Page 9 of A Clutch for Hutch (Omegas of Animals #16)

Dirk

“Not in a million years.” Hutch pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, holding them in place. “If you do, I’ll never forgive you.”

I had just asked him if he wanted me to stop, to give him a chance to know what being my mate would let him in for, but his answer gave me great relief. I’d have backed off if he wanted me to, but I wasn’t sure I’d have lived through it.

“I wouldn’t want that.” Kissing the tip of his softening cock, I pushed up on my forearms and studied him. “No, I wouldn’t want to be responsible for your demise when there are so many things we haven’t experienced together yet.”

“Just in case something happens during the night, we’d better try to do as many of them as possible now.”

Skating my palms up his calves to his knees, I appreciated the fact he had opened himself so wide to my perusal. His slick glistened in the low light, enticing and sending my desire through the rafters—if there had been any rather than the stone from which all of these apartments were carved.

Placing the tip of my cock at his hole, I drew a deep breath, hoping I’d prepared him adequately. Causing pain was not my goal.

“Alpha,” he groaned. “Why are you making me wait?”

“Apologies, omega.” I rocked my hips forward, my tip popping past his muscles and leading the rest of my cock into his body.

More than sex, it was that connection I’d thought of a bonding even without the actual marking.

I hoped if he decided he didn’t want to share the life I found myself trapped in, he wouldn’t regret our time together.

Trapped? Did I really think of it that way? I hadn’t before, had I? Not in this way.

But I’d never had my cock buried in the heat of my mate’s body. Never known what he felt like, what his heat would do to me. Inch by inch, I sank in, his tension easing as I filled him until my balls slapped against his ass.

Incredible. “You’re so hot, mate.” I retreated and drove inside again, listening to his breathing and my heartbeat, staring into his beautiful eyes. Growing harder, wanting to make it last but also driven to come, to knot, to mark.

Hutch whispered encouragement to me, words so naughty, that sweet face colored red when he said them, but they were not making it easy for me to hold back and after a few short minutes, I gave up on even trying, spilling myself into him, into my omega, and marking him more deeply than teeth on his neck would ever have done.

My knot swelled, binding us together for longer.

I held him close, my mate, the dragon I’d been writing about all along.

No wonder I’d had such a hard time ever getting anything quite finished and ready to either submit to a publisher or even put it up myself as an independent writer.

Until I met Hutch, dragons had only been a figment of my imagination.

Nobody I’d ever known had met one, and I only knew of them from stories and movies and other “fictional” material.

Or at least stories with no real backup as being more than legends.

Everyone agreed they’d been around at some point, but most thought they’d died out long ago. And yet, I’d shifted with one, seen his magnificent wings, and wondered if I’d ever be able to create a novel that lent credence to the reality of dragons.

After a while, my knot shrank, and I moved my mate into a more comfortable position, my eyes growing heavy with exhaustion.

“Alpha?” Hutch’s voice broke through my descent into sleep. “Want to tell me why you didn’t want to mark me. Because, I can’t lie, I’m pretty sure we’re mated now, mark or no mark.”

“I just wanted to give you the option if you don’t want to step into my life.

Because I have commitments. I’m training to be the alpha of my pack, and my father is counting on me.

” I sucked in a breath, something I seemed to be doing a lot lately.

“My brother was born three minutes before me, and he was intended to be the alpha of the pack, but then he had this huge car accident, lost his hearing, and became ineligible. Even if Father had tried to make him alpha anyway, someone would have challenged him, either from outside or the fluffle itself, and basically the challenge would have come from me.” It tasted flat in my mouth, the sentence, but it was true.

And I did not want that job, but there it was.

Someone had to be responsible. Before I could figure out how to get out of it, my brother left, saved me from challenging him, hurting him or maybe worse—which was not happening.

But in saving me, he also cost me my freedom.

” I paused, waiting for the judgment. Surely someone else could have handled it better.

“That must have been rough.”

“You don’t think I was wrong?”

“I think you were in a corner, and you did what you had to. So, are you saying your mate would need to be the fluffle alpha’s luna?”

“We don’t use that term, but yes, whoever is my mate would have to come live in the fluffle and do the omega leader’s job. It’s not what I want, but it is what I committed to, and that’s why I didn’t mark you. You needed to know what committing to me was attached to.”

“Mate, I am committed to you. We’ll make it work one way or another, but I do want to be marked and start out together on our new life.

Then we’ll figure it out.” He wriggled until his throat was near my mouth.

“Please? I understand that your life is mine. If I need to work in the fluffle, move away from here, then I will. But we’ll figure it out. ”

I pierced his skin, fangs sinking deep, copper filling my mouth, marking my mate. Anyone who saw him now would know he had a mate, and the contentment that followed assured me we’d made the right decision.

I only hoped he wouldn’t regret the choice.

“Mate?” he said when the moment had passed. “If you don’t want to be the fluffle alpha, what do you want to do?”

“I want to write dragon romance.”

“That makes so much more sense.”