“You can’t shut me out.” His breath shudders over the shell of my ear.
The hair on my nape rises. It was him all along. He’d been here with me, and I’d known it and yet I’d tried to ignore it. Hoping if I pretended enough, he wouldn’t actually be here…if I tried enough, I’d forget everything that had happened to me.
I sense his presence pull at me through the bond, feel his need seep through my blood, my soul, and I know then, as much as I pretend, things will never be the same. That I can’t hide from him, or from myself. He places his palm over my hand, then spreads my fingers flush against the shower wall before doing the same with the other.
Trailing his hands over my arms, he traces the lines toward my back, down my spine to the curve of my hips.
I sense him sink to his knees, then he licks the swell of my butt to where the cheeks part in the middle.
Desire thuds at my nerves. I feel the blood rush to my face and huh, why am I blushing now? He’s already done so much to my body, he knows every inch of my skin, and yet as he parts my butt cheeks and slips his tongue into the puckered hole there, I find my muscles clenching. I press my fingers into the stone wall. His arm wraps around my front, and he skims his fingers through my core, his touch gentle, almost comforting. He thrusts a thumb into my soaking channel, and I moan, my lower belly stuttering then unfurling. He moves his other arm up to cup my breast, caress it, tweak it.
The first stirrings of a climax tremble up from my soles.
I shudder, and my knees quake. He seems to sense it, too, for he grips my hips and turns me around.
Before I can crack my eyes open, he spreads my thighs apart, then flips one of my legs over his shoulder.
Then he plunges his tongue into my wet core, sucking, nibbling, biting on my clit.
The climax surges up my spine and sweeps over my nape to break into little flickers of light behind my closed eyelids.
My other knee gives out from under me, and I slide down against the shower wall, only for him to rise, and prop me up. He wraps my legs around his waist, angles his hips and plunges into me, again and again.
I can’t stop myself from holding on to his broad shoulders, from burying my teeth into his shoulder, from groaning, moaning his name, and letting the slickness flow out to welcome him as his knot locks into place.
His groan echoes over the sound of the shower and he pours his very essence into me.
We stay that way, joined up until the water runs cold.
Then he flicks off the shower and, with him still inside me, steps out of the stall. He grabs a towel and covers me with it, running it over my back, my hair.
I cling to him, refusing to open my eyes, letting the tiredness tug me under, allowing him to care for me again. Knowing I must protest. Knowing I will take every last drop of concern he shows me, and hating myself anyway.
This time when sleep claims me, I embrace it just as I embrace the monster to whose chest I cling as I burrow into it.
When I wake, I am alone in bed.
I watch him as he works out in a corner of the room, naked from the waist up. Seeing the light that filters through the window to frame him, lighting the honey brown of his skin, tracing the scars that mark his back, the tattoos on his arms that move with each ripple of his muscle, I realize he is not only powerful but there is a certain poetry to how he moves. A fluidity. He goes through what is clearly a morning routine…a mix of tai chi and calisthenics and yoga, which seem easy to follow but I know must take complete concentration.
Sweat glistening on his shoulders, he finally stretches out. There’s a knock at the door, and the alpha I’d noticed when I’d broken into the Ascension ceremony walks in.
Zeus crosses the room and takes the tray of food from him. He shoves his considerable bulk in front of the other alpha, shutting out the room and me from sight.
They speak low enough that I cannot decipher the words. The man nods, then leaves without a glance in my direction.
When Zeus turns, his gaze locks with mine.
I expect him to command me to eat… To drink… To fuck… To sleep?
I brace myself for his touch, for him to show me again that he is more powerful, my alpha. Instead, he swaggers to the table by the window and slides the tray onto it. He slugs down half a bottle of water, then places it back on the table. He grabs up the vest that’s flung over the chair and shrugs it on, then drops into the chair. Reaching for the pot of coffee, he pours himself a cup.
A tangy, bitter aroma fills the space. My nostrils twitch, and my mouth waters.
He takes a sip of the steaming liquid and his eyes close in appreciation. My stomach growls. The bastard’s not going to offer it to me. I need to go there and get it for myself. I swing my feet over, looking around for clothes. There are none, except for a shirt that belongs to him. Standing, I reach for it, pull it on. It dwarfs me, and the fabric smells like him. It feels like I am wrapped up in layers of his essence. I open my mouth to protest then pause. I need him to think that I am accepting my situation. Crossing over, I slide into the chair opposite him.
“Good morning.” I pour myself a cup of coffee. So fucking civil. I sound so fake even to my own ears, he’s going to see right through me.
He nods at me over his cup.
Well, what do you know? He’s buying my act?
His lips curve up, and the skin around his eye’s crinkles. He’s been expecting me to fall in with his plans all along.
I curl my fingers around the cup and very much want to fling it at him. Instead, I lower it and place it carefully on the table.
Reaching for a buttery croissant, I drop one on his plate, then slide another onto mine and break it.
“I don’t trust this supplication from you.” He leans back in his chair. “What is it you really want, Lucia Erasmus, Czarina of Russia. Why are you really here?”
27
Lucy
I pause with the croissant halfway to my lips, and stare at him.
Spit drools from my open mouth.
For once, all of the graces instilled in me since childhood, since I was brought up as the treasured omega in the household of the Czar of Russia, desert me. But then it has been a long time since anyone has called me by my full name. The name which I’d hoped I’d left behind when I escaped from Russia.
I’d run away from the arrangement my father had in mind for me…straight into a bond with an alpha who is much more fearsome.
Why is it that everywhere I turn there is always a man who wants to hold me down, collar me, bond to me, make me feel like I am secondary, only an omega?
‘You’re not an average omega…’ My mother’s voice echoes in my ears. ‘You are a pure-born omega who carries in your blood the genes of the Russian royal family. The genes that guarantee your offspring will not only be strong but be resistant to most diseases, blessed with the ability to foresee, a kind of intuition that many would kill for.’
And yet I hadn’t foreseen my own future, that I would walk straight into this trap, have an alpha cage me, bond to me.
Or was that why I had brokered the deal with Kayden, knowing I couldn’t possibly trust the Scottish alpha? Knowing it would be a trap, that he was bound to claim me? No, even before. From the time I first heard my father mention Zeus’ name, talk about his prowess and how he’d taken over as General, I’d known an affinity for him right from then.