Alpha in Heat

by Anna Wineheart

  Dom pushed a third finger in, dry. Then a fourth. Sinclair jerked against him, but he took it anyway, his thighs spreading, his hips rolling, as though he was searching for more. And the animal need in Dom clawed against his ribs, needing to be set free.

  Sinclair was barely damp enough for Dom’s fingers—not much more than that. Dom slammed Sinclair down onto the mattress, grabbing the lube from his nightstand. Then he squirted too much onto his palm, slicked up his cock, and shoved Sinclair’s knee against the mattress. This left Sinclair’s ass open for him, clad in the rags of Dom’s sleeping shorts, that small, tight pucker a beacon for Dom’s hunger.

  “Not gonna,” Sinclair hissed, shaking Dom’s grip off his leg.

  He rolled around onto his front and began prowling away, and holy fuck that view of his ass.

  Dom ripped the rest of the shorts off, leaving Sinclair naked from the waist down. Then he lunged at Sinclair, shoving him forward on the mattress, forcing his shoulders down onto the bed. Leaving his ass in the air.

  Open, just for Dom.

  Dom knocked Sinclair’s knees apart. Spreading him further. So there was absolutely nothing between himself and Sinclair’s tiny hole—only air.

  “‘Donut’,” Dom whispered.

  Sinclair turned and spat at Dom over his shoulder; Dom’s instincts broke free. He grasped his cock and lunged, shoving his tip hard against Sinclair’s entrance. Then he snapped his hips, and his entire cock sank inside, opening Sinclair’s body in one swift stroke.

  Beneath, Sinclair roared, his spine arching, his body taking all of Dom.

  Dom couldn’t stop. He thought briefly about it, letting Sinclair adjust to him. But Sinclair was sweet inside, blissfully tight, and Dom thrust into him once, twice, every slide sending a jolt of pleasure down his spine.

  “Should I stop?” Dom growled. Then he plunged viciously into Sinclair, forcing Sinclair forward on the mattress.

  “Fuck you,” Sinclair bristled.

  “Gotta say something better. Or are you so busy taking my cock, that you can’t think of anything else?” Dom patted his ass. Then he grasped Sinclair’s hips and began a harsh rhythm, one that made his instincts snarl, because now he was really owning Sinclair, plowing inside him, spreading him open over and over, their hips slapping together, Sinclair’s body sucking so tight around him, like he couldn’t get enough of Dom’s cock.

  With each thrust, Dom felt as though this alpha was more of his. When Sinclair panted and shoved his head down, and he spread his thighs, not looking at Dom at all. But his hole continued to cling around Dom’s cock, sucking on him, so tight that Dom couldn’t hold on much longer.

  He reached down, grasping Sinclair by his cock and balls. “Come for me.”

  “No,” Sinclair hissed.

  But he was throbbing against Dom’s palm, thick and slippery with precome. Dom tried to aim for Sinclair’s prostate. Sinclair swore and arched, his fingers digging into the bed, his neck flushed, his entire body shaking with how much he was trying to hold back.

  And Dom increased his rhythm, pounding in punishingly hard. It was all he could do to hold on, instead of taunting the man beneath him.

  Sinclair’s voice broke, suddenly. And the feeling of him coming apart, the feeling of him clenching and shuddering, because Dom had caused it—it hauled Dom over the edge in a violent burst of pleasure, white-washing his vision. He felt himself empty into Sinclair, pulse by pulse, leaving his mark inside this man.

  For a brief moment, Dom had the crazy thought that maybe this could be permanent. That he could have an alpha who challenged him like Sinclair did, and it would make him happy.

  He brushed the scent glands on his wrists down Sinclair’s chest, then down his arms and thighs, marking him with blackwood. It didn’t even occur to him that he was doing it, until he smelled his scent on Sinclair’s skin.

  Danger, his instincts said.

  And Dom pressed Sinclair down against the mattress, growling when his knot began to swell inside this alpha. His.

  “My knot, Sinclair. Tell me you don’t want it, before it’s too late to pull out.”

  Sinclair’s only response was a bitten-off groan, his body fluttering around Dom’s knot.

  He would take it all, then. Dom’s instincts rumbled louder.

  They panted against each other, catching their breaths, Dom on top of Sinclair, his knot growing so full, it stretched Sinclair inside. And locked them together. Sinclair grunted and sighed—surprisingly mellow a reaction, for someone who had never received a knot before.

