“God, you’re incredible.”
“Oh, don’t look at me,” he said, nuzzling his nose into mine. “I’m embarrassed.”
“What for?”
He shrugged, pulling back and sitting up on my lap. I smoothed my hands over his thighs, resolutely denying his request as I drank in the sight of him. His smile only grew wider, and I saw his eyes flick down to the fastenings of my belt.
I wondered how long it would take for him to do that by himself.
“I really missed you,” I said.
He placed one hand over mine, his thumb brushing up over my knuckles. Slowly, slowly, I guided his hand over to the front of my jeans, keeping a careful watch for any signs that he wanted to slow down. If anything, it was the opposite. Fin bit down on his lip, tormented by the slow pace until his fingers reached my fly.
“Yeah?” he said, shy.
“If it’s what you want.”
“God,” he said, shifting back for better access. “All the time.”
“You think about me, huh?”
A few weeks ago he’d have ducked away from that. He still flushed now, but at least he held my eyes as he answered: “Every night.” At least he didn’t shrink away, shy but unashamed of our feelings for each other, and the primal desire that came along with them.
“That’s a hell of a thought.”
Fin shifted down, smiling as if I’d praised him. Didn’t he know how beautiful he was — how much of a treat it was to picture him turned on by me even when we were miles and miles apart? It was almost as good as the picture I had right now, watching him wet his lips and lower himself as he freed my cock from inside my jeans and my boxers.
“Vaughn, you’re so big.”
It stroked my ego even knowing that he’d never slept with anybody else. I grinned, enjoying the warm, still-dry grip of his hand around the base of my cock, and leaned my head back against the arm of the chair. “Y’know, Blondie, I’d be lying if I said I don’t jerk off wishing for this.”
Apparently, I’d found his new limit. He ducked away behind his hand, but I saw the smile behind it, and the warmth that sparkled in his eyes between his fingertips.
Clearly, he wanted this just as much as I did — and when he dipped his head closer to me, eyes still rooted on mine, I wondered if we felt the same jolt of anticipation in our stomachs. Whether we both felt the contact approaching like a magnetic pull or a G-force drop.
He tasted me first with the tip of his tongue, tentative and curious. It blew my mind that I was the first man he’d explored like this. The first man he’d trusted, and the first man he wanted. No matter what ideas he held about himself, I knew it couldn’t be true that I was the only one who wanted him. He was picture-perfect, and as his tongue drew a shuddering line down the underside of my cock, I groaned as much for the knowledge that he was doing it as the way it felt.
And it felt damn good.
My fingertips coursed over the silky, short crop of his white-blond hair, making gentle circles as he continued to take his time. I didn’t want to rush him. As intense a teasing feeling as it was, it was just as powerful to be here with him, gentle and fond. There were creases in the corners of his eyes, playful and warm, and every now and again he’d drag his eyes up from focusing on my cock to talk to me that way, eye to eye.
What it felt like he was saying couldn’t possibly be true. Not this early — but already, I felt I’d caught a glimpse of what it felt like to know your mate.
All of a sudden, ‘forever’ felt like more of a promise and less of a threat.
“I’m sorry,” he said, after a beat. “I don’t know what I’m doing. Is this too slow?”
“This is perfect,” I assured him. “It’s you.”
As he grew in confidence, finally taking all of me into his mouth to slide back and forward, an affectionate reproduction of the raw and desperate blowjob I’d given him. My mouth watered at the thought of having him again, and I almost stopped him to reposition us so that I could reach him. But right now was about just this.
I could see from the care and attention he was giving that he was enjoying this. His eyes kept flicking up to check that it was good for me too, and every time he confirmed it, he seemed to glow a little brighter. It was right that he knew he could do this to me. Right that he should start to realize that he took my breath away as much as I seemed to steal his.
