Page 10 of Omega Forged (Hartlock Omegas #2)

Tully

Do you want me?

What was I thinking right now? My lungs hurt but I couldn’t manage large breaths. I picked up the jacket Fenella flung at me days ago and scrunched it between my hands. I was supposed to clean it along with her laundry, but couldn’t bring myself to wash the scent off.

Trashy and cheap. She’d sneered at me, and I’d fought the urge to argue with her.

If it was so terrible, why did she insist on borrowing anything of mine to begin with?

The scents were fading, melding with mine and somehow that made it worse.

Teeth aching bubblegum. My fingers grappled with the material, pressing it closer.

Sweet, salt, and something fresh that sparked a long-buried memory.

Was I imagining things, or was there some hazelnut and coffee as well?

Heat pulsed between my legs, and slick soaked my panties. All I wanted to do was slide under my covers and trace the quivering flesh of my thighs. The brush of my fingers was almost too much, after so long.

“Always,” Lloyd replied.

There was a devotion in his voice that couldn’t be faked. Could it? I wanted to open up to Lloyd and let him help carry my burdens. Everything he’d said earlier just made my insides soft with more longing.

“I think about you all the time,” I admitted.

It was an act of madness. But ever since he broke through my defenses and promised he wanted to get to know me, things changed.

I wanted his husky voice to lull me to sleep, to wake in the morning to his blurry, handsome face.

The numbness inside had taken over everything, and I didn’t realize until Lloyd made me feel again.

“Good thoughts?” I wanted to taste the hitch in his breath from the outside.

I replied, before I could second-guess myself. “Dangerous ones.”

I played with the hem of my plain pajamas and sank into his widening pupils. His pink cheeks would feel good pressed against my skin. Lloyd reached across his bed and pulled a cushion across his groin.

“Tell me. I want to know everything about you,” he said, breathless.

Foolish, reckless thoughts rattled against my skull. Fluttered in my stomach. Seized my lungs. Wasn’t this better than the endless cold nothing I’d been subsisting on? Did it matter if I gave in? As soon as I raised the money, I would be on my way to Astaly, and Lloyd would be a distant memory.

Would it be so bad to give in to my desires? My eyelids flickered, chasing pleasure. I didn’t answer, instead, I slid my fingers between my legs. Heat pulsed through the cotton. I swallowed a moan as I rubbed the heel of my hand on my clit.

This was so stupid. But the sparks built, and I sucked in a sharp breath.

“Fuck. Honey girl. That wasn’t what I meant, don’t start something if—” he bit off with a curse, eyes glued to my hand.

My heel pressed against my tender nub, warring with the need to chase an orgasm and wanting to draw out the perfect torture. Prickles coasted over my skin, and every nerve ending fired. The lingering scents from the jacket set fire to my skin. The flame chased out cobwebs from my insides.

“If what?”

“If it’s not a transaction. I don’t want just your body, Tahlia, but everything. It’s ok if you don’t feel the same way.”

I hadn’t even been thinking of money. My heart swelled with his warm seafoam eyes and his boyish, charming grin. Of the nervous hitch in his voice when he spoke to me. My clit throbbed under my desperate hand as I warred with my tight chest.

Stupid . Desperate. You’re embarrassing.

I balanced on the edge, ignoring the voice that berated me. I didn’t want Lloyd’s money, just him. To pretend that this was real for a moment. Pretend? If I was honest, there was nothing fake about what I felt in my chest for Lloyd. My insides quivered at the risk and mounting need.

Nobody ever accused me of being intelligent.

“Tahlia?” The tight timbre of his voice dragged a groan from my throat.

“Lloyd.” I loved the way he moaned in response. “I can’t make any promises.”

He didn’t reply immediately, and my heated flesh distracted me. Slick dripped down my thighs and my pussy ached for the pressure of a cock. To be stuffed full and claimed. Lloyd exhaled, and the sound caressed my body.

“Do you care about me? Or is this strategy for you?”

I almost dropped my phone and let out a strangled noise. I wasn’t capable of the things he asked me, not with accusation, but with tender hurt covered by curiosity. This man was an open book, and I wanted to be as well.

“I knew from our first conversation I was in trouble with you, Lloyd. I never thought I’d share anything of myself with anyone again.”

Lloyd groaned and his gaze was fevered.

“So touch yourself, honey girl. I want you to come for me.”

I slipped my fingers underneath my pajamas and between my slick, covered thighs. I couldn’t muffle the wet sounds my fingers made as I played with myself. The phone slid out of my hand onto the bed, and I reached to cup one of my breasts. My bra was soft, but it constricted me.

