Page 8 of A Clutch for Hutch (Omegas of Animals #16)
Dirk
Everything happened so fast, and yet nothing was finalized.
And yet it was the most extraordinary night of my life. He was my mate without a doubt from the moment I scented him, days at least after he’d last visited Animals. But there were no rules that said he had to accept me if he didn’t like me for some reason.
Or at least so I’d heard. That Fate offered, but no one was forced to accept.
And yet, if those who said such things were pressed for details, they without exception had not one single case to cite.
Nobody they’d met, and nobody they could even mention by name had chosen not to accept the precious gift from Fate.
Was I going to be the first one?
By the time we reached the hallway outside my room, walls carved from the red stone of the Superstition Mountains, we were already kissing and yanking at the clothes we’d just put back on.
Most shifters shredded their clothes by accidentally shifting too fast, but we’d not been guilty of that.
Instead, we couldn’t get them off fast enough, and the tearing of scenes accompanied our first kisses, hugs, and groping.
Of course, we’d seen one another undressed while shifting, and I wasn’t enough of a liar to deny having stolen a peek at him. My mate was fine.
But, just as I reached for the knob to open the door and let him into my room—in a hurry because while shifters were comfortable with almost anything, to me, our first time, our mating was not only private but sacred—I let my hand drop. “First, I need to say something.”
His eyes were glazed, unfocused. “Yes, alpha? Do you want to stop? Are things moving too fast?”
Shifters generally went from meeting to mating in minutes if not seconds, but everyone was a little different, and our love story belonged to us alone. But that wasn’t why I needed to slow things down. I would gladly race to a life together without any fetters, but things were rarely so simple.
“No.” I licked my lips, swollen from our kisses. “I don’t want to stop, but there are things you need to know about me before we—before I mark you. The sensible thing would be to sit down now and have a long conversation.”
“Alpha, I don’t want to be sensible. I can’t. Whatever you need to say, I couldn’t listen with my blood pounding in my ears anyway. I don’t believe there is anything we can’t work out between us. But, please, make love to me now or I think I’ll explode.”
What would a fluffle alpha do in these circumstances? I didn’t know. And I wasn’t about to call my father and ask. My mate asked me to make love to him, and I wasn’t strong enough to refuse him.
Opening the door, I flicked the switch to turn on the lamp by the doorway, guided him inside and over to the bed, pleased we’d taken care of the undressing part of things before we got this far.
His arms came around my neck, his legs around my waist, and we melted together into one being.
I’d warned him we weren’t going to finalize things right now, at least not so far as marking went, but that didn’t mean I’d be able to walk away from him without a care or a thought.
If he chose to walk away after tonight, he’d do it without a mark binding him to me, and he’d ruin me for all others.
I had no doubt of that. I’d live with the duty imposed on me by another aspect of Fate and do it alone.
“Alpha?” he whispered, his warm breath along my jaw. “Do you want to wait?”
“Never, damn me. All I want is you.”
“Then, whatever we need to address will work itself out. Are you going to kiss me?”
Instead of answering, I showed him, lips crashing down on his, tongue darting between his and into his warm, welcoming mouth. My mate kissed like none other, and I savored it, wrapped in his scent and his body, unsure if it would ever happen again.
We knew almost nothing about each other beyond the fact that Fate destined us for one another, but would he want to step into my life as it was? With so much obligation? It was not the kind of honeymoon a newly mated couple would look forward to.
But as we kissed, as our hands roamed one another, conversation and thoughts of the future faded, replaced by desire. For sex, but mostly for the connection that sex would be for two mates who’d been looking for one another all their lives.
We fell onto the bed, and everything amped up by 100 percent or more.
I wasn’t capable of math judging at that moment.
I only knew that my mate lay on his back, his legs still wound around me and our lips locked together.
Something told me this position shouldn’t work, shouldn’t be possible, but it seemed fine, as I reached between us and closed my fist around his stiff cock.
It vibrated under my touch, Hutch’s gasps and moans against my mouth making it hard not to just flip him over and drive into him.
But it wasn’t meant to be like that. We would only have one first time, and I was not going to selfishly take him and not even be able to see his face. I had to postpone the marking, give him the chance to choose me and the life I’d already promised to lead—but it still could be beautiful.
My mate’s girth filled my hand, his fiery wood and spice scent amping up, and his hips bucked under my squeezing hand.
I worked up and down his shaft, stopping at the top to smooth the droplet of precum over the head before easing him away from me enough to take him in my mouth and suck.
He was trembling head to toe as I bobbed my head up and down, bringing the head of his cock into my throat each time.
His size made it hard to accomplish, but his fingers tangled in my hair and his cries for more, for me to keep going, made it worthwhile.
His taste was more to the spice end of his scent, like the best chai I’d ever had, and a part of me chuckled inside at the fact that I’d always loved the spicy tea. It seemed Fate had sent me some hints about who she had for me.
“Alpha, so good.” His voice wobbled, his fingers tightening, tugging my hair nearly from the roots. It should have hurt, and maybe it did, but it was the biggest turn-on of my life. I slid my fingers back, pausing to dandle his balls before finding his hole.
He was slick but still tight, and I inserted a fingertip, the tight ring of muscles fighting my progress.
I was not a slouch in the size department either, and I used the time I spent becoming familiar with my mate’s mouthfeel to prepare him for me.
One knuckle deep, the rest of the finger, and then another, a second to ease inside, stretching him, scissoring, sucking harder, faster, deeper.
Scraping my teeth down his shaft, eliciting a sharp jerk on my hair before his garbled cry, and then great gouts of cum spurting down my throat.
I swallowed, not wanting to waste a drop, gliding a fingertip across his prostate to extend his orgasm.
Then, lifting my head, I looked up the length of his body and sighed.
He lay panting, and although I was desperate to get inside him, with the edge off his own passion, I offered, “We can stop here for now…”