead, I wound my arms around his neck, relishing the feel of his thumb against my cheekbone as his fist wrapped around my cock, nice and tight.
“So close,” Harper growled, pressing a kiss against the side of my neck. “Gonna come. Come with me, darlin’?”
I whimpered again, nodding in response. Every flick of his wrist matched the demanding movements of his hips, working him so deep into my ass that he was making my body spasm uncontrollably beneath him, building to a peak that I couldn’t ignore. Couldn’t stop.
“Fuck—should I pull out?”
The next whimper to leave my lips was drenched in unashamed desire. “God, no. Please. Come inside me. Let me feel you—give me your cum.”
Another grunt from Harper’s lips, and I was completely lost to him. My head was swimming in his scent, dark and musky. The taste of his tongue, tracing the curve of my mouth one moment then lashing against my own tongue the next. My ass was contracting around him, tighter and faster with every thrust, and my balls were clenching with need as I wrapped my legs around his waist to pull him deeper still. To hold him inside me.
I needed him. Needed his cum. And with a roar, Harper threw his head back, his balls slapping against the hard, muscled curves of my ass cheek
s, letting me know that he needed me as well.
It all culminated in a whirlwind, the intensity whipping around us and pulling us both head-under-water all at once. I could feel Harper unleashing into me, shooting his hot, thick cum into my ass while my own seed exploded from my tip, splashing between us and connecting our bodies with every pearly rope. My body bucked beneath him, pleasure swirling through me in gasps and moans.
This might have started out playful, but it ended in a headrush. By the time we’d both regained our composure again, we were panting in exhaustion, soaked in sweat and kissing like our lives depended on it.
“Fuck.” The humidity of Harper’s breath was deliciously warm against my lips as he pulled back slightly, resting his forehead against mine. “Fuck, that was good.”
I smiled, feeling a giggle well up in my chest and a shiver run down my spine. “That was…yeah. Good is one word for it.”
He withdrew from me slowly, the tip of his cock finally popping out of my ass in a way that squeezed the last few drops of his cum out onto my rim. My heart was pounding like a war drum as he rolled off of me, slumping onto the mattress next to me with a heavy sigh of relief.
We lay there next to each other for several moments, breathing hard. When my fingers reached out to twine into the spaces between his own, he took my hand in his without hesitation, squeezing me tight.
“I needed that,” Harper admitted with a rough little laugh.
I echoed it, nodding slowly in a post-orgasmic daze. “Yeah…yeah, me too.” I glanced over at him, enjoying the way the orgasm seemed to have changed his face. There was something electric between us. Feral and tired and exuberant, connecting us even though our orgasms had already come and gone. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
Harper grimaced, amusement mixing with annoyance as he pulled me into another kiss.
“Don’t thank me,” he ordered, pulling back to give me a steely gaze. “Not for that.”
“I…” I swallowed hard, flicking my tongue across my lips to taste his kiss all over again. “I just don’t want you to think that…you know. That you’ve committed to something here.”
Harper blinked in surprise. “What do you mean?”
I rolled over onto my side, reaching out to trace the soft stubble of his jawline with my fingertips. “I mean you haven’t committed to anything here. Just because I’m, you know, pregnant and all. This doesn’t have to be more than a one-time thing.”
“No?”
The look in Harper’s eyes was hard to read. I’d meant to reassure him—show him that I didn’t expect anything from him. For myself. For the baby. Didn’t expect anything at all. But…maybe he’d wanted me to expect something? Had this been less casual for him than I’d thought?
I bit my lip again, trying to find answers in Harper’s gaze that just weren’t there. He was a hard man to puzzle out—but I couldn’t imagine that he’d expected to hear an I love you or anything like that. Harper King could’ve had any Omega he wanted. Any woman or Alpha or anyone else at all, for that matter. I couldn’t fathom him actually wanting something more than just a quick fuck from an Omega like me—and a pregnant one, at that. I’d known that going into this. But now…
“Stop worrying.” Harper cupped my cheek in his hand, giving me a tender little squeeze. “We’re good, Nick. You don’t need to—”
We both froze as a loud buzz emanated from the floor, reverberating against the wooden floorboards. A flash of annoyance crossed Harper’s gaze as we realized simultaneously what it must have been.
His phone. That email he’d sent.
We must have gotten a reply.
Harper grunted, pulling himself up into a sitting position and reaching over the edge of the bed for his jeans. He fished his phone out of his pocket, checking it with a flick of his thumb.
As he read over the message, his brow deepened into a scowl.
“What’s it say?” I asked, unable to contain my curiosity.
Harper shook his head, morose, then handed me the phone.
On the screen, the words glowed up at me, sending my heart plummeting into my stomach.
Do not contact this email address again.
13
Harper
“I’m sorry,” Nick said softly, shifting the bedsheets across his lap and clutching them against his ribcage. There was a gentle sympathy in his eyes that I appreciated, but didn’t need.
