He was right. It did hurt, just a little — but for the blinding, indescribable pleasure it gave me, I was more than willing to endure. It even enhanced the way I felt a little, knowing that I was giving my trust and a prickle of my discomfort to couple with this man who was trying so hard to make it good for me. Whose body I’d grow accustomed to, in time.
Everything was new. However I’d tried to replicate this feeling with my own hands or a dildo, it was nothing like I’d imagined. Despite that, it was also something my body seemed to know and expect, especially when something nobody had anticipated began to happen.
He knew it before I did. I heard his shuddering groan, and felt him nipping and biting at my earlobe with a new frantic energy he couldn’t contain.
“Fin, I’m-”
But he didn’t have to finish. A second later, I realized what our bodies already knew, recognizing the tell-tale swell of his cock inside me.
His eyes met mine. For a moment we were still as he came to knot me, tight and locked in place by some higher natural instinct that had spotted something we hadn’t. I saw the same vulnerability in his surprised eyes as I felt myself. Vaughn had worlds more sexual experience than I did, and I could feel that with every move of his hips — but this? This was new to both of us. The newness and the gravity of it locked us together just as much as his body.
“Vaughn, you’re…”
“Yeah.”
His voice was small. I’d never seen him like this, so open and sincere. He kissed me again, deep and desperate, and finally began shifting his hips inside me again — the little that he could move — to bring us to completion.
“You’re beautiful,” he told me. “Perfect, Fin.”
“Vaughn, I… Oh, God…”
I tensed, sensing his orgasm just as he did. When he came, hips bucking into me, my heart leapt and my body tugged me over the edge with him, mindless and moaning loud into the oppressive heat of his bedroom.
When his body finally relaxed and untethered from mine, he rolled to one side and opened his arms for me. Barely conscious of moving, I moved to curl up against him, breathing heavy and much too distracted to feel ashamed or uncomfortable of the cooling sweat and seed between us.
Minutes passed. Whether by coincidence or some other force, our breath aligned, and I spent an age following his deep breaths with mine. Only once the pitter-patter of our hearts had come close to normal rhythm did he move again, smoothing his hand over my shoulders and down over my back.
“Well, that was… incredible,” he said, voice absent of his usual teasing or sarcasm.
“Unexpected.”
“Uh. Yeah. Just a little.”
He grinned, sitting up a little to sweep my hair out of my eyes. I kept my eyes trained on him, this alpha who had just knotted me. My mate. The one I’d been waiting for.
“I… really wouldn’t have wanted it to be anybody but you.”
The sentence surprised me as much as it did him. It had leapt out of my mouth before I could even think about it — but I was already blushed pink from our sex, and his broad, easy smile told me right away that I had nothing to be worried about, or ashamed of.
“I never thought it would happen to me,” he admitted, flopping back against the pillows again. His hand stayed in my hair, gentle and light. “I really didn’t. I guess you know the way I’ve been living all these years. Started to feel like I’d never find him, but… wow.”
I closed my eyes, smiling against his shoulder. “Here I am.”
“Here you are,” he agreed, thumb circling the base of my neck. “My sweet schoolteacher.”
“Not yet,” I pointed out. “Not until I graduate. If I graduate.”
Vaughn shook his head, leaning down to kiss the top of my head, speaking with unusual sincerity. “You will. But sure — soon-to-be teacher. Still.” He sighed, and I felt both our wolves curl and settle together in the warmth of the moment. I thought I couldn’t be happier, and then he spoke again. “How lucky I am that it’s you.”
I hummed, burying into his skin for the scent of him, and feeling my wolf twist and turn with equal pleasure inside me. I had always known that spending the night with Vaughn would be special, but who could ever have predicted this?
