Chapter 18 Appeased
This time, they were in Ezra’s bed.
The large frame creaked beneath their weight, sheets rumpled and damp from restless nights and too much wanting.
A tall window arched above the headboard, letting in mid-morning light—honeyed and warm, spilling across the mattress in soft golden stripes, painting their bare skin with a gentle, holy glow.
Outside, the world was still. The house was finally, blissfully quiet—no toys crashing against the floorboards, no squealing voices or footsteps storming down the stairs. The kids had been dropped off. The front door had clicked shut behind them.
It was the kind of silence meant for mated pairs. For whispered things. For the ache of skin against skin, without time chasing them.
Ezra wasn’t thinking. For once, he wasn’t calculating grocery runs or fielding passive-aggressive texts or worrying about what people saw when they looked at Sebastian at his side.
He wasn’t denying the way Sebastian’s absence carved holes in him when nights stretched too long and too quiet.
Right now, Ezra was breathing him in.
And all he could feel was need.
Sebastian lay open beneath him—body pliant and flushed, thighs slick and spread wide, one leg curled tight around Ezra’s waist like he couldn’t not touch him.
His skin glowed in the golden light, flushed with heat, sweat pearled at the hollow of his throat. His scent—normally soft, calming lavender—had bloomed into something wild and feral, drenched with slick musk, curling through the air like an invitation Ezra didn’t know how to resist.
Sebastian was in heat.
He had said nothing—had taken his suppressants like clockwork, had smiled over coffee, had touched Ezra with nothing but gentleness—but proximity to an Alpha he wanted had overridden every drop of medicine in his bloodstream.
Suppressants didn’t stand a chance against biology this strong. Not when Sebastian wanted him.
The scent was overwhelming. It clung to the walls, the sheets, Ezra’s tongue. Lavender and sex, thick and honey-sweet, heady like overripe fruit. It made Ezra’s vision blur, his instincts snap taut and brutal.
Sebastian’s thighs were glossy with slick. The sheets beneath him were damp with it. It soaked Ezra’s skin where they touched, made every grind of his cock against Sebastian’s a slippery, decadent torture.
Ezra couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t think.
He rutted forward again, dragging a low groan from both of them as their cocks slid together—Sebastian’s smaller and flushed deep pink, leaking against his stomach, smeared with his own arousal. Ezra’s own was thick, heavy, already swollen at the base, his knot pulsing in anticipation.
He was barely holding on.
Sebastian whimpered, arching into the contact, his body trembling as Ezra kissed down his neck with open-mouthed greed. Not gentle. Not tentative. Ezra bit down, his mouth slick with sweat and scent and need.
“Fuck,” Sebastian gasped, fingers clutching at Ezra’s shoulders, nails digging in. “Ezra—”
“Can’t stop,” Ezra growled. “You smell like—God, Seb. You need this.”
Sebastian’s thighs squeezed tighter around him, and Ezra felt the rush of slick spill hot and sudden against his cock. The smell of it knocked the wind out of him—pure Omega want, begging for an Alpha.
“I do,” Sebastian whispered, eyes wet, mouth parted. “I need you.”
Ezra gritted his teeth, trying to hold off—trying not to give in completely, because he knew once he knotted him, it’d be over. There’d be no pretending. No lying to himself. Sebastian would have him. Forever.
He leaned down, foreheads brushing, their lips barely apart. “You sure?”
Sebastian gave a breathless laugh—wild and shaky and so Sebastian. “Ezra, I’ve been sure since the first time I smelled you.”
Ezra groaned, deep and ragged, and shoved a hand between their slick bodies, wrapping around both of them.
Sebastian cried out—hips jerking up, spine arching, body shaking with too much sensation. His heat had opened him up so much he was trembling, his scent spiraling out of control.
Ezra stroked them together, hips grinding slow and brutal, every thrust rubbing his cock against the slippery mess of Sebastian’s thighs and belly. Sebastian’s breathing turned desperate, high and broken.