“Nah. I half-expected something like that anyway.” I waved his condolences away. “Whoever it is, they’ve got reason to not want to cooperate. Now we know they’ve probably caught wind of Josh’s death—and that they’re smart enough to keep their head down.”
“This is the end of the road then, isn’t it? Dammit.” Nick spat the word, turning his head away. “I was so excited when I found that lead, and now it’s just as useless as all the rest.”
“Not true.” I held up a finger, wagging it at him sternly. “Never drop a lead until you’ve exhausted the full extent of your options. A response means that our mystery informant is still alive. Email means that we’ve got an IP address to track down. If they’re as smart as we figure, they’re probably bouncing it through a proxy server just like we did. Complicated, but not impossible.”
“You know how to do that?” Nick blinked up at me as I reached for my boxers. I wasn’t sure if the awe in his eyes was because of my detective skills, or if he was just staring at my ass again.
“Sure I do,” I said with a smirk, pulling the boxers up and tucking my cock back into their folds. It was still warm from being inside Nick. Still coated in his lubrication—and my cum, for that matter. “I was just hoping the contact would be a little more cooperative, was all. We got what we needed from ‘em in the end, though.”
“Or at least, we’ve got enough that we can proceed.” Nick’s mouth twitched into a frown as he watched me step into my jeans. “Harper…about what we were talking about, before…”
I blinked, then silently cursed myself. Right. Fuck. We’d been having it out over the shape of this thing between us, and I’d totally dropped it in favor of discussing the case instead. Nick had been arguing to keep things casual. And me…
I didn’t do long-term. That much, he’d probably already guessed. But that didn’t mean I’d fallen into bed with him casually. With the way I’d been looking at him since I first walked through his front door, casual hadn’t even been on my mind.
“Sorry. Bad habit, getting distracted like that. I’ve got kind of a one-track mind when it comes to my investigation bullshit. But if you want—”
“No. No, it’s fine. It’s your case. Your brother. This whole thing is just as important to me as it is to you. Besides…I think we both know where this thing stands now. It’s all good.”
I clenched my jaw, not so sure about that point. If Nick wanted this to be a one-time thing, I was fine with that. Wasn’t going to stop my cock from getting hard every time I glanced at those perfect, pillowy lips of his and remembered the way they’d felt beneath mine while he came, but that was my problem. Not his.
“Okay. All good, then.” I grunted, slumping to the bathroom to grab a towel. Nick’s cum was still all over my chest, sticky and, as I discovered, slicking my fingers against it and sucking it into my mouth, delicious, too. I wiped it up with a little sigh of annoyance. If I’d known that this was going to be a one-time thing, I would’ve pulled out of him so I could have had him shooting into my mouth instead.
I toweled off mechanically, grabbing a second towel for Nick’s benefit before I reentered the bedroom.
“So, what do we do next, then?” Nick caught the towel as I tossed it, giving me a little chin raise of thanks before rubbing it over his skin.
“We?”
Nick pulled a face. “Harper. You’re staying in my house. Eating my food.” He glanced down at the final rope of his cum, glistening against the firm curve of his pec. “Other things. We’re in this together. Thought we’d already agreed on that.”
“That…” I rubbed the back of my neck, mulling it over. Nick’s data skills had been useful up to this point, but a hacker, he was not. “That might not be a great idea. You’re already as tied up in this as I’m comfortable with. Things only get murkier from here on out.”
“Murkier as in, the scope of the investigation?” Nick set his jaw and stared up at me defiantly. “Two heads are better than one, Harper. We work together, we can clear this up faster.”
“Murkier as in morally,” I corrected. “If I can keep you in the dark on some of this, you’ll have more deniability if this all goes south. Police are already keeping an eye on me. Seeing as they know I’m staying here with you—”
“They do?” Nick’s eyebrows raised up toward his dark, lush hairline. “That’s news for me. As far as keeping me in the dark goes, I didn’t realize you’d already started.”
I grabbed my shirt, taking the moment that my face was buried beneath the cotton before I poked my head back through it to cringe privately. Shit. I’d known Nick was smart, but it was annoying to keep track of what I had and hadn’t told him when he was this sharp as well.
“Ansel Thomas,” I revealed, tugging my t-shirt back down over my abs. “Lead detective on this thing. Followed me here a few nights ago. Probably just trying to make sure that I stay out of trouble, but…”
Nick’s shoulders slumped slightly. “This goes deeper than either of us ever imagined.”
“Exactly. But for what it’s worth, I don’t even know where to take this next. Gonna have to check in with some of my buddies. See if they’ve got access to the gear I need to track this IP. Aside from that, this whole thing is just running in place until we can figure out who Josh’s contact was. Once we figure that out, we plan from there.”
“We,” Nick repeated, a small smile playing on his lips. “Yeah. Okay. Well…”
He placed his hand on his stomach, and I heard a low rumble emanate from it. Glancing down at the time on my phone, I chuckled. It was nearly six. We’d managed to fuck the entire afternoon away.