9
Vaughn
On my days off, I could often be a late sleeper. The combination of late nights, hard-working days and a somewhat hedonistic lifestyle all conspired to keep me under the sheets for as long as I could get away with it. On this particular morning, though, everything was different, so it made sense that my sleeping routine was different too. By the time the light streamed in through the windows, I was already fully awake. Even with my eyes closed, there was nothing that could tempt me back to sleep. All I wanted to do was lie here and appreciate the bliss of having this omega’s weight on my chest.
That was a very, very weird feeling for me.
In the moment last night, having sex with Fin just felt right. Even before I knotted him, it had felt like we were meant to be there together on those sheets. Now, after a good night’s sleep and without a tidal wave of sex hormones clouding my mind, it was a lot harder to ignore the big, bold commitment that last night symbolized.
I hadn’t made any promises, and neither had he. Outside of a few sweet nothings and reassurances, our bodies had done most of the talking. Still, I knew what it meant that he was sleeping so soundly on me like this. I knew what I had seen in his eyes after we came, and I could hazard a good guess as to what kind of dreams had him smiling against my shoulder right now. Like any reasonable adult would, he was bound to be thinking long-term now. Bound to expect me to be thinking long-term too.
Make no mistake. Last night had been incredible, and I could remember exactly how seen and supported he made me feel — but a lifetime of fearing commitment couldn’t vanish overnight. I’d be lying if I didn’t feel a little claustrophobic concern at the concept of forever.
It was strange to worry about that with his scent still setting off happy endorphins in my head, and the sound of his breath filling me with a nameless satisfaction. When I finally opened my eyes and saw him there on top of me, I knew I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Still, it was a little disconcerting when I started to linger on how it would feel to do this every single morning for the rest of my life.
Was that really what any of us wanted, without lying or fooling ourselves? With any single person, no matter how wonderful?
I sighed, pushing the thoughts aside to try and fend off the guilt. Fin couldn’t read my mind, especially not while he was still passed out in total comfort, but it still felt kind of wrong to infect his sweet, happy dreams with all this shit.
I petted his hair, forced myself to focus on counting the few moles dotted over his bare back, and then closed my eyes again.
Kind of perfect when you thought about it, though.
Brushing aside my irritation that I couldn’t seem to break away from this topic, I ran my mind back over the revelations that Fin and I had shared last night. Neither of us were candidates for fatherhood, and we’d both grown to see ourselves as broken, disappointing mates as a result of that. Already, it felt healing to be intimate with Finley. I wanted him whether he could give me a child or not. It wasn’t an obstacle I was ignoring, or a con outweighed by pros. It just… was.
Knowing that I felt this way about him helped me to believe, for the first time, that somebody could really feel that way about me, too.
Specifically, Fin could.
Fin did.
As if hearing his name in my mind, it was at that moment that he began to stir. The light had warmed from a cool dawn pink to a golden morning yellow, and it illuminated him like some kind of angel as he stretched and smiled up at me.
“Morning,” he said.
“Look at you,” I murmured, kissing the top of his head. “Almost as shy as the first day we met, even now.”
“Almost,” Fin pressed. It’s progress. He wriggled his shoulders, leaning u
p closer towards me for a proper kiss. He hummed as I gave it to him, and then sank back down into the pillow of my arm. “I think this might be the best I’ve ever slept.”
“Yeah?”
“Mm-hm.” He sighed. “You’re comfy.”
“You’re welcome.”
I stroked his hair, and felt the past hour’s worries about the C-word begin to fade into white noise. All that mattered was that I found a way to keep the sunshine pouring out of this omega. I probably wouldn’t feel too comfortable about that later, but right now it was a welcome distraction.
“How’d you sleep?”
“Like a cub,” I said. “Though your snoring woke me up early.”
He froze, sitting up on his elbows. “I’m sorry; I-”
“Joking, Blondie. It’s a joke.”
Fin pouted. If he was trying to discourage me from teasing him, he was doing a terrible job. All I wanted to do was kiss that pout off his face — so I did, leaning forward to catch his lips again.
“You really are too easy to torment.”
“I don’t think you’d like me so much if I wasn’t.”
