At last, the overwhelming sensory input from the formation of the mating bond faded slightly, and I opened my eyes and tried to readjust to reality. Same white pillow. Same off-white wall. The familiar sounds from outside: a lawnmower in the distance, the buzz of a helicopter passing overhead. Birds chirping in the tree by my bedroom window.
But it all hit me at a slight angle, off-kilter. Like the world had shifted around me, only I knew it hadn’t. I was the one who’d changed.
And I had Dimitri wrapped around me, his cock buried inside me, and his bite on my neck.
A shudder ran through me, and Dimitri stiffened. “Fuck, please tell me you’re not having another seizure,” he said roughly, his breath ruffling my hair. “You were shaking when we fucked, too, and your muscles clenched up. Dammit, if I’d known I wouldn’t—”
“I’m fine,” I whispered. For a certain value of fine, anyway. “Not a seizure.”
Every cell in my body tingled and twitched. But not because of Hensley’s.
“Okay. Let’s roll over so I can lie down without crushing you.”
“No, wait—”
But it was too late, and he’d already moved his arm, slipping his hand down toward my stomach to hold me in place, probably so his knot wouldn’t damage me by tugging out when we moved.
He went still again, his hand resting against my betrayingly sticky skin. “So. Not a seizure starting when we were fucking.”
“I said it wasn’t, didn’t I?”
“No need to get defensive.”
“I’m not defensive!”
Dimitri laughed, shaking my whole body and particularly jostling my tender insides.
“Ow!” I shoved my ass back against him, trying desperately to keep his knot in place.
“Sorry.” He tightened his grip around my waist and finally rolled us over onto our sides, slipping his other arm under my head. It did not feel good. At all. Warm and solid and supporting me in the perfect position to relax. But not good. I tried to hold myself up a little, but then Dimitri petted my belly, and I gave in and let my head flop against his bicep. “See? This isn’t so bad. It even made you come. Win-win.”
“It didn’t make me come,” I gritted out, even though he could feel the evidence for himself. “That was some kind of weird…reflex. A mating thing.”
“A mating thing.”
The heavy skepticism in his tone had me itching to smack him in the face. Simultaneously, I wanted nothing so much as to snuggle down and sleep for a week wrapped securely in his arms.
Thatwas definitely a mating thing.
“Yeah, a mating thing. You seemed to enjoy it, right? So it’s not just me.”
Dimitri’s arm tightened around my waist. “You have an incredibly tight ass. Made it a little easier to stay hard.”
I let out a sigh, very slowly, forcing my blood pressure to stay at a normal level. What had I been expecting, hearts and flowers? I’d known my prospective mate wasn’t exactly the poetic type, and I didn’t like that kind of thing anyway.
We had a job to do. We’d accomplished the first step. And I needed to be satisfied with that—and yeah, it made me smile to think of how nonplussed my father would be when he found out I’d chosen my own damn alpha, thank you—forget everything else, and move on to the next part of my plan.
“Glad it wasn’t too awful for you,” I said, keeping the sarcasm in my tone dialed down to an impressive four or so on a scale of ten. “As soon as we’re not tied together, we need to talk about what happens when we tell my parents. Make some plans.”
“You’re the boss,” he said without any bite. “Big, dumb, polite, and silent. I’m just following orders here.”
Well, that showed the proper spirit, at least.
And if his sarcasm had edged closer to a six out of ten, I could pretend to ignore it.
I closed my eyes and let myself drift for a bit, relaxing into the cradle of Dimitri’s big body. Fuck it. I could take a nap before we got anything else done.
***
