One Last Try

by Kari Gregg

  Reaching behind him, Dio worked his fingers into his hole. With a grunt, he stretched the muscles, spreading lube inside to ease my way.

  Impatient, I writhed. “C’mon.”

  His grin was all wolf. “Greedy. I like it.” He removed his fingers from his ass, though, which was what I cared about. Knees at either side of my hips, he perched over me. Holding my cock steady, he sank down.

  My eyes shut. His heat staggered me, the tight grip of his body around my dick a wonder I hardly comprehended. How had I ever lived without this? Dio aggravated the shit out of me, stirred my wolf’s curiosity, fed desires I never knew I possessed. He challenged me. Wanted and accepted me. The fierce pleasure he effortlessly yanked from my body was a pale shadow of what he did to me and all that being with him meant, though. He alone held the power to make the world and its ugliness vanish.

  With his skin on mine, his stare daring me to give in, I forgot how much he pissed me off. I didn’t remember his arrogance and the constant niggle warning me he couldn’t be trusted, that I couldn’t rely on anyone but especially not him. My foolish heart beat instead for the affection sparkling like diamonds in his eyes and the tenderness of his touch. For these stolen moments, I wanted to be everything for him. The worries and cares of tomorrow would come soon enough.

  Alpha imprinted in his genetic makeup, Dio braced his free hand on my shoulder, holding me still while he worked his ass down and onto my cock. He grunted as he took me deeper. He hadn’t bottomed when we’d had sex before and I had no idea when he’d last been fucked. Judging by how slowly his tension eased from his muscles, not in a long time. Some alphas never did. My mother and pack elders had w,arned me about that when I was coming of age, told me I might never have what Dio now gave me. Some men didn’t enjoy the intimacy of being penetrated, they had said, and others were too insecure in their dominance, believing in their heart of hearts that being the receiver during sex somehow made them less or weaker.

  I should’ve known Dio labored under no such silly pretenses. As irritating and pushy as he could be, the man didn’t lack confidence and he was every bit my alpha with my dick stretching and filling his ass. Submit? Not a chance. That wasn’t what I craved from him, though. I welcomed his control over me as he sank onto my groin—of me, of our sex, seemingly of each of my desperate gasping breaths while his molten heat enveloped my dick. I groaned when his ass cheeks finally settled on my crotch, skin flush against mine.

  Dio moved the hand he’d used to hold me in place while he pushed me inside him to my other shoulder. I squirmed at the extra weight and he grinned. “You like?”

  Every nerve ending along the length of my cock tingled in giddy pleasure at the pressure of his ass squeezing me. What wasn’t to like? “They said you might not—” I groaned.

  “Tying is too much for me. I like being penetrated, but I don’t enjoy the burn of accepting another man’s knot inside me. As an omega, you don’t form a knot so this is perfect,” he said on a pleased hum. His fingers curled, slipping on my skin, which already dampened with beading sweat. “Plus, you can’t conceive this way.”

  Humans primarily foisted the responsibilities of birth control onto females and shifters were no different. While male omegas were special cases, we too had developed tools by which we planned pregnancies. The fertility specialist had mentioned a drug, but pharmaceuticals were a human convention. I had no need of pills. Had I been undamaged, I would’ve added a blend of herbs to my diet that would’ve closed my womb to Dio no matter how often he brought me to climax. My mother had passed down the recipe to me from the moment I’d started sprouting pubic hair and began my journey to sexual maturity. Sterile and a virgin, I’d never prepared the blend, but I knew where to harvest the herbs on our pack lands.

  The same herbs wouldn’t work on Dio, though. Only the birth control shots humans had developed would.

  Dio allowed me into his body because of the danger of knocking me up again, not because he truly wanted me.

  I must have made some sound of pain or protest because Dio’s grasp on me changed from controlling to affectionate. “Don’t,” he said, his voice a soothing rumble. “Whatever you’re thinking, stop.” He lifted his ass up the length of my dick, his smile hungry and predatory. “I need this as much as you do.”

  “But if not for—you wouldn’t—” My eyes closed as he slid down, his ass swallowing my dick. Pleasure jolted through me.

  “Oh, I would.” Chuckling, Dio began his slow ride. “I totally would.”

