Page 25 of Protector (Alpha Ties)

TWENTY-FIVE

ADDIE

I’m warm into the marrow of my bones.

Even before my consciousness fully returns to the surface, I sense him—underneath me, around me… inside me.

Before I can stop myself, my core clenches as if expecting his presence to be physical, but it’s his awareness I feel, not his body. There’s a distinct burn of disappointment from my abdomen at that discovery.

“Mmh,” I moan sleepily, hiking the knee I’ve got over his thighs higher and rubbing my nose against his warm, bare chest. I’m wet between my legs; needy, and for a brief, blissful moment, that knowledge isn’t followed by icy dread.

He sniffs my hair, and a deep rumble vibrates against me everywhere we’re touching. But his acknowledgement of my need isn’t followed by touch.

The dichotomy finally snaps me free of the drowsy comfort, and my stomach clenches with fear. I stiffen against the large male, darkness threatening the edges of my consciousness… but still, he does nothing. Nothing except hold me.

There is no pain. No forced submission. Just his slow, even breaths and the steady drum of his heart.

It’s enough to remind me that this alpha is safe. That I’m the one in control.

I pop my head up to look at him and catch his green eyes. He’s watching me closely, as aware of my every movement as I am his.

Stars, he’s handsome. I’ve never allowed myself to look at him as a man, and I know I shouldn’t now. He’s not, he’s not, he’s not.

My brain tries to desperately remind me that he’s barely more than animated flesh and artificial intelligence, tries to remind me that I can’t ever doubt that, can’t see him as a person, or I would have to consider?—

I don’t allow myself to finish that thought. My body doesn’t have the wiring to differentiate between a man and… him, that’s all. He looks real, feels real… smells real. And as much as I hate what I had to order him to do to save my life, that part is very much not make-believe. Our bond is real. My need for him is horrifying truth—there is no point in pretending anything else. He’s the only one who can take away the perpetual darkness, and the closer I allow him, the better I’ll feel.

I open my mouth to command him, but I can’t get the words out.

Give me pleasure. It’s no worse than any other order I’ve given him over the years, no more degrading, if he had the capability of feeling such things. Judging from the persistent bulge where my knee is resting against the front of his jeans and how eagerly he touched me yesterday, it wouldn’t even be against his will. But…

His eyes darken, his gaze heating as he dips it to my parted lips. Definitely not against his will.

Just tell him, Addie. He’s yours to command.

Another rumble vibrates through the wide chest beneath me—an impatient sound. The smolder inside—it’s not just my own. His lust fans through our bond, yet he holds himself back. It dawns on me that he knows touching me without consent might make the icy darkness return.

Consent.

“Do you want to—?” I whisper, awkward and flustered and hating that I’m asking rather than demanding, but he cuts me off before I can finish the question.

“Yes.” He rolls me off his shoulder and onto my back. My panties are halfway down my thighs before I can blink.

“Oh,” I breathe, then suck in a startled gasp as he dips a hand down between my thighs and up against my molten pussy. Right where I need him.

“Fuck,” he groans. He pulls back, and I hear the distinct sound of his zipper lowering, followed by another groan, this time of relief.

Panic sparks down deep in my brain stem, but before I can retreat, tell him to stop, his warm fingers curl around my jaw, anchoring me.

“Not until you’re ready,” he rumbles as he resumes his position on an elbow above me.

I look back up into his eyes. Everything melts away—fear, awkwardness, hesitance—leaving nothing but aching, bone-deep longing in its wake.

I lunge for his mouth. I grunt on impact, but the flash of pain in my lips vanishes in a blaze of heat when his tongue flicks first over them, then between.

Mother of all there is, this— I need this.

I’m barely aware of wrapping my arms around his neck. His lips are soft, but his kiss—his kiss is all-consuming, all-demanding. Dominating.

He slips his warm fingers back between my legs, trailing them over my lower lips to circle my drenched entrance a few times, picking up enough wetness to coat the tips. And then, mercifully, he’s there.

“Holy shit!” I toss my head back into the pillow, separating our kiss to hiss out a string of expletives as he wastes no time in unleashing every ounce of pent-up desire on my defenseless clit. “Shit, fuck, oh my God!”

It’s not like the first time we woke together, not by a long shot. He was gentler then, coaxing—because that’s what I needed. This time, I need it hard, deep, and oh , he knows it.

I cling to his shoulders, whimpering with every tight little circle he rubs into my clit and deep, deep into my pelvis. And then his lips press against mine once more, and he swallows my mewls with a kiss that curls my toes and tightens my nipples, all without ever relenting on my clit.

His scent is in my nostrils, warm and spicy and alpha. His body hovers above mine, powerful, protective… He is everywhere, filling my senses until my mind can focus on nothing but him—him, and the promise of release.

Everything is tight, aching heat, and when he pulls back from our kiss to let me breathe, I’m lost in the maelstrom.

