Page 131 of Alpha Mates

“It’s not,” I mumble as I watch his arm drop. “It’s not, but how else amI supposed to react, Aiden?”

“I get the shock,” he allows, nodding slightly. “I get the fear too. What I don’t get is why you hate the thought of it so much.”

“I don’t,” I protest, because this isn’t hatred.

“Then what is it?” he asks, and I hate how unsure he sounds. “Is it something else?”

Yes. No. Maybe.

I like when you take control, but do I give in to you because I’m supposed to be your Luna? Is that why you think I should submit to you like this? Can’t I submit without being the one on the bottom? Do I have to submit to you in every single way?

Am I the one in heat?

The questions swarm, but I don’t dare voice them.

“No,” I lie. It tastes bitter, but I swallow it. “I just don’t see why it has to be me.”

“It doesn’t have to be you,” Aiden says as he risks a step forward. When I don’t retreat, he takes another. “It doesn’t have to be you, but… I guess I assumed you would want to, and I’m sorry if I shouldn’t have.”

He hooks his finger in one of mine, tugging my arms down with a touch that’s small, but massively comforting. It does more for me than he can ever know.

“When I thought about us mating, that’s where my mind went,” he admits, holding my gaze. “I thought about how we are when it’s just us.”

Those words remind me of the first time he’d said them.

Intimacy with Aiden doesn’t scares me the way it once did. Kissing him is natural now, so much so that we do it all the time, and these days, even those innocent kisses usually end with us doing a little more.

The first time we’d done ‘a little more’ Aiden had made me come just playing with my nipples, and that had been horrifying, yes, but also good. Today was no different. If anything, it was better when he splayed me over the table and took what he wanted, and I … I’d given it to him.

I sigh, carding my fingers through my hair as my entire body slumps.

“What?” Aiden asks, immediately in panic mode.

“I see why you’d assume I’d be the one to be on the bottom,” I manage around the lump in my throat.

“And realising that made you sigh like you just died on this inside?” he counters with an offended frown. “I know it’s not what you expected, but it’s not that bad, Julian.”

“Not that bad?” I counter with a huff. “Try saying that when you’re the one who’s supposed to get fucked by a guy when you weren’t even gay a month ago!”

That makes him straighten all at once as his expression hardens.

“First off, I’m not any guy,” he says as he takes my face in his hands so I can’t look away. “I’m yours and you are mine.”

I swallow past something warm and stupid that erupts in my chest. I try to pull away, but he tightens his grip on me, his gaze like steel.

“And I won’t be fucking you,” his voice drops lower, making me shiver as his eyes slide between mine. “I’ll be making love to you.”

“What … what’s the difference?” I ask, edging back, but for every step I take, he closes the distance until I’m pressed against the column between the kitchen and the living room.

Reacquainting his hand with my waist, he presses me into the wall and his body follows to keep me there. My breath hitches as he slides a leg between mine, and all too quickly, I’m liquid heat, ready to mould into whatever he wishes. Instead, he lowers his head to my ear, the rushed breaths that slip past his lips tickling.

“Well, for one, I’m going to pay attention to every single part of you,” he whispers, fingers lifting to brush up the length of my neck. It’s feather light, so gentle that I barely feel it, but the sensation—it makes me feel as if he’s touching me all over.

“I’ll make sure you feel better than you’ve ever felt before, make you feel things you’ve never felt before,” he vows as his lips slide over my ear before he tugs it with his teeth. I bite my lip to stifle a moan.

“I’ll show you exactly how you make me feel,” he continues as he shifts lower to kiss my cheek lightly. “How much you mean to me.” He moves my shirt aside to press another maddening kiss to my shoulder. “How badly I want you …” His leg presses harder against my cock and his grip tightens gradually. “… need you—”

He lavishes every inch of my skin he can with devoted kisses, making his way up my neck and across my jaw until finally his eyes find mine. He lets his lips brush against mine, then he looks straight through me, stares into my soul.