And I froze like prey.
Somehow, I hadn’t been afraid of him before, not even when he blackmailed me. Not even when he held me down and spanked me, or when he threatened me, or when he confined me to my room.
Nowhe scared me. My ass throbbed—not torn, but swollen and stretched and stinging from his abrupt withdrawal. And he looked like he was about to hurt me. The air around us quivered with his intent, with his alpha power, with the tension of my fright.
Declan’s knot had shrunk, but his cock hadn’t. He was as hard as he’d been when he started to fuck me.
As he lowered himself down, never looking away from me, somehow managing to prowl without doing more than leaning over, I realized he meant to do it again.
“Spread your legs, if you’re so eager to get fucked,” Declan said roughly.
I wasn’t sure I’d survive it, honestly, let alone being eager.
But I spread my legs.
He braced himself on either side of my chest and lined up his cock.
The first thrust didn’t hurt at all. He’d drenched my insides so completely, and knotted me so thoroughly, that I was as slick and open as I could possibly be. But the pressure of his long cock still had me breathless. My hands flew up of their own accord, locking around his biceps.
Declan grinned down at me, face only inches from mine. My cheeks burned. He didn’t need to say a single word to tell me he knew how well he’d subjugated me.
That didn’t mean he had to win, though.
Frightened or not, I never folded unless I knew I couldn’t bluff my way out of something.
I flung my legs around his waist, wrapping them tight and holding him down, buried in my body, gripping his arms tightly enough to bruise.
“Is that eager enough for you, Declan?”
“No,” he said, grin widening. “Not nearly.” He thrust again, constrained by the way I had him pinned to me, but not losing much by way of force, and gaining depth. I groaned and tightened around him. “I think you can slut it up a little more if you really try.”
I swallowed hard against the lump in my throat. That had been my plan, and it had been…working? Definitely working. That cold, indifferent mask he’d worn the other night had fallen away at last.
But now that he’d decided to fight back by demanding that I do what I’dmeantto do to irritate him, any words I could’ve thrown at him felt desperate, and embarrassing, and I wanted to turn my face away and close my eyes and hide.
Alphas didn’t getshy, for fuck’s sake.
Today we did, apparently. First time for everything. Fuck my life.
“Fuck me,” I whispered, and then winced. Gods. As dirty talk went, that didn’t score many points. “I want your knot again.” Oh, shit, I sounded so pathetic. Even though I actually meant every pitiful word.
Declan lifted a scathing, condescending eyebrow. Screw turning my face away and hiding. Spontaneous combustion might be my only way out.
He thrust again, slow and deep, stirring my insides more than fucking me.
“Nothing to say, Blake?” He leaned in even more, his breath brushing over my lips. It felt like a caress. Not quite a kiss, but adjacent. “About how you’ve given me what I want, and how it feels? I wouldn’t have thought a real alpha would’ve—”
“Don’t!” The word tore out of my throat and left it raw, my eyes filling, Declan blurring into a watery rainbow. “I am a real alpha!”
My wavering voice couldn’t have been less of an alpha’s firm tone if I’d tried. Gods, I probably wasn’t an alpha, somehow. Maybe my father had been forcing our shaman to do something to me all these years, too. Or I’d somehow been tainted by his lies and subterfuge and posturing, given an example that I could never live up to—because it was false all along. Stunted and ruined. Made weak.
I jerked my hands away from Declan’s arms and covered my face with them. Real alphas didn’t cry. We didn’t take other alphas’ knots, or whimper and beg to be fucked. I still had my legs locked around his waist, his cock buried to the hilt in me.
Until Declan leaned up, dislodging both my legs and his cock and pulling out of me, leaving me empty.
The mattress dipped as he got up. I didn’t move my hands. I didn’t want to see the contempt I knew I’d find on his face, in his body language. The eagerness to get the hell away from me as quickly as possible.
I felt it when he left the room, because the heaviness in the air eased a little.