I laughed, snaking one arm back around his waist. He wriggled into it, and not for the first time, I felt the promising, hard, eager line of his cock bumping into my leg.
“I’d like you just fine,” I insisted. “But all the same, I think you’d turn purple if I told you how I want to say good morning to you.”
I let the hand on his waist slide down, just briefly, to the curve of his ass.
His smile blossomed, and the room seemed even lighter.
“I don’t know,” he said, sounding braver than I’d ever heard him. His hand trailed down below the covers, drawing circles at the top of my thigh. “Maybe I’d like it.”
///
No matter how badly I wanted to spend all my time in Blackwater with Fin curled up in my arms, I still had a job to do in Helena. An hour’s drive wasn’t so bad, but with my hours long and arduous, and his evenings spent occupied by grading schoolwork and taking care of his own future lesson prep, we managed to spend a whole month apart before I got the chance to see him again.
All things considered, it should have been longer. I had work to do at home, and I knew I’d be busy as all hell when I made it back, but I’d been going crazy. As soon as a meeting with a client was canceled on Friday morning, I saw the opportunity to sneak out early, and I took it. Consequences be damned. It had been long enough.
I was going to surprise Fin — not just with my handsome self, but with his favorite Chinese takeout for lunch. Considering that school was usually a sub-and-chips affair, I couldn’t be entirely sure which he’d be happier to see: me, or the chow mein. Either way, the combination had to be a winner. The drive back to Blackwater didn’t seem to take so long in the warm daylight, and I arrived at Fin’s favorite takeout place before a lunchtime line could form.
I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t spent some of the past four weeks worried about all of this. I wasn’t the kind of guy that turned up at an omega’s workplace with food, or even knew what kind of food would be best appreciated. I had gotten used to texting ‘good morning’ and ‘goodnight’ without any prompting necessary.
One year ago, I found it shamefully difficult to figure out which omegas from Grindr I’d slept with, and which I hadn’t. Now that Fin was in my life, I hadn’t even opened the app to look in months. Even worse, when I asked how he was, I actually cared about the answer.
What kind of sick cosmic joke was that?
Maybe it was a good thing that we’d spent some time apart after all. Knowing me, I’d scare him away the second he realized that I didn’t know how to do this. To be a partner. It would only be a matter of time before I said the wrong thing, or he realized that he deserved somebody as sweet and wholesome as he was. He’d probably end up married to another teacher at whichever school he settled at, and they’d plan little coordinated classes over cups of cocoa in matching pajamas.
Even the thought of that had my hands tightening around the steering wheel and my jaw clenching with envy at this hypothetical elementary school alpha. I remembered my body expanding to lock into Fin’s, and reminded myself of what that meant.
Yes, it was true. Fin could technically still end up with somebody else, especially if I fucked things up — but by some stroke of fate, this thing between us actually had a shot at working. You could even say it was supposed to work.
If I wanted it to. If I let it.
I pulled up at Blackwater Elementary. This had once been my school, as a youngster. Now, I thought of it as ‘Fin’s school’ — but once I left the alien territory of the parking lot and stepped into the building itself, things started to feel a lot more familiar. It was strange to think of how I’d walked these hallways as a kid.
Well. Run around them, more than likely. My penchant for going fast hadn’t started when in driver’s dd. Still, the point stood. Once upon a time, this had been a really important part of my life. I wondered what the world had in store for the bunch of tiny wolves and humans wandering about the place.
As my chest gave a pang of uninvited sadness, calling back to my accident, I cleared my throat and shook the thought away. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to dwell on the concept of tiny wolves scampering around.
I approached the main office desk as an adult for the first time, and gave a bright, glowing smile to the woman behind the desk.
“All right, Mrs. Rosewood,” I said, folding my arms. “What’s your secret?”
She gave me a warm smile, setting down her pen.
“I know you haven’t aged a day since I left for middle school, and that’s… an uncomfortably long time ago now. How’d you do it?”