Lloyd swallowed with an audible gulp. “Does it feel good?”

“Ugh, yes,” I whimpered, my fingers danced over my fevered flesh. “I wish it was you, though,” I added, committing to the insanity of this moment.

Chase never made me feel like this. Quick, secretive, and greedy with his desire. Our trysts left me aching, always. I thought it was circumstance; the illicitness of our arrangement didn’t lend itself to languid pleasure. Not when someone might catch us together.

I ached in my blood and breath. It was torture I wanted to exist in, with my knowing touch and Lloyd’s desperate voice. Every hitched breath and sharp grunt satisfied me more than any orgasm Chase failed to give me.

“I want to see you,” I whispered. “Do you want to watch me?”

“You want to kill me?” He sounded like a taut thread, and I controlled whether he snapped.

My muscles trembled as I clamped my hand between my legs, coasting to the edge of orgasm. The heady scent on the jacket, combined with Lloyd’s gravelly voice and heavy breathing. I floated on the sound, closed my eyes until it overflowed my ears. I swallowed hard and pleasure flared like a comet.

“Tell me you want me,” I begged through the haze of desire.

“Always, forever,” Lloyd whispered, and it sounded like a brand on his soul.

Stupid. The voice in my head was a wisp, and I batted it away.

I’d rather be stupid with fire in my veins than safe and numb. The realization rolled through me, taking with it the shadows I wore like a shroud. I could be no one but myself. And Tully Hartlock might be naive, stupid, and spontaneous. But this felt right. Fated.

I fumbled with the phone.

Slick coated my fingers, and I sucked it off before propping the screen up and framing it between my legs. My thighs trembled, and my entire body followed. I clicked on the video and leaned back. Lloyd would have the perfect view of my sopping pussy, but not my face.

What would my parents say if they saw their precious Hartlock daughter baring everything to a stranger?

The sting of shame only emboldened me. I wasn’t a perfect Hartlock, and I never would be. Let me take what illicit pleasures I wanted. It wouldn’t be the first time. I wished I could see Lloyd, but that would mean him seeing me, too.

“You look so sweet. My honey girl,” Lloyd gritted out, panting through the phone.

I shivered at the nickname. It was my username, and a front, just like Tahlia was.

But hearing him say it made me melt into the mattress.

I moved my fingers lazily, spreading my lips to show him my most precious self.

Soft, throbbing velvet. My want was silk with teeth, and the bite of pleasure whipped me into rolling my hips.

I was wanton and wild. But also, safe.

I knew Lloyd would cherish this as a gift, not leer at me like a whore. What was it about this man that made me do things I promised I never would do again?

“I need you, Lloyd,” I breathed and dipped two fingers inside my channel.

I pumped until my channel clenched with hard, desperate hunger.

It wasn’t enough and my body grew hot with the desire for more than I could offer.

I imagined Lloyd’s cock inside me. His slow and delicious thrusts.

I chased the ripe edge of pleasure, catching the sweet nectar on my tongue but never a full bite.

Until Lloyd spoke and his voice filled me from the inside out. The tone of it beckoned, promised, and coaxed me in its tender hold.

“Touch that needy clit, Tahlia, pretend it’s my tongue. One day, I’ll give you exactly what you need. Scream my name. I want you to crave me like I do you.”

My fingers obeyed his command, pinching my clit as I swallowed needy sounds.

My thighs tingled and shivered; the release built like a firework.

I wanted him. Needed to taste his devotion for sustenance.

Craved him like the burning air in my lungs.

I knew it would be everything he whispered.

Promises had duped me before, but they’d been missing this.

The emotion, the desperation, the utter need that bled into every breath he made.

“Lloyd.” I want you .

The steep ascent to pleasure made me toss my head. I gasped at the lust that choked my throat. My body shook with the weight of my need. The edge of it suffocated, it strangled. The pleasure took on a desperate, pained edge. But I leaned into it.

“You’re close, aren’t you? Give it to me. Paint those pretty thighs, honey girl.”

My core tightened, and I wondered if he was touching himself too. I wanted him to. So driven by the sight of my body, he couldn’t stop himself. I needed the yearning in his tone to be real.

“I-I-I’m so close. Are you going to come with me?” I stuttered and Lloyd muttered an expletive under his breath.

The sound of him shucking his pants dragged a breathless laugh up my tight throat. I throbbed all over, between my legs and my chest.

“Trying to be a gentleman here. But if you want to hear me come, I won’t deny you.”