“You’re gonna come like this,” Ezra growled. “Aren’t you? Gonna soak my fucking cock before I even get inside you.”
Sebastian’s moan was obscene—his head thrown back, curls damp, cheeks red and glowing. “Ez—Ezra—please—”
Ezra stroked faster, letting their slick smear between his fingers, and watched as Sebastian came apart—crying out his name, shaking under him, his cock twitching and spurting hot across both their stomachs.
He was soaked now.
Ezra barely had the sense to shift, to reach for the bedside drawer with fumbling hands. He found the blue tub—Vaseline, the best he had—and turned back to find Sebastian watching him through half-lidded, dazed eyes, lips bitten red.
“You gonna let me?” Ezra rasped. “You want me to knot you?”
Sebastian nodded, a small, choked sound caught in his throat. “I want it. I need it.”
Ezra’s entire body throbbed.
He slicked his fingers and pushed Sebastian’s thighs further apart, heart pounding so loud it roared in his ears. He bent down, kissed the inside of Sebastian’s knee, then lower, reverent, like worship. Then—slowly—he pressed a finger in.
Slick welcomed him, warm and endless. Sebastian shuddered, mouth open, his body so ready.
The heat had him open and wanting, the walls of his body fluttering and begging for more. Ezra added a second finger, then a third, watching Sebastian’s face the whole time, gauging every twitch, every breath.
“You’re perfect,” he whispered. “So soft inside. You’re ready for me.”
Sebastian made a needy sound, grabbing for Ezra’s shoulders, voice wrecked. “Then take me, Ezra. Please. I want your knot.”
Ezra swore under his breath and slicked himself, his cock flushed angry-red, knot already swelling. He pressed forward, lined up, and then—slow, cautious—pushed.
Sebastian arched, gasping, a cry caught in his throat as Ezra breached him inch by inch. The slide was slow, endless, tight. His body welcomed Ezra, clenching down, drawing him deeper.
Ezra groaned deep and loud, barely able to speak. “Fuck, Seb— you’re so—fuck.”
When he was fully seated—when his knot bumped against the stretched rim of Sebastian’s entrance—he paused, trembling, every muscle in his body screaming to move.
Sebastian whimpered, pulling him down into a kiss, voice hoarse and wrecked. “Don’t stop. Don’t hold back.”
Ezra snapped his hips forward, and the rhythm took over—deep and steady at first, then brutal, hard, claiming. Slick squelched around them, soaking Ezra’s thighs, dripping from Sebastian’s body to pool beneath him.
The bed rocked beneath them. The smell of sex and lavender and Alpha was everywhere.
“Yours,” Sebastian gasped. “I’m yours, Ezra. Fuck me—fuck me until I can’t think.”
Ezra lost it.
He gripped Sebastian’s hips, rutting forward, chasing his knot, every thrust dragging them closer to the edge. Sebastian sobbed beneath him, trembling, his body spasming around Ezra’s cock, milking him, pulling him deeper.
Ezra could feel the pressure building, could feel the swell of his knot begin to lock in place.
“Coming—fuck, Seb—I’m gonna—”
“Do it,” Sebastian begged. “Knot me. Fill me.”
Ezra thrust once, twice more, and then slammed forward, knot catching and locking inside Sebastian with a deep, slick pop.
He cried out—loud, broken—as he came, cock pulsing hard, knot swelling fully, spilling hot and deep into Sebastian’s trembling body.
Sebastian followed with a keening cry, writhing beneath him, legs locked tight around Ezra’s waist as his second orgasm hit—longer, wetter, leaving them both shaking.
The knot held.
Their bodies stayed fused—twitching, breathless, slick with sweat and semen and Omega slick.
Ezra collapsed against him, still trembling, face pressed into Sebastian’s throat, mouth open and panting. “Omega,” he whispered.
Sebastian shivered, arms winding around him. “Alpha.”
They lay tangled in sweat and sunlight and scent, Ezra’s knot still puls
ing gently inside him.
The air between them was thick with lavender and Alpha musk, their bond crackling even without a bite.