  My senses spiraled in gluttonous arousal as he squirmed on my cock. My claws pierced the meat of his hips. I bucked up to greet his ass grinding down and we both groaned out feral joy at the marrying of our bodies. Was mating supposed to be like this? Giving but also consuming. Generous, but at the same time, rapacious. My world narrowed to Dio and what his rocking hips wrought inside me, the pleasure he teased from my cock. The intimacy of joining with him obliterated my cares and worries. My heart warmed, full of him and only him.

  His hard dick bobbing tempted me beyond reason. I reached for him. I wrapped my fingers around his length, the weight of his cock in my grasp a giddy wonder to me.

  “Soon,” I said, voice low and guttural as I pumped his cock, desiring nothing more than his semen painting my chest while mine filled his ass.

  “Me too.” Dio’s jaw clenched. “Faster.”

  I obediently tightened my fist around his cock, quickening the pace of my strokes. He shuddered above me, his chest heaving on a low groan. My orgasm taunted me, the familiar tingle building in my balls, but I wanted to bring him off first. Needed to. Speckled with sweat, his features etched with the pleasure I gave him, he was handsome. Perfect. Everything I never knew I wanted. My teeth shredded my lips as I bit down to hold off my release.

  My alpha would have none of it. Dio’s muscles clamped around my sensitive dick and my vision grayed. Ecstasy exploded inside me, relief and my pleasure a kaleidoscope of satisfied lust as he rode me. I moaned as a hot splash of his cum coated my hand. The next pulse shot onto my stomach, his shout of completion reverberating like the sweetest aria in my ears.

  When he collapsed onto me, I gathered him close. He trembled, still shivering with pleasure, but I shook too. In that moment, we were opposite sides of one coin, he and I. My wrongness, his mistakes, none of it mattered. I might have shattered once, long ago, and mended poorly, but with him, my broken pieces fit.

  He shifted to skim his lips along the line of my jaw and I angled to meet those wicked lips. He smiled and opened for me. Lazy kisses. Tired kisses. His mouth was a wet wonder and my playland. The dance of his tongue promised me every delight. I tasted the coffee he’d sipped during the drive to the prison, the flavor of him also laced with the zest of his passion. I could eat at his mouth forever and never get full.

  Pity there was more to us, to mating, than fucking.

  He lifted up, his stare gleaming. “Now you’ve claimed me too.”

  That, I had. Already heavy and intoxicating, my scent on him had intensified as well as his tang of pine marking me. “Our individual scents haven’t comingled yet, but…”

  He laughed against my eager mouth. “It’s a start.”

  Dawn broke to bruise the midnight sky with gray, yellow, and purple when Dio crawled from the nest of my bed the next morning. “Go back to sleep,” he said as he fumbled with his discarded clothing. After he pulled his jeans up his hips, he leaned over me. Kissed me. “I need to review third quarter taxes. Deadline tomorrow and the IRS accepts delays from no one. But you should rest.”

  “Mm-hmm.” I snuggled into the cozy warmth of my wool blankets. “Gotta work too.”

  “I heard. Your single-minded attention on producing a mating gift for me is what gives me hope.”

  “That project could be anything, for anybody.” I glared at him. “How do you know the piece I’m working on is for you?”

  “You cover it with a tarp to conceal your progress when any of us are around to s
ee what you’re building, especially me. Your furtive secrecy isn’t as subtle as you probably wish.” He bent to kiss the frown from my lips. “Go back to sleep.” He chuckled as he left. I listened to his quiet footsteps creeping to the cabin. The creak of a screen door opening split the morning silence. Moments later the rush of spraying water from his shower whispered in my sensitive ears.

  With my new den richly appointed, I could shower too. No more splashing in the creek to get clean, I could wash in a real bathroom, but I lurched from the blankets to start coffee first, an addition to my den I already relied on. Rubbing blearily at my eyes, I filled the glass carafe of the electric pot from the sink in my workshop’s bathroom. I tugged on a pair of sweatpants and a flannel shirt while the coffee dripped.

