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Chapter Fifteen

Emma

I t took three long, smut filled days before Sloane roused from her heat, by which time, my body had enjoyed more pleasure than I’d thought it was capable of.

I’d learned a lot about Ryder during that time—he was comforting, attentive, and being held in his arms after he’d wrested a climax from me was the best feeling in the world.

I was falling for him, so bloody hard. I’d never wanted a relationship. I was supposed to be graduating in a few days, but all that paled in significance to the feelings I had for Ryder.

The message from Sloane was like a cold splash of water.

It reminded me that I had a life that didn’t begin and end with Ryder.

I had responsibilities. I’d barely checked my email for three days.

There was a job offer waiting for me, and I had life on the other side of the chain-link fence, a beta life, but Ryder didn’t fit into it any more than I fit into his world.

I felt his eyes on me as I stared at the text message.

“You okay, baby?”

We were naked and in bed. Ryder was lying sprawled out behind me, and I was sitting with my legs dangling over the side, my cell phone in my hands, staring at the message from Sloane.

It was a long message. She wanted to know if I was okay and told me how sorry she was for not answering me for three days.

She didn’t need to be sorry. I was relieved.

My fingers hovered over the keys. I needed to answer. She would start worrying if I didn’t.

I glanced back at Ryder, which was a mistake. His too long hair was messy and tangled from sleep. He looked like a big, sexy god sprawled out with a lazy smirk on his lips.

“Has Sloane finally roused?”

“Yeah,” I said, but I didn’t sound as enthusiastic as I should have.

He gestured toward the cell in my hand. “So are you going to message her back?”

“Yeah,” I said again. “Yeah, I am. I… This is really weird. I don’t know what to say.”

“Start with the basics,” he said. “Tell her you’re happy that she’s well. Tell her you can’t wait to see her.”

So I did.

I love you, Sloane. Please don’t apologize. I’m fine, I’m well. I know that Jace got you out. I’m relieved you’ve come through okay. I’ll be here when you’re ready.

Suddenly, everything welled up, and the back of my eyes stung with the heavy onset of tears.

“Hey?” He gathered me up into his arms as I started sobbing.

“I’m so happy that she is okay.” But it wasn’t only that.

It was also the recognition that this interlude was over.

I could see Sloane, and then I needed to go back home to my apartment—I’d received a message yesterday to say ownership had been transferred to me—to my friends, the job offers, and to the graduation ceremony that was only two days away.

It all felt surreal, empty, and meaningless. “Why do they separate alphas?” I asked. “Why do they do that? You’re not monsters or animals. You don’t deserve to be locked behind a chain-link fence.”

I was asking a deeper question, one pertaining to why we couldn’t be together.

“It’s complicated,” he said, and I sobbed harder. “There’s a lot going through your head, baby.”

“I can’t process any of it,” I said honestly.

“Don’t try to,” he said. “Take it a step at a time.”

My cell beeped with another message.

“You’re going to have to let her know that you’re here.

She can’t leave now. Omegas, they have no place in the beta world.

” There was bitterness and his tone. “And given how we busted her out of the Dawn Agency, we really don’t want to risk her face appearing on any security cameras.

” He nodded his head toward my cell. “Do you want me to sort this out for you?”

I dashed the tears from my cheek and heaved a troubled breath.

Cupping my face, he wiped the tears from my cheeks with the pads of his thumbs, but more fell to take their place. “Emma, do you want me to sort this out?”

“Yes.”

He grabbed his cell from the nightstand, swiped the screen, tapped a button, and held it to his ear. I could hear it ringing. Pressing a kiss to the top of my head, he slipped out of bed and moved to stand before the big window.

He was gloriously naked, and the dawn sky cast his big body into silhouette.

I drank him in greedily, wanting to store up the sculpted lines of his back, his broad shoulders, the trim waist, remembering how his muscled ass felt under my fingers as I’d held him to me when he came deep inside me a short time ago.

His hand raked through his hair, sending muscles rippling in his arm, shoulder, and back.

He said something I couldn’t quite hear from here, then he chuckled, threw a look over his shoulder at me, and winked.

My stomach performed a slow tumble. I was so freaking gone.

“Don’t you dare give me any shit… Yep… No problem.”

He hit the button on his cell. There was a slight delay before he turned around. “Better get your ass in the shower, baby. You got fifteen minutes.”

