by Aiden Bates
Time. What did anyone do with so much of it? Without my normal routine to fall back on, I was suddenly left feeling more uncomfortable than I was frustrated. I couldn’t exactly spend all day running it off, and with the murmur in my heart, it hardly seemed healthy to go about drinking it away. Back when things were working between Roland and I, I hadn’t been opposed to spending an entire day in bed, especially not if he was in heat. In fact, that was how Teddy had been born. But without a partner…
I tightened my fingers around the steering wheel as an idea came to mind. The worst kind of idea—the kind a man like me only had on a particularly bad day. I was single. Freshly unfettered by work. And if I wanted to spend a day in bed with a handsome, in-heat omega…
Well, it wasn’t like I’d missed the way Bennet had looked at me before I’d sent him home on Saturday. Like I was a ride at the Fort Greene county fair and he’d just blown all his money on tickets. I’d spent the rest of the weekend trying to push him out of my mind, only to find myself completely unable to. And that hunger I’d seen in his eyes…
No. Bad idea, O’Rourke. There was a reason I’d been trying to keep my mind off Bennet Long. A whole rucksack full of them, in fact.
But on the other hand… I remembered what it had been like when Roland was in heat. Not just the rampant horniness, but the bad parts, too. The aches and pains. The way he’d felt like he needed to crawl out of his own skin just to get comfortable. We’d found a solution or two that had generally made things easier on him. Heat rub to soothe the cramps in his abdomen. Ice packs to press against his neck and chest. Inexplicably, Chinese food to help settle his stomach. Crab Rangoon, General Tso’s, egg rolls and Lo Mein had usually done the trick.
It had made me feel good about myself, being able to take care of Roland like that. Had made me feel like a good husband. A better man. And poor Bennet had no alpha to help him. If anyone I knew could have benefited from a little TLC at the moment, it was probably him.
I turned the engine over in my truck and guided it off base, out into the direction of my favorite Chinese place. Twenty minutes later, I had enough carry-out to get Bennet through the worst of the next few days. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about cooking. I knocked on his door, intending to drop the goods on his doorstep and head home because, for my sanity’s sake, it would be better if I didn’t see him, but as I started down the path to my truck, Bennet’s door swung open.
“Sergeant?” Bennet rubbed his eyes, his voice husky and low. A yawn passed through his lips as he stretched, his flexing muscles tugging the end of his t-shirt up over the waistband of his boxers to reveal six-pack abs. “Sorry, I was napping.”
All I could do was stand and stare. He was cute like this, freshly awake, hair still messy from the way he’d probably been tossing and turning in his sleep. All things considered, cute was an understatement, really. That flash of his abs, the way his gaze poured over me, his easy smile as he stooped to collect the Chinese food, it was all completely enchanting.
And that was before I breathed him in.
“Thought you might be—” Then his scent hit me with all the force of a tidal wave. I could feel it swirling around in my head, a carousel of bright, flashing desire that left me dizzy with how fast it spun. One moment, I was a man; self-possessed, stoic, capable and sane. The next, sanity felt like some kind of tender, far-off memory.
It was completely unlike anything I’d smelled before. It had been good enough on that first day, so good I’d nearly forgotten myself completely. But now, it was even sweeter. Deeper. Stronger and more intoxicating.
“Hungry,” I said to finish my sentence, my voice a distant, soft growl.
Bennet nodded, looking just as hypnotized as I felt. “I was.” He blinked twice, like he was trying to overcome being stunned. I watched him fail. “I am.”
So.
He’d breathed me in, too.
I could feel my brain short-circuiting as we stared at each other, caught in a mutual trance. Could nearly feel my own sense of rationality rising up off of my neck like steam, slipping away into the warm noontime air. I clung to it anyway, not daring to move any closer, but unable to tear myself away.
The rational thing to do would be to wish Bennet the best. Get in my truck. Drive home and shut myself in my own deep freeze until I’d cooled down enough to function once again.
But then Bennet asked, “Do you…want to come in?”