Mrs. Rosewood tutted, standing from her chair and putting on the glasses around her neck to get a better look at me. “Vaughn Bennett, I should have known you’d grow up to be such a charmer. And look how handsome you are!”
“I know, right?” I gave her a wolfish grin, leaning against the desk. “It’s all good genes; I can’t take any credit. Really, though. You’re doing well?”
“I’m just fine,” she said, dropping her glasses again. “Things never change around here, but I’m sure you must be doing something exciting these days.”
“Just thrilling. I’m an architect.”
“I would’ve had you pegged for something wild,” she admitted. “Some kind of stuntman. FBI agent.”
“Maybe I am,” I teased. “But you know I can’t tell you about all that.”
Mrs. Rosewood tutted again. “Oh, goodness me. You’re trouble. Anyroad, honey. I’m sure you didn’t come here just to make a golden girl blush. You don’t have a mini-Vaughn running around the place somewhere I hadn’t heard about?”
My smile almost faltered, but I caught it. I’d had enough practice at that. “That’s a negative, as I’m sure you’ll be pleased to hear. I’m actually here for one of the grown-up kids. He’s a teaching assistant. Name’s Finley King.”
Her smile lifted at the corners. “Oh — so it’s you that’s put a spring in his step, is it?”
Even after her comment about my nonexistent kid, this was more than enough to put a real grin back on my face. “Uh-huh? He’s doing good?”
“That one’s always a sunflower,” she said, “but he’s sure brightened up. You’ll be good to him now, won’t you?”
I crossed my heart. “Scout’s honor.”
“You better. Well, let’s see. It’s almost time for lunch. I guess the bell will surely ring before you get to his classroom, but… you’ll probably still catch him. You remember how to get to the art supplies closet?”
“Me?” I said, hand on heart, with an innocent smile. Judging by Mrs. Rosewood’s narrowed eyes, she remembered my little adventure into the acrylic paints just as vividly as I did. “I’m sure I don’t. Never been there.”
“Uh-huh,” she said, giving me a crooked smile. “In that case, why don’t you follow the trail of red pai
nt that’s probably still in some of the carpets?”
“I’ll do my best.” I stepped back from the desk. “He’s close by there?”
“The room with all the flower paintings on the door,” she said. “You can’t miss it. Real nice to see you, honey.”
“Thanks a bunch, Mrs. Rosewood. You too.”
I made my way down the corridor. He had a spring in his step, huh? It made me wonder if my colleagues had noticed a difference in me, too. If so, they hadn’t dared to mention it. Probably for the best, really. I always teased Fin for blushing at the drop of a hat, but he might’ve met his match if I had to have a conversation like that at work.
Only as kids filled the hallways around me and started giving me strange looks did I realize that I was smiling like an idiot at the thought of Fin’s happiness.
Well, shit. I really am in too deep.
Carrying the bag of Chinese food carefully through the crush of students, I quickly located the flower-riddled door that Mrs. Rosewood had mentioned. It had Lukas’s name on it, too — but I could have guessed this was his anyway from the pretty, vibrant paintings he’d chosen to tape up on the door. I bet he was a really special teacher. His kids were probably missing him right now, even with a sweetheart like Fin to tide them over.
The door was still cracked, presumably left open from when some excitable gremlin burst through it. I smiled, catching a candle’s waft of Fin’s scent coming through the gap. Moments later, however, I had much more than his scent to go on — even if what I heard was a voice so angry and intense that I barely recognized it as his.
“Back off.”
Instinct drove me through the door. I didn’t like to be overprotective. Fin was an adult and a wolf like any of us. He could probably take care of himself. Still, it didn’t make me any more inclined to abandon him to fight this battle by himself, whatever was going on.
As the door swung open under my hand, a flash of violent energy washed over me. A strange wolf had Fin pinned up against the whiteboard. My omega’s eyes were practically glowing red.
Claiming My Omega: Blackwater Pack Book Two Page 9