  Although I had hated his method of delivery, Dio’s generous mating gifts were no less a wonder to me. I glared at the pile of oak awaiting me as I sucked down my day’s first adrenaline shot of caffeine and tried not to let it bother me that he’d already guessed my mating gift to him in return. He couldn’t know what, specifically, I’d resolved to build him at least. I’d had only a few days to organize my new workspace and begin the project. I hadn’t spoken of it to anyone either, not even to Asa who—now that Dio had safely ensconced me in the center of pack territory—visited me most mornings before leaving for his job as an electrician’s apprentice. Asa had been the one to show me how to use the coffeepot, which was lucky because I never would’ve figured out operating the contraption on my own. Although I’d never forgotten the modern conveniences I’d enjoyed in my youth, some memories were clearer than others. Coffeepots hadn’t been a high priority to me as a fourteen-year-old.

  Asa slipped into the workshop as I folded my extra blankets and neatly tucked them out of the way. “G’morning,” he mumbled, lurching straight for the coffee.

  My task done, I wrapped my fingers around my mug, letting heat seep from the ceramic and into me as I watched Asa pour. I leaned my butt against the cabinet when he doctored his coffee with a dollop of milk from the mini-fridge.

  “I heard about the test results. Congratulations,” he said.

  I wrinkled my nose and sipped from my mug.

  He tipped his chin at a curious angle as he too leaned, against the opposite cabinet. He drank from his mug, mirroring my movements. “You grew up with us. You kept your distance for a few years, but you know gossip travels fast. Secrets are few.” He smiled, arching an eyebrow at my newest project. “They don’t stay secrets long anyway.” He shrugged. “Everyone’s buzzing about your news.”

  I bet. I harrumphed, my muscles tensing.

  “Aw, don’t be that way.”

  That I rarely spoke to him in reply never seemed to faze Asa during these dawn visits, which is how I knew Dio had no idea what I’d set to building him. If I’d been willing to tell anyone what I planned, it would’ve been Asa, who irritatingly still smelled like my old, old friend. Yet, I hadn’t opened up to him or shared my plans.

  Stubborn, my mother would’ve said.

  Scared, Kinessa taunted inside my mind.

  Smart.

  That voice belonged to Joth.

  My stomach flipped. If Joth would approve of my silence… Perhaps I should reconsider.

  “We like Dio.” Asa didn’t notice my internal struggle or at least had never given a sign or indication of being especially upset at my quiet. Oblivious, he kept chattering. “We want him to stay instead of moving on once the pack is stabilized like most alpha fixers. Mating you is a step in the right direction.” He frowned. “But you could leave, just go with him to the next pack experiencing leadership transitions with skills gaps or troubles to resolve.” He brightened. “Omegas won’t budge once they start breeding, though, and alphas don’t truly settle until they’re raising a family.”

  I snorted, forgetting my coffee, which burned like lava in my nostrils. Ow.

  “Have you thought about taking on an apprentice yet? Maise says the demand for your trade goods in the towns can support employing at least two boys or girls, possibly three, and you’ll need the extra help once you’re breeding. The old ways shouldn’t die out because you’re busy with a litter of whelps. Best to begin training the next generation of craftsmen as soon as possible. My brother’s oldest son Wyath would be—”

  “I’m building a bed.” I rounded my eyes, shocked at the sound of my own voice interrupting him.

  Asa must’ve been floored too because he gaped at me, the hand holding his coffee mug frozen halfway to his slack mouth.

  “A sleigh bed. King-size and heavy, because Dio’s not a small wolf.” My pulse skittered in my veins, but once unstoppered, I apparently couldn’t shut up. “The bed will be too big to move easily.” Any alpha would hesitate to risk damage to a mating gift formed from his omega’s hands. “He isn’t going anywhere.”

  Dark eyes wide, Asa stared at me. He stiffly brought his mug to his lips and gulped, wincing when the hot liquid scalded his throat. “Sure,” he said on a tight rasp. “But when you start your family—”

  “Have you?” I drank my coffee, heedless of the heat too. It scorched a path down my gullet, but I only glared at my friend. “You’re mated. Do you have children?”

  His brow furrowed. “I’m only twenty and Marra’s a year younger, just beginning to establish herself as a seamstress in the towns.” He squared his shoulders, his pride in his mate shining in his eyes. “We have plenty of time for kids.”