It was strange to feel like this. The man I had been just a couple of months ago would have smirked and folded his arms, insisting that this was all selfish — that I just wanted him giving me head without giving anything back. Maybe an outsider would have believed it too, but now I knew it was about more than just the sex. More than the intimate act. It was about showing him that this was all I needed. That he wasn’t boring me. That this private, personal, physical experiment of ours wasn’t something to be rushed or replaced.
Just this. Just like that.
“Just you,” I breathed, barely aware that I’d spoken until his eyes danced up at the sound of it, surprised and love-drunk.
Shit. Hadn’t I just decided it was too early for that word? I wouldn’t let it sneak by me again.
“You’re fucking amazing,” I continued, eyes fluttering closed as he hummed an acknowledgment around my cock. I felt it all the way in the back of his throat, and fought not to rock up into his mouth.
Maybe one day he’d like it like that, but not right now. Not on this couch, with those eyes, and with his fist tight and tense as it crumpled the fabric of my shirt.
I couldn’t have said how long, but I knew he took his time. By the time I was hovering near the edge, groaning his name and stroking rougher and rougher through his hair, I met his eyes again.
Now, that eye-contact language said something altogether filthier. An instruction I couldn’t ignore.
I came into the warmth of his mouth, moaning an incomprehensible string of syllables that you’d expect from a mind-blown virgin.
In a strange way, it did feel like the first time. Once I came for him and felt him shift away, I flopped onto the couch arm again, head tipped back as I felt myself coming back down from the clouds.
“Wow, Fin.”
“It was good?”
“Wow.”
I heard him moving, and sat up a little so that he could prop upright against my chest. My head was still spinning, but there was more on my mind than what I’d just felt. What I was feeling right now took precedent.
“Stand up,” I asked him, voice hoarse. “Take your clothes off. Then sit back down.”
He did as he was told, lip caught between his teeth as he struggled with his buttons. I watched him with the eye of an artist looking at someone else’s greatest work — a work I admired, but could never hope to reproduce. Something beautiful, and entirely its own. When he finished disrobing and sat back down in my lap, shooting furtive glances at the blind-covered window, he still didn’t speak. He just waited, chin tilting toward me as I moved closer and kissed him deeply.
“I’ll fuck you,” I promised. “Later. But right now, I want you coming on my hands.”
He moaned, nodding and stealing another quick kiss. I reached down for the treat of his hard cock poking up between us, and shuffled him closer to me with my free arm. He leaned forward, finally understanding — with wide and eager eyes — when that arm shifted down, reaching behind him to search, feather-light, for his hole.
“Do you know how beautiful you are?”
He swallowed and shook his head. The gesture was tiny, restrained in the face of absolute wanton desperation.
“You’re going to,” I promised. I closed my hand around his cock. Though his eyes had darted away to focus on blowing me, I had years more experience. I didn’t need to look away. I kept his eyes pinned with mine, staring firm and unflinching. “You’re fucking incredible. Tell me.”
“I…”
“Say it,” I encouraged.
“I’m in-”
He cut himself off with a gasp
as my finger slid inside him.
“You’re incredible,” I reinforced.
“I’m incredible.”
I was pleased that his eyes were still closed, because I couldn’t fight a triumphant smile, and figured it might kill the mood. Hearing him say these things wasn’t the same as knowing he believed them, but it was one step closer.
He’d get there one day. I’d make sure of it.
I worked him gently and with care, giving time for his natural omega wetness to slick him up while I stroked his cock. He was so overwhelmed with pleasure that he didn’t know which way to rock; instead, he arched his back and rolled his hips back and forward, occasionally breaking our deep, steady kiss just to moan and breathe hot air against my lips.
I wore him down slowly — brought him right to the edge of orgasm several times before easing off and bringing him back down again, whimpering and whispering for release. Eager as he was, he didn’t try to force it, remaining sweetly obedient even as his heart tried to pound out of his chest, and his sweat dripped down his chest between us.