“Oh, God, yes, Jacob!”

He stills. A furious snarl ripples through the air between us, but I can only focus on the sudden end to the pleasure.

“No, no, don’t stop!” I dig my nails into his shoulders. “I’m so close. Please—please!”

He moves his hand from my clit, and I whine pathetically at the loss—only I needn’t have. In the next second, a thick finger parts me lower down, then slips deep into my soaking channel. Opening me.

I croak and still, eyes wide. Inside me. He’s inside me.

“Who the fuck is Jacob?” he growls.

I stare up at him, up at the furious alpha penetrating me. It doesn’t hurt. Not even a little. In fact… I suck in a gasp of air. It feels… it feels…

Another finger wedges in next to the first digit, sinking deep. Spreading my pussy. And I… I lose the last vestiges of my control.

“Yes, alpha, please!” I don’t recognize my own voice—sultry, wanton—but I’m too deep in instincts to care. He’s in me, and oh fuck, he belongs there. I can feel it in every cell of my overheated body. I throb for him, ache for him.

I am for him.

“Who is he?” he snarls again. The hand not at my pussy comes up to wrap around my throat. “Who?”

“W-What?” My mind’s too foggy to make much sense of anything but the knowledge that he’s angry with me, and if he’s angry, he won’t give me what I need.

“Jacob. The man you call for. Who is Jacob?” AX2 bares his teeth at me, spreading the fingers in my pussy to force me wider. “Tell me right fucking now, or so help me?—”

I have a vague sense of urgency—somewhere past the fog, a warning bell chimes, but I’m too lost to remember why. All I know is that I need this. I need him.

“You,” I gasp. “It’s you.”

His eyes widen with raw shock.

“Please,” I moan. “Please, I need you. Please, please!” I’m so lost to instincts I didn’t know I possessed, I forget I could command him. It seems an impossible thing— me, commanding him. He is my alpha—he is inside me, and I am nothing but animated flesh and primordial need. Born to submit.

A tidal wave of molten heat replaces the look of shock in his darkened eyes. A flex of his fingers in my pussy has me throwing my head back and whimpering, my hips squirming to give him better access, but my legs are caught in my panties still halfway down my thighs.

“Say it again,” he rasps.

“What?”

A deep thrust of his fingers makes me arch off the bed.

“Tell me you need me.” Another thrust. And another.

“F-Fuck! I need you!” I cry, then shriek when his movements quicken to a liquid rhythm and his thumb finds my clit. Everything is pleasure—pure, blinding ecstasy. There’s no room for fear, no room for disgust at my mind’s surrender. There is only him.

I wrap my arms around his neck and reach for his lips with mine. He kisses me hard—makes me moan into his mouth, then has me tossing my head back on another cry with a particularly firm circle on my pulsing clit. I’m so close!

“Again!” he growls.

“I need you!” I pant, meeting his blazing gaze. “I need you, Jacob.”

There is too much emotion in his eyes—I can’t decipher it. But I don’t need to.

He barely slows the pace of his thrusting fingers when he slips a third into me, opening me hard.

“Ah! Fuck!” I squeeze my eyes shut, squeeze his fingers, confused and wild with sensation—but my pussy knows what to do.

“That’s it. Good girl,” he groans when my slick muscles begin to massage him rhythmically. I feel every inch of his fingers, the hardness of his bones—so right, so good, but still not… not exactly…

“I’m gonna make you come,” he whispers, his soft tone taking none of the gravel from his voice. “First on my hand, and then?—”

“Yes, please, please!” I mewl, rocking back against his thrusts, against his thumb’s maddening circles on my clit.

“Tell me you’re ready. Tell me you need me all the way inside,” he pants.

“Yes!” I howl. Every muscle in my body is tight like a bowstring, and all I need is just one more thrust, one more push?—

“Addie! Addie, get up, I— oh.”

I’m not sure I would have even noticed the sound of my bedroom door banging open, nor the man striding through it, if it wasn’t for my alpha jerking his head around to snarl at the intruder—abruptly ceasing his stimulation of my pussy. His fingers, though, are still buried deep when I look up and lock eyes with my father.

No. No, no, no!

I squeak and scramble for the duvet while my father turns halfway around to stare at the window. “My apologies, but this cannot wait. I’ve just been told—the AX soldiers are gone.”

“What? What do you mean, gone?” I try desperately to force my brain into action, but between my body still begging for release and the utter mortification of my father seeing things he definitely shouldn’t have, it’s hard to focus on anything else. AX2’s fingers stubbornly remaining inside me aren’t helping, either. I kick him in the elbow, but he doesn’t so much as flinch.

“I mean they’re gone. That’s all the detail I got. Get dressed—both of you. We need to go. Hopefully we can figure out where the hell they are before anyone finds out about this disaster.”