  I nodded. Pointedly.

  “I’m a beta and so is Marra. Neither one of us is motivated by cementing leadership positions in the pack. You are.” He scowled. “Or you should be.”

  Grimacing, I pivoted. After settling my coffee mug on the counter, I sorted through my tools. “Is that what they’re saying?” I asked. Unnecessarily. I knew the pack happily plotted away. They’d left me alone when they’d believed me sterile and useless, but with a slender possibility of my bearing children, their previous schemes for me had reignited. That none of them had consulted me about my future—again—shouldn’t surprise or infuriate me. But it did. “Did the gossip include the news the human specialist thinks I’m not physically fit enough to try for a baby or that Dio agreed to birth control shots? You could never be bothered to talk to me, not now, not then, not ever, but have any of you spoken to him?”

  “Nox.”

  I fumbled the awl I’d been using for the roughed engravings on the headboard, what would be a pack of wolves stretching across the width of the bed once the finer detail work began.

  “We thought you’d be happy.” Asa repeated my name, his tone more insistent. “I thought you would be.”

  Pity I was such a lousy omega. Ignoring him didn’t make my heart thud in distress or clench my stomach. “Go.” I crouched, pushing aside the tarp that covered the headboard when I wasn’t working on it. “Just go.”

  I flinched when his palm landed on my nape, as heavy as an anvil. “Is it dangerous? You having kids,” he said and squeezed. “If pregnancy could physically harm you…” He sighed. “None of us want that. We don’t want you to hurt anymore.”

  “Pain is part of life, as is duty.” I shrugged off his grasp. “Isn’t that what omegas are supposed to say?”

  “Stop. I mean it. Don’t freeze me out. If I’m being an ass, fine, then tell me I’m being an ass. I’m a big boy. I can take it.” Asa was as mule-headed as I could be. His hand landed on my shoulder next. “I’m trying. Everyone is, but we’ll keep making mistakes until and unless you speak up when something’s wrong.”

  The rough wood felt marvelous under my fingers. Asa’s grip on me felt good too. So why did my eyes sting? Why did my chest tighten, as though a vise crushed me?

  “You said we never bothered to talk to you. You’re right. I know I didn’t before, but we’re asking now. We’re listening now.” He withdrew his caress. “What do you want? If you could have anything, what would you wish for most? Not kids apparently.”

  I exhaled a long stuttering br
eath.

  He grunted. “Do you want a mate? You’ve been too alone. We thought mating might… Do you even want someone to love?”

  Stalling, I bit my lip. I didn’t trust my pack. Joth had orchestrated the wholesale destruction of my faith in them as thoroughly as he’d stolen everything else from me, but I wanted to be better. I wanted more than survival. Craved more than the persistent gray my life had been before Dio, and this was Asa. He’d cared for me long ago and cared for me still.

  “I didn’t, at first.” Because trust required honesty, I tried again. “I wasn’t sure.”

  “But you are now?”

  I glanced over my shoulder, surprised at Asa’s somber tone.

  “You weren’t sure,” he elaborated. “Past tense suggests that’s changed for you. Does that mean you want Dio, or are you positive you don’t?”

  Like I knew? Sometimes I yearned for Dio with a desperation that staggered me. Other times, I wanted to beat him with a stick. “He isn’t bad—for an alpha.”

  “You’re his match.” Asa snorted a laugh. “If you’d pull your head out of your ass, you’d see what the rest of us do, plain as day. You’re perfect for each other.”

  “Oh really.” I winged up an eyebrow. “I’m…” I raised my hands in a helpless gesture. “Half feral. More than half some days.” My shoulders slumped. “A little crazy,” I admitted. “I’m messed up. You think I don’t know it? Even before Joth, I failed to behave as a proper omega should. And Dio is…” Wonderful. A jackass. Intriguing.

  Mine.

  “You’re different, but so is he.” Asa squared his shoulders. “Name one shifter who would agree to human couples’ therapy. Even for fixers, that’s a stretch.”

  I glowered. “Dr. Bennet is the talkingest human ever. He tricked Dio into it.”

  “No alpha does anything unless he or she wants and chooses to do it. A human will trick Dio into nothing.” Asa grinned. “He likes you.”