He may not have had a heat, but I was still practically high on his scent as it floated and fluctuated in the air around us, fruity-sweet and tantalizing. By the time I was ready to let him have it, it was dense in every breath I took, filling me up with the chemical force of his pleasure.
“You’re beautiful,” I murmured. “Tell me.”
“Vaughn…” His voice cracked and creased, crushed velvet against my lips. It didn’t come naturally to him, but I wanted him to feel it. Wanted the drug of his own brilliance running through him as he came.
“You’re beautiful.”
“I’m — I…”
His voice started to form the word before he tipped over into his orgasm, and his mouth shuddered closed around it. It was close enough; I knew he’d meant to say it. Knew the concept had filled him up as he spilled into my hand and tightened around my curved and still-working fingers.
Even afterwards, with his breath still ragged and gasping, he flopped right into me for a kiss that shattered any space there was left between us. If my wolf could speak, he would have chosen only one syllable — mate.
He was real, and I’d found him, and I had him here in my arms.
“Okay?” I asked after a minute or so, rubbing a gentle, broad circle from the small of his back and up to his shoulders. It seemed to soothe him, but it still took him a good few moments to swallow and speak, muffled against my chest.
“Please don’t ever be away for a month again.”
I had been expecting for him to talk about how good it felt — some star-rating review of our sex, like I used to get from my one-night sexual partners. Maybe that was how things usually went, but I could see Fin’s mind had bypassed that carnal small talk and moved straight to the current of emotion that ran beneath it.
Something tugged in my stomach, and I swallowed. It was difficult to speak, so instead I just nodded, brushing my lips against the top of his hand and teasing his damp angelic hair.
When, exactly, had everything changed?
12
Finley
I couldn’t exactly put my finger on when, but something stunningly serious had developed between Vaughn and me. Of course, I had known since the moment he knotted me that he was my mate — and, if I was being honest with myself, I’d felt that he was special for an embarrassing length of time before that. Still, to be beside him again and have it all confirmed was completely surreal, especially after that entire month we’d spent apart. Having him so often now was incredible.
When he’d offered to let my parents spend the weekend at his place in Helena for my graduation, I just about lost my balance. This would be the first time he’d brought me back to his sanctuary too — and now he wanted to meet my family at the same time?
He really shouldn’t feel like a dream with his hand right there in mine, but he did. Even as we arrived at the airport to pick Mom and Dad up, I found myself seeking reassurance that he really wanted to do this. That he hadn’t just offered out of a sense of duty.
After all, I’d asked him a thousand times. One more couldn’t hurt, right?
“Hey, um… You’re sure about this? You’re okay with hosting them?”
Vaughn squeezed my hand, and I could feel the warmth of his smile even with his eyes obscured by sunglasses. “You think you could’ve forced me into it if I didn’t? I’m a big, strong alpha, pipsqueak. You couldn’t strong-arm me if you tried.”
I beamed up at him. I was finally beginning to get the hang of getting through Vaughn’s jokes without turning an impressive shade of scarlet — but, as if sensing a challenge, he slowed his pace and slung an arm around my waist.
That did the trick.
“I just… you know. I am acutely aware that it’s a lot to ask of you, and I’m really grateful.” I paused, then added, “I’m excited for you to meet them.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” Vaughn agreed. “Besides, I get to spend the weekend with you too. What’s not to like?”
It was true that we still didn’t get nearly enough time together. It would probably feel that way even if we lived together, what with all the hours in the working day to keep us apart — but while I was in Blackwater and he still worked out of Helena, it was proving harder and harder to say goodbye every time he visited. Time had a proportional value for us. The more of it we spent together, the more valuable it became. Over these past golden weeks, sharing every evening and weekend we could snatch together, it had turned into stardust.
That he was willing to donate some of that most precious commodity to hosting my parents at his home melted my heart.
“Okay,” he said, drawing to a halt. “Arrivals. I guess this is it. Flight from Nebraska has… landed, I guess.”