  “Did you sleep with someone else?” Dom asked, possessiveness rumbling in his chest. “Between that time and now.”

  Sinclair stiffened, his back tensing against Dom’s chest. “Why’re you asking?”

  “Because you didn’t even fight with me over my knot.”

  Pink tinted the tips of Sinclair’s ears. “Fuck off.”

  Dom smiled. Sinclair did want it, then. Enough that he wasn’t even going to risk pushing Dom away. “How’s it feel?”

  This time, Sinclair turned, frowning over his shoulder. “Why’re you so chatty suddenly?”

  Dom weighed his words, his heart pattering. “Because we’re going to be stuck together for the next half-hour. And I want to know you better.”

  Wariness filled Sinclair’s gaze; he studied Dom, trying to figure if Dom was lying. At length, he muttered, “No.”

  “No to what?” Dom leaned closer, his skin tingling when their bodies rubbed together. “No other bed partners? Just me?”

  He kissed Sinclair’s shoulder—just a light touch, but he never once broke their gaze. Sinclair flushed such a bright red that Dom’s heart missed a beat.

  Sinclair hadn’t been with anyone else. He’d even let Dom take his knotting cherry.

  Dom had to lean in. He cupped Sinclair’s jaw and kissed him on the lips, slow and deliberate—just a slide of skin on skin. Then, a firm press. So their mouths met fully, an intimate touch.

  The way a person should be kissed. Dom’s heart pounded more frantically than the last few times he’d kissed Sinclair, because this wasn’t about sex at all.

  Sinclair stiffened, his breath snagging. “The hell?”

  Oh, he got flustered so easily.

  So Dom kissed him again. Just a chaste kiss. “Never been kissed before, Sinclair?”

  “I have,” Sinclair spluttered.

  Except he was still blushing when Dom kissed him a third time. Dom couldn’t stop. He wanted to see Sinclair blush, over and over. It delighted all of his instincts.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Sinclair muttered. But he wasn’t even pulling away.

  “Kissing you,” Dom answered. Then he kissed Sinclair again, on his lips, then his shoulder, then across his back.

  “If this is you playing a trick on me,” Sinclair muttered, scowling, his eyes filled with such a mix of emotions—wariness, dread, disbelief—that Dom needed to hold him close.

  “No tricks.” Dom nuzzled his shoulder blade. “You know me.”

  Sinclair seemed to hesitate. Then he relaxed against Dom, burying his face against the mattress. “Oh.”

  And his blush didn’t recede at all.

  So maybe they liked each other. Sinclair couldn’t say it, but that was fine. Dom couldn’t, either.

  He settled for dropping kisses across Sinclair’s shoulders, then up the nape of his neck. He slid his arm against Sinclair’s chest, just holding him there.

  It felt so strange to be intimate with another alpha. With Mal, Dom had to be careful not to hurt him, because Mal had been fragile. Sinclair was... kind of the same. But mentally. Physically, he seemed to be able to take anything Dom threw at him.

  So that was nice. Dom liked the change. He liked lying on top of Sinclair, and not worrying about crushing him. He liked slamming Sinclair against walls, and getting arousal in return. It felt like he could be an absolute animal around Sinclair, and Sinclair wouldn’t break at all.

  “Why�
�d you give me the donuts?” Sinclair muttered. “You didn’t even say they were from you. What was I supposed to think?”

  He glanced away as though he was embarrassed, except it only made him kind of... adorable. Dom growled, kissing his jaw. “Wanted to see you eat them.”

  That was half the truth. It had started on a whim: Dom had stopped at Ben’s Buns for breakfast one day, and Ben had brought out a tray of chocolate donuts. Dom had gotten a sudden nagging urge to see how Sinclair would react to one of those on his locker.

  What Dom hadn’t expected was the way Sinclair ripped into the donut like an animal, and the surprise on his face when he’d tasted it. It had disappeared in seconds. Right after, Sinclair had licked his fingers, glancing at the bag like maybe there might be a second one in there.

  Out of curiosity, Dom had changed up the donut flavor the next week.

  “So when I gave York that strawberry one...”

  Dom growled. “So pissed.”

  Sinclair grinned. “I can actually piss you off?”

  “You’d better not give those donuts away.”