And just like that, my boots were moving me forward. Closer to him. Closer to the source of that scent that had nearly knocked me right on my ass the moment I first sensed it.
This is a bad idea. That didn’t stop me treading across the path up to his front step. Actually, it was a really bad idea. I knew it in my bones. Bennet was in heat. A heat stronger than anything I’d ever experienced before. It was leaving me restless, dumb with need and harder than forged steel.
Bennet wasn’t thinking straight either. It wasn’t his brain inviting me inside when he was like this. It was his womb that was doing the talking.
“I’ve felt so bad all day, Sergeant,” Bennet said softly, drawing backward through his door and moving beyond it so I could step inside.
Oh, this is such a bad idea. But was it? If there was one thing that could cure it all—the cramps, the hot flashes, the restless yearning he must have been feeling just as much as I was—it was a good, hard fuck. One that, according to the thick, throbbing dick straining against my uniform slacks, I was more than capable of providing. It could help him. Could help me.
“I’ve been thinking about you,” he admitted, staring up at me with eyes blue and clear as the sky outside. There was room for him to retreat, but he didn’t.
Good. I didn’t want him to.
“I’ve been thinking about you, too.” My voice was a rasp, strained and harsh, but then Bennet’s lips were on mine, his arms winding around my neck as he let the take-out drop to the floor.
The moment I touched him, I knew I’d been wrong. He wanted me. I wanted him. We needed each other, and in that moment, nothing else existed.
Not such a bad idea after all.
10
Bennet
Neither of us said a word. Neither of us needed to. This wasn’t the time to start a dialogue. The moment was too fragile—forged out of nothing but mutual attraction and need. My own, certainly. Maybe Logan’s, too. Either way, it was too delicate to spoil with conversation. A word from either us would have shattered it into three dozen pieces like a fumbled dinner plate.
If we’d talked, we might have talked ourselves out of it. Instead, we stayed silent, communicating through kisses. Through touch. Through the low, animalistic moans that escaped our lips as we stumbled from the doorway to my bed.
Logan put one of his hands to the back of my head, the other to the waistband of my boxers. Our mouths moved together frenetically, and with every turn of our lips it felt like he was kissing me harder and harder. Savoring me more and more. The cocktail of hormones that had driven us to this point were so thick and heavy and heady, I felt completely drunk on them. Wasted on the taste of Logan’s tongue against mine. Three-sheets-to-the-wind on the aroma coming off the heated skin over his collar bones—and then, tumbling down onto the sheets of my bed.
Logan’s boots thumped to the floor, followed by his uniform slacks as I tugged away at his tie and the buttons of his dress shirt.
He slowly rocked his hips, the bulge of his cock rubbing against the stiffness of mine through our boxers—then, he yanked mine down completely.
“Naughty thing,” Logan purred, glancing down at the way my cock sprang up to meet him before the weight of his body pressed it back down against my abs, smearing them with thin, pearly precum. “You’re already hard for me.”
I could only nod slightly, winding my arms around his neck and pulling him in for another kiss.
“Do you want me?” Logan growled against my lips, another thrust reminding me that he was just as hard for me. As if I could forge
t.
He only got a needy whimper in return.
“Say it, sweetheart. I need to hear you say it.”
“I want you,” I gasped, feeling like a sex-crazed maniac. Hell, at this point, maybe I was.
Logan tugged his own boxers down. I couldn’t see his cock, but I could feel it. Impossibly thick. Hard, hot and heavy.
He was huge. And I was in even more trouble than I’d originally thought. Not because I didn’t think I could take him…
But because my need suddenly tripled.
“Condoms?” Logan had the presence to ask.
It was a sweet thing to remember—or it would have been, if they’d been necessary.
“I haven’t been with anyone in years,” I admitted.
“Not worried about that, honey.” Logan’s teeth nipped at my neck, ferocious and unrelenting. “You’re on heat. I fuck you now, like this, I could put a baby in you.” He drew back, his eyes glinting down at me with a rawness that told me, in the drunkenness of my heat, he might not particularly mind that idea as much as he let on. “That’s not what you want, is it?”