“It has?” I bit my lip, craning my neck to look through the crowds of people.
“Hey, don’t panic. They haven’t even deplaned yet.”
I gave him a lopsided smile, which widened as he pulled me closer to kiss the top of my head. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Worrying is a tradition in my family, I guess.”
This was a whole other concern for me, though. Vaughn was an overflowing cup of healthy, happy confidence, and I wasn’t sure exactly how much experience he had with people like my mom. Her anxiety could be really restrictive and difficult for her. I had warned him what to expect, but I couldn’t hold back the unsettled ripple in my stomach. Until they actually met each other and I could see that they’d get along, I wouldn’t be able to squash that particular bug.
Fifteen minutes later, as Nebraska passengers started appearing from behind the doors, I felt strangely tense. Without his steadying hand on my waist, I probably would have been pacing up and down — but all of the nerves faded away as I caught sight of Mom and Dad.
“Hey!”
I ran out to greet them, enveloping them both in a big hug — but Mom in particular. Leaving the house on busy days could be intimidating for her, let alone catching a flight and coming to visit with a boyfriend of mine she’d never met. The fact that she was willing to do all of this for me, no matter how alarming it must feel, made my chest feel tight. Reminded me that home was in two halves, and that only with my parents right here in Montana with me did those two halves form a whole.
“Hey, kid!”
My dad had an iron grip and a confident voice — the kind that came with its own incredulous laughter at the concept of fragile masculinity. He hugged without shame, and he’d speak his mind just as easily. Mom hugged tightly too, but it was difficult to tell whether she was giving you her love or clinging for dear life. Maybe both. Either way, she didn’t speak at first. She just kept tight hold of me, rocking slightly back and forth as she stood on her toes to embrace me.
“Oh, I’m so glad you’re here. Was your flight okay? It went quick?”
“We’re all in one piece,” said Dad. This was code in our family, and I knew exactly what it meant. Mom hadn’t coped on the plane very well
. She was still recovering, and very clearly not her usually garrulous self, but her ordeal was over now. Everything would be okay. He gave her a warm smile, patting her arm briefly before turning right to Vaughn. “And who’s this tall glass of sipping whiskey?”
“Dad, this is Vaughn,” I said, trying not to be embarrassed at his imperceptible descriptor. Thankfully, Vaughn didn’t seem to mind. The two shook hands, reflecting their bright smiles back at one another. My stomach flipped. “Vaughn, this is my dad, James.”
“Pleasure to meet you, sir. I hear you’re going to turn your back on me for owning a Mets jersey.”
Dad fixed me with a playful glare, shaking his head. “You let me come all the way out here to sleep under the same roof as a Mets guy?”
“In fairness,” said Vaughn, “Somebody gave it to me; I personally couldn’t name a single player. I’m not really a baseball guy. Is that better, or worse?”
“Better,” said James. “By a hair. It’s all right, son. We’ll burn it this weekend.”
I felt my pulse starting to calm now that it was clear things were okay between Vaughn and Dad. Meanwhile, I had other things to consider — like taking care of my mom. I gave her another hug, staying close to speak quietly to her.
“You okay?”
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “I wouldn’t miss your graduation for anything.”
When we stood back up straight, she flicked her eyes over to Vaughn. He and Dad were still chatting away with ease, distracted enough that she could give me an approving smile.
“Here,” I said. “Let me introduce you. Mom, this is Vaughn. Vaughn, this is my mom, Veronica.”
“Great to meet you,” said Vaughn. He offered his hand to her just like he had with my dad, but he seemed a little uncertain now — almost wary. His smile was polite, but tighter than usual. Maybe I shouldn’t have ‘prepared’ him so much after all. “I’ve heard lots about you.”
“Yes,” she said. To her credit, she managed a smile. “And you, also. We, ah… we appreciate very much, that you…”
Claiming My Omega: Blackwater Pack: Book 2 Page 11