Fifteen minutes? Panic gripped me as I realized the state I was in. My hair was a knotty mess and a little crusted in places. I’d hardly slept since I entered Ryder’s room. I ached from head to toe…and my pussy was… full of cum.

Despite all of this, I wanted him again.

Tossing my cell to the bed, I surged up and nearly collapsed. My arm shot out to brace against the wall. Damn, I was in a worse state than I’d thought.

He was at my side, an arm anchoring around my waist. “Gez, Em. Take your time. Sloane has been in heat for three days. She’s not going anywhere.”

Slipping an arm under me, he carried me to the shower. “I can manage,” I said as he put me down on the mat. My sister had eagle eyes. She would notice something was up for sure if I couldn’t bloody walk.

Ryder paid no attention to my protests. Arm around my waist, he held my body against his as he put the shower on and tested the temperature, and like a freaking kitten being petted, I melted against him, enjoying the feel of his firm flesh against me.

Satisfied with the temperature, he lifted me in… and came right in with me.

It was a spacious shower, but with Ryder, it became far too intimate. Especially given I was trying to distance myself from everything we’d done.

Closing his big hand over the back of my neck, he planted my head under the spray.

I spluttered.

He chuckled, and that warm sound did stupid things to my heart.

“Hold still, Em. Let me get you all cleaned up.”

God! Why did that make my mind digress? Why was I thinking about him saying that yesterday before he pushed his head between my thighs and ate my pussy?

His broad palm connected with my ass, the clap loud and surprisingly sharp under the water. “Bad girl. I can practically hear your pussy creaming.”

“Oh god!”

He wasn’t wrong.

“Such a needy beta.” His voice was full of affection as he squirted a dollop of shampoo into his palm and vigorously lathered it into my hair. “Thinking about alpha cock when you should be getting showered.”

He was too rough about it, and my palms slapped against the cold tile wall.

He chuckled again and dunked my head under the jets to rinse me off.

I was still sputtering when he spun me around and backed me up.

I started as my back and ass hit the cold tiles.

With a familiar gleam in his eyes, he grabbed the shower gel, squirted a generous dollop into his hand, and proceeded to clean me up.

He started at my throat, then worked his way over my shoulders and all the way down to my fingers, then back up, lingering on my breasts, tugging tender, oversensitive nipples into hard points.

“You said we had fifteen minutes?” But I was meek under his spell, and a few minutes either way seemed unimportant against the feel of his big hands on my ass, squeezing, not even pretending to clean me anymore.

My breaths turned choppy as his slippery fingers played between my thighs.

As the soap bubbles washed away, he pressed two thick fingers into me.

My legs turned weak, and his other hand collared my throat, holding me against the wall as he finger fucked me.

“Oh god!”

“That’s my good girl,” he said, face intent, determination in every contour. “Let me clean you all up.”

He shifted, arm twisting, two fingers spearing my pussy and another sinking into my ass.

“Such a dirty, filthy girl,” he said. “How can I clean you up when your pussy keeps making a mess?”

I was going under again, sinking into the carnal spell Ryder cast with ease.

The shower was cool, but my skin felt feverish and my legs turned to jelly. I grasped Ryder’s wrist, where he held me pinned to the wall. If he weren’t holding me up, I’d have been a puddle on the floor.

Then his thumb found my clit, rubbing a little too roughly and yet driving me towards that glorious high at startling speed.

“God!” I came, gasping, groaning, shaking up a storm, half insensible. I blinked water from my eyes as he slowed his fingers to a lazy pump and finally eased them out.

I shuddered.

My eyes lowered to his thick cock, bobbing between us. In the last three days, he’d seemed intent upon keeping it out of my grasp.

“Please,” I said. “Let me.” My trembling fingers closed around his hot, silken length.

He groaned, and I liked that I could do this to him, this powerful male, an alpha weakened by my touch.

“I want you all the fucking time,” he said. “Every fucking minute.”

I pumped slowly, entranced by his size and by the faint swelling near the base. I couldn’t span my fingers around his girth. How did he fit this inside me? How did I take him?

I was shaking, body high in the wake of my climax. There was so much I wanted to do with Ryder, but our time was running out. Sloane would be waiting, scrambling to get ready, or maybe she was distracted by her alpha and would appreciate the time. A few moments wouldn’t matter either way.

“I want to do this.” My eyes pleaded. I needed to taste him. I hated how the shower washed over him and took his scent away. “Please let me.”