I took longer than I should have to answer, but Logan patiently waited. “I can’t get pregnant. I’m…” I searched for the words to explain to him what had happened to me. The things Chris had done. But I didn’t want to think about past traumas in that moment. The way my ex had hurt me. Ruined me. Logan and I were already past the point of no return, and I wanted to enjoy this. Properly. Without fear. “I only want you,” I said breathily, eliciting a purr of pleasure from Logan that I could feel vibrating in his chest.
He stared down at me like some kind of dark god.
“Good.”
Logan’s cock slipped against my inner thigh as he positioned himself between my knees. He then grabbed hold of my hips and lifted them up. I wrapped my legs around his waist and noticed the ridiculous amount of lubrication my heat was generating. I was literally dripping with it. He groaned as his swollen tip teased against the warm, sticky tightness of my hole.
It had been so long since I’d been with an alpha. So long, I’d nearly forgotten what it felt like. And even then, when Logan crushed his lips against mine, leaving me nearly hyperventilating and dizzy with desperation, I knew it had never felt like that before. This need—this hunger—it felt like something more than just sex. Just heat. Everything about Logan, from the growl of his throat as he pressed his cockhead through the clenched ring of my ass, the warmth of his skin as I clung to him, to the way he smelled as I desperately buried my face in his neck—it was all bigger, better, more intense than anything I’d ever felt before.
Maybe better than anything I’d ever feel again. My heart pounded at the thought, but there was no time for worrying about that. No time for worrying about anything other than the hard, sharp thrusting of Logan’s cock as he claimed my ass, gasp by gasp, inch by inch. The sensation left me reeling, my moans slowly building in volume as Logan’s momentum gained speed. He moved his hands from my hips and tangled the fingers of one hand in my hair, tugging slightly in a way that made me hiss, and put his other hand against the side of my neck, clamping down hard—not with anger, but with desire.
One look at Logan’s broad shoulders and towering frame had told me he was a man capable of incredible strength. His years of military service pretty much guaranteed it. Feeling that strength leveraged against me should have sent me spiraling back into the panic I’d felt when it had been Chris’s hand on my throat, Chris’s cock thrusting so deep into my ass it had torn my insides—and ultimately made me afraid of alphas ever since.
But I wasn’t afraid of Logan, simply because I instinctively knew he wouldn’t hurt me.
“Please,” I whimpered, my hips bucking up to meet his.
“Please what, sweetheart,” he growled, teeth nipping at my jawline.
“Please,” was all I could manage again. I wasn’t sure I had any other words.
“Please stop?” Logan slowed the thrust of his hips and pulled back until there was only the thick, hot tip of his cock inside me.
“No—god, no,” I begged, thrashing up against him in a desperate attempt to regain the momentum. Return to what was driving me so close to the orgasm my body needed so badly. “Logan, please.”
“Ah.” I could feel his lips smiling against my neck. “Please, more, then.”
As Logan stuffed his cock into me all over again, deeper and harder than ever before, I cried out, high and sweet “Yes! Oh, god, Logan, yes!”
From there on out, there wasn’t another thought in my head that wasn’t focused around him. My universe shifted, repositioning itself so Logan was at its center. His body rocked violently against mine, slamming me down into the mattress only to bounce back up, ready to absorb his next kiss. His next thrust.
His sweat soaked the hair on his chest and dripped onto my damp, heated skin. His teeth, sometimes gentle, sometimes, not, scraped against my throat one moment and sank into my earlobe the next.
He moved his fist between us, taking my own cock up in a death-grip that jerked me off in time with each pulse of his dick inside me. It was just enough to push me nearly over the edge. I hung there, my body trembling, then I heard his voice in my ear, and suddenly I was tumbling right over that edge into a velvety darkness lighting up with firecracker bursts of brightness.
“Come for me, sweetheart. Give it to me. Give in to me. Come—come!”
My balls clenched so hard, I could feel it in my abs, in my heart, in my lungs, in the soles of my feet as my toes curled, ankles crossed behind his back. I tensed around him, clinging to him like a half-drowned thing holding on for dear life in a ragged, rough sea of pleasure as rope after rope of cum shot between us. The first sprang out onto my own torso, coating my chest in hot, sticky seed. The next shot with so much force, it caught Logan up over his chin and across his lips.