  “Maybe,” Sinclair said, looking rebellious. “You could’ve told me they were from you.”

  “You would’ve thrown them straight in the trash,” Dom said.

  “Well.” Sinclair looked at the mattress, but Dom knew he would’ve. It was only when they’d become a habit, when he’d caught Sinclair looking at his locker every time he stepped into the locker room, that Dom knew he’d started something he couldn’t stop.

  Not that he could stop, when Sinclair had become so possessive of those donuts. He’d made sure to eat them in front of Dom every single time, he’d sucked the chocolate off his fingers, and more often than not, he’d given Dom a hard-on that Dom had to find some way to hide.

  Then there were the secret smiles whenever Sinclair dug into a new donut bag. The look of bliss when he rolled the chocolate through his mouth. Because Dom had given him something he liked.

  Because he was eating Dom’s donuts.

  Dom had made Sinclair smile, and he hadn’t expected to want to see it again, until Sinclair had hit him in the gut with it.

  So maybe Dom just liked to see him smile. It didn’t have to mean anything.

  It most certainly hadn’t caused Dom to go into a rut.

  “Did you sleep at all?” Sinclair asked. “You didn’t change out of your clothes since you got back.”

  Dom looked away. No, he hadn’t. He’d been staying awake just in case Sinclair woke and he needed something. But he wasn’t telling Sinclair that.

  The fire alarm rang, a loud, shrill sound that made Sinclair jump, tightening around Dom. Dom didn’t have the time to savor it, though.

  “There’s a fire?” he asked. The stove wasn’t on. He had no faulty appliances in the house.

  Sinclair looked just as confused. Then, dread flickered through his gaze. “I was—I was boiling potatoes.”

  20

  The Chapter of Many Kisses

  Jesse scrambled, hoping that the fire was still a small one. Shit, shit, shit. I forgot to turn off the stove.

  Dom had let him sleep over, and this was what he did.

  “It’s fine,” Dom said behind him. “Just a small fire.”

  “You don’t know that.” Gods, Jesse didn’t want Dom to start judging him again. For burning a pot of potatoes, of all things.

  But Dom just leaned in and kissed his shoulder. “At worst, we’ll step outside. Let the station guys put it out.”

  Easy for him to say, when he wasn’t the one being knotted. Jesse tried to scramble off the bed, groaning when Dom’s knot tugged inside him. Pleasure hummed through his veins. That knot was thick, heavy, and it pressed inside him with every movement he made—reminding him of exactly where they were joined. And how Jesse had let Dom fuck him again.

  Stop thinking about that, he told himself. Focus on the fire.

  Dom moved slower than him, though. That didn’t help when Jesse needed to be in the kitchen right this instant. He tugged on the knot, trying to make Dom hurry. Instead, Dom wrapped a sturdy arm around his waist, anchoring them together. “Don’t run off. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

  “Then move faster, old man!” Jesse scowled.

  Dom slapped his thigh—a light jolt of pain. It wasn’t much, but the shock was enough to turn his thoughts sideways. It didn’t feel good.

  Dom immediately pressed his palm against the stinging spot, rubbing it. “Sorry.”

  Jesse shook it off and tugged Dom across the room. Bad enough that they couldn’t move like they would with an ordinary fire. Every step involved them shuffling together, Dom’s cock wedged inside Jesse—decadent and so wrong.

  When they finally stepped into the hallway, Jesse could see that some smoke had escaped the kitchen, but not so much. Like Dom had said, it was just a small fire.

  “Extinguisher’s in the corner,” Dom murmured.

  Yeah, Jesse had seen it. He had one in his own kitchen, too. Just in case.

  In the kitchen, they headed over to the stove, where orange flames flickered in the pot of potatoes. Jesse’s heart sank. He pressed the lever on the extinguisher. Fire retardant hissed out of the nozzle, blanketing the pot and stove.

  The fire sputtered out. In its place was a mess of burnt potatoes, and the stovetop that had been so clean before this. Jesse sighed. “I’ll clean it up.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Dom took the extinguisher from him, setting it aside. Then he turned off the stove, shuffled them across the kitchen, and threw open the windows. He reset the fire alarm, too.

  Jesse shuffled them back, grabbing a roll of paper towels. Dom took the paper towels away. Jesse glared over his shoulder. “My fuck-up, Dom. I can handle it.”

