Chapter Five

Claire’s pulse fluttered beneath Joshua’s touch, her thin wrist doing nothing to hide the way she shuddered.

But her smell drew him closer. He wanted to breathe her in, to hold her down and inhale her until she soaked through his body.

When was the last time he’d wanted a female so badly? Sure, he lusted after all women, but Claire?

She was different, and he hadn’t experienced that in years, hadn’t met a female able to draw his notice more than once.

Joshua pushed the thought away while he tugged her into the small back office, a nod at the security guard who grinned. Sometimes knowing people paid off, and he’d done enough work for the owner that taking up their room for as long as he wanted wouldn’t cause problems.

And when Joshua twisted Claire, when he pushed her back against the door and found her throat with his lips, when his tongue tasted her racing pulse, he knew he’d want a long damn time.

Fucking her with Bryce and Kaidan hadn’t bothered him. They shared a lot, their lives, really. They’d always expected that, should they ever decide to settle down, it would be the three of them and a single female. They worked together, closer than blood, than brothers, a bond that gave strength to each.

Still, he couldn’t deny that having her all to himself pleased him.

She inhaled a shaky breath and pushed his shoulders, tension high.

If he ever found out who’d hurt her, he’d tear the worthless bastard apart. He wasn’t someone who shied away from the uglier parts of life. He knew damned well what happened to some omegas, the lives they lived, but those were abstracts.

He’d even helped to save some of the worse-off omegas, an under-the-table aspect of their company. He recalled one girl, Fiona, a teenager but old enough to have started having heats. She’d weighed nothing, the fucker who had taken her using medication that kept her in a near-constant state of heat.

It had been Kaidan who had carried her, the best of them with women, who had set her down for the doctor, who had held her hand while they’d examined her. She’d lived, he supposed, hidden away and silent for years since they’d rescued her. Every once in a while, they’d head up to the little cabin she lived in outside town to check in, to update security. In the five years since they’d saved her, she hadn’t uttered a word, hiding away in her room when they came.

Still, the push of Claire’s hands on his chest had him moving back enough to give her space.

“Wait,” she whispered.

“Sure, wait. Yeah.” He dragged a rough hand through his hair, while he struggled for control. “Told you, this is up to you. Not about to force you.”

Her hands remained on his chest, fingers curled in, blunt nails pressed against his skin. Her breath spilled against his chin and throat in broken panting. “You can’t crowd me.”

Ah, is that it?

When not drunken by her heat, she didn’t want him so close? Not so overpowering?

He could work with that. He’d work with anything he had to.

Joshua nodded, setting his hands on the wall as he lowered himself to his knees. “How about this, sweetheart? This okay?”

The way her eyes widened, that rose color dancing over her cheeks—it had his eager cock jerking against the zipper of his pants.

He wanted her. He wanted her more than he wanted anything. He wanted to bury his face against her and never let her go.

Instead, he waited.

Claire’s tongue, pink and wet enough to catch the light, darted out to her bottom lip before she nodded.

He needed no other yes. He flicked open the button of her pants and slipped the fabric down her toned legs. He lifted one of her feet and pulled the shoe off, allowing him to free that leg. Good enough. He didn’t need her nude for what he wanted, and the longer he gave her to think, the greater chance she’d lose her nerve.

He returned his fingers to the waist of her panties, the simple black ones that hid the part of her he’d kill for right then.

Her back went straight, so he flattened his hands against her. Wait. Don’t rush it. He pressed his lips to her hip, followed the lace trim there until he reached the tempting point. That, he scraped his teeth against.

No matter how he chided himself to be gentle, he couldn’t fully tame his primal side.

He continued the line of kisses over her lower stomach as he set his hand on her inner thigh. He trailed his fingers up the soft, warm skin. The muscles beneath twitched, but as he slid his hand higher, she inched her feet outward.

Nerves and fear might hold her back, but she wanted this.

When he reached her pussy, hidden by the black fabric of her underwear, he brushed his fingers across her. The second pass had him pressing the fabric firmer against her, able to feel heated slit and her folds. He could picture her spread out for him as she had been during her heat, the way her nipples tightened and darkened for him like an invitation.

He’d get another real look eventually, once he’d earned her trust.

Joshua moved his fingers until he could use his thumb to rub her hidden clit through her underwear. The black fabric had soaked up her wetness, a temptation he’d never be able to resist. He lifted her leg, the one he’d stripped the pants and shoe from, and set it on his shoulder to open her wide. It forced her to balance on a single leg, but he set his hand on the wall, and she wrapped her fingers around the wrist for balance.

Damn, he liked her leaning on him.