He skated his tongue across his lower lip and licked it clean. For a half second, the thrusting stopped, and I wondered if he liked me. Liked how I tasted. Enjoyed the sensation of my cum smearing over his tongue.
Then, he plunged his lips down to meet mine, a howl escaping his mouth only to become stifled against my tongue. I could taste myself on him, salty and clean. We passed that taste between us as Logan’s cock twitched, pumping my ass full of his cum until I didn’t think I’d be able to hold any more.
A moment. Just one. That was all he gave me to recover, his forehead resting against mine as he held me captive by his dark hazel gaze.
Then, he moved his arms around me, rolling me over and spreading my ass cheeks to probe my freshly-filled hole with his tongue until he was hard again.
After that, I lost track of it all. How many times he came inside me. How many times he left me spraying my own cum over my bedsheets. I didn’t know the minutes from the hours. The hours from the days. Time was no longer a concept my horny, greedy, pleasure-streaked body could comprehend.
There was no more room in my mind for anything else while Logan used me, teasing me like a toy and claiming me like a war prize.
There was only room for him.
When we finally collapsed back into the bed together, every muscle in my body was left aching and ringing. A glance at the clock through my blurred, unfocused vision told me we’d spent two hours in the throes of pleasure together, but as far as I knew, it could have been years. Decades. I trembled, whimpering as I rolled to tangle my body with his. He took me in his arms, holding me tight until I could think straight again.
“Feeling better?”
I nodded, a little laugh escaping my throat as I breathed in the heady, delicious scent of the sweat on his chest. “A little,” I admitted, feeling the intensity of my heat finally subsiding.
Logan only nodded in reply, hugging me a little tighter until my body finally stopped shaking.
“Hungry?” he finally asked, his voice short and gruff.
I laughed again, lapping at a stray bead of sweat tangled in his chest hair. “Starving, actually.�
�
Logan untangled himself from me, leaving the room for a moment while I rolled back to gaze up at the ceiling, still feeling dizzy and starry-eyed. He’d fucked me like a man unhinged, like some kind of wild, crazed creature without restraint or control, but he’d been unselfish, too. Careful enough not to hurt me, even when he easily could have. Focused just as much on my pleasure as his own.
Plus, as he re-entered the room with a plate of still-steaming Chinese food fresh from the microwave, he seemed intent on feeding me.
Not bad, for spur-of-the-moment sex with my best friend’s dad.
“Glad you’re feeling better,” Logan said, meeting my eyes with that same, hungry intensity before he dropped his gaze to the plate in his hand. “Brought you some Chinese food. Whole reason I initially came over, before… Well. Used to help, back when Roland was—”
“Thank you so much, Logan.” I reached up for the plate, my fingers brushing against his for the briefest of moments before he pulled his touch away. It was unusual to see Logan unable to finish a sentence—or flustered at all, for that matter. “How are you feeling?”
Logan blinked down at me twice, then rubbed his neck and laughed. “Better than I have in years, actually. I just…” He glanced toward the door. “Ah, I should get going. Leave you to eat in peace.”
“You’d have to put your clothes back on for that,” I said, letting my gaze stray across his muscular body, chest still heaving slightly. “Why don’t you stay and eat with me? It’s lonely, being cooped up like this.”
Another blink. I could practically see the wheels of Logan’s brain turning, looking for a good reason not to. Then he gave a nod. Either unable to come up with an excuse or not willing to. “Suppose I can sympathize.”
Either way, he left again, returning a few minutes later with a plate of his own.
We ate in silence, both still naked in bed, covered in each other’s cum. The food wasn’t incredible—especially not after Logan had been forced to reheat it, since it had sat in my hallway for two hours while we fucked like rabbits—but in the moment, I couldn’t imagine anything tasting better. Sweet, salty, spicy, a little sour. Everything I could have wanted, and even better because I was sharing it in bed with…