  Dom sighed and shrugged, handing the towels back. “You’re a guest, but fine.”

  He stood with Jesse, though, wrapping his arm lightly around Jesse’s waist. While Jesse wiped down the stove, Dom nuzzled his nape. Jesse almost dropped the paper towels.

  “Why’re you being like this?” he muttered. Then he could’ve kicked himself—he wanted more kisses from Dom. He didn’t know how to ask for them, though. And he wasn’t going to kiss Dom himself. He didn’t want to seem desperate.

  “Being like what?” Dom asked. He kissed Jesse’s neck again, a soft, damp touch.

  Jesse tingled all over. In his time after the Facility, he’d slept around a bit, just to see what all the fuss about intimacy was about. But he’d never been kissed like that before. Nothing soft and gentle and sweet, like Dom had given him tonight. For no reason at all.

  “I’m not an omega,” Jesse said, his voice snagging in his throat. He remembered his dad, who had been so proud when Jesse presented as alpha. Dad had bought him a cake with Super Alpha on it, and they’d taken pictures with Mom and Jesse’s sister, Kelly.

  “You don’t have to be an omega to get kisses like that.” And Dom kissed him again.

  Jesse’s heart thudded so fervently, he thought he might’ve gotten palpitations.

  Dom was just... Dom. Dom had given him donuts. So many of them. He’d held Jesse through his episodes, he’d given Jesse all these kisses. Jesse shouldn’t want his lips all over. He shouldn’t want Dom’s kisses to mean more.

  He shouldn’t want Dom to treat him like he was important.

  “I think it’s finally receding,” Dom murmured. He grasped Jesse’s hips, slowly tugging on his knot. It had gone down slightly, but there was enough of a bump that it couldn’t leave Jesse’s body easily.

  Gods, he’d let Dom knot inside him. And it had felt like the best sort of belonging in the world. It still did.

  When Dom’s knot went down... would he stop the kisses? Jesse didn’t want to find out.

  “Something wrong?” Dom asked. He leaned closer, his breath warm on Jesse’s neck. “You keep tensing around me.”

  Damn it. Dom could feel that? Jesse flushed. “Nothing’s wrong.”

  Dryly, “Y
ou forget that I’ve watched you for three years, Sinclair. Something’s wrong.”

  Part of Jesse didn’t want to risk saying anything. The other part wanted to just let go, and blurt out all his dark, guilty thoughts. It wasn’t as though he had any dignity left. He’d raised his ass for Dom. He’d begged Dom to fuck him.

  But asking for kisses... that was a whole ‘nother ball game. He swallowed. Then he waited until Dom’s knot had fully receded, when there wasn’t any chance of Dom being intimate again, before he said, “The kisses.”

  Dom slid out, leaving an aching emptiness inside Jesse. Then he turned Jesse around, meeting his eyes. “What about the kisses?”

  Jesse’s face burned, betraying him. His tongue stopped working.

  Dom studied him—still no judgment. But there was the hint of a smile on his lips. Fondness? “You want more?”

  Something on Jesse’s face must’ve given him away, because Dom leaned in, brushing their lips together. A light touch, soft enough to be a promise. Jesse’s heart stopped. And Dom kissed him again. He didn’t once pull away, only drawing Jesse closer, their breaths mingling, his warmth radiating into Jesse’s chest.

  “Enough?” Dom murmured.

  No, it wasn’t.

  Dom huffed—he sounded amused. Before Jesse could feel embarrassed, Dom kissed him again. And again. He brushed his thumb along Jesse’s jaw and cradled his face. When their lips met this time, it was the slightest movement—just an exchange of breath.

  It was the most intimate thing Jesse had ever done with anyone.

  He wanted this to go on forever.

  Unnerved, Jesse yanked himself away. “You didn’t lick me,” he blurted. Because at least that was an argument. Arguments were familiar.

  Dom laughed, running his fingers down Jesse’s forearm. “Yeah? You wanted me to lick your hole, too?”

  What would that feel like?

  “Next time,” Dom murmured, kissing Jesse’s jaw. “I promise.”

  But he reached down, easing his fingers between Jesse’s cheeks, searching out his hole. Dom stroked Jesse there, a light touch—so different from his earlier savageness—and it made all of Jesse’s nerves tingle.