Unable to resist anymore, Joshua allowed himself the barest of taste. He flicked his tongue along her core, rubbing his stiffened tongue against her clit. It hardly sated what he wanted, his desire to pin her thighs wide and feast for hours until she was a trembling, sobbing mess.

He used the small taste to hold him over before slipping his thumb beneath the drenched crotch of her panties and stroking her clit, which had swollen beneath his touch. Joshua sat back on his heels to stare up her body. It would be better if he’d stripped her down, but even still, it left him breathless.

Her shirt, not tight or revealing, still showed the outline of her breasts, the peaked nipples pressing against the fabric like an offer. Again, his cock throbbed, hard and desperate and ready.

No chance he’d have her then. She was too flighty, too nervous, too wily. It would take time, but his body refused to ignore its needs, either.

He set her hand on his shoulder and reached into his pants. He wrapped his large palm around his length, and he jerked himself with efficient strokes. There was no teasing, no prolonging shit. He didn’t try to hold off or make it last. It was just offering his body some silver-medal finish since he wouldn’t be inside the omega whose taste lingered on his tongue.

Her back arched and her hips rolled forward. He tormented the bundle of nerves tucked there, giving her no rest, no change to catch her breath. Beads of sweat broke out over her eyebrow, a trail running down the side of her throat. The low light from the room caught on the sweat and her closed, pleasure-lost eyes.

Joshua focused his attention on her clit, grinding harder, his hand on his cock quickening as her gasping continued.

The tension of her body grew until she threw her head back, hitting the wall with enough of a thud that he flinched. Her moans went silent, her breath freezing, her nails digging into his shoulder hard enough that a warm trickle said she’d broken the skin.

He threw himself over the edge after her, the final push being the sight of her drowning in lust, in satisfaction, the blush over her cheeks and the rise and fall of her chest.

He spilled inside his pants, something he didn’t care a bit about. He stood, catching his hot, thick cum on his fingers as he pulled his hand free. He kissed her, the action ignored as she pulled in a breath when her body started to recover.

Joshua rested his sweat-slicked forehead against hers before feeding his fingers past her lips, the cum still on them—an alpha’s instinct to mark his mate with his own scent, with his taste.

Mate? The word sat at the tip of his tongue like a threat, but he couldn’t shove the title away, either.

And sure enough, Claire responded like a dream. She closed her willing lips around those fingers and swirled her tongue against them, swallowing down the offered gift.

As she nursed on his thick fingers, as her smell surrounded him and he ran his free hand through her dark hair, he released a soft purr.

Claire had ought to get used to him, because he had no intention of letting her go.

* * * *

She couldn’t look at him. Even as Joshua stood in the shop with no good way to ignore him, Claire tried.

Looking at him was too much, too close, too real. She couldn’t pretend nothing had happened, not when she looked at him. When she did, all she could think about was how he’d felt with his fingers against her, how she’d licked his cum from his fingers as she couldn’t get enough, the way she’d have begged for more if he hadn’t silenced her with a hard kiss.

How could she have given in to something so stupid? A few moments of pleasure weren’t worth the risk.

The more she gave, the more they’d take. It was all alphas did. They took and they took and it never satisfied them.

Damn them, don’t they get I have nothing left to give?

He’d driven them back to her shop, the ride silent no matter how he’d tried to pull her into conversation. Even that easy charm didn’t help, didn’t tempt her.

She couldn’t shake the unease, the way her body refused to settle. In the aftermath of the intense orgasm, the first she’d ever wanted without a heat, she couldn’t manage her feet beneath her. Everything felt too cold, too close, the world too large and dark. Goosebumps had risen on her skin, and she couldn’t shake any of the strange feelings.

Claire went to pass Joshua as she closed the shop and gathered her things for home. As she moved around him, he caught her arm.

The action had her stopping short, nerves crackling beneath her skin. The touch seemed more dangerous than physical harm. After what had happened between them, she’d realized he could do worse than hurt her.

“Take a breath,” he said.

“I can breathe all on my own.”

He teased his thumb over her arm, lips quirked. “You’re nervous. I figured I showed you I won’t hurt you. If I wanted to hurt you, don’t you think I would have done it by now? Had a lot of chances, after all.”

“What do you want from me?” The question was soft on her lips.

Joshua lifted his hand and cupped the back of her neck, a solid weight to anchor her erratic thoughts. “Why are you so afraid, if you don’t even know what I want?”

“Because whatever it is, I can’t give it to you.”

He tilted his head, his smile almost amused before he leaned in to steal a soft kiss. “Well, sweetheart, I’m pretty sure you’ll like what I want, so stop worrying so much.”

Claire opened her mouth to argue, but the clearing of a throat behind her had her twisting.

There went any sense of relaxation she’d had.

Bryce stood by the door.