Page 50 of The Runaway
“Which of the omegas is she particular friends with?”
Niles looked back at him blankly. “I don’t know.”
“Then it sounds like that’s the root of your problem, right there. It’s very easy to get our perspectives skewed from always looking down from our ivory tower, but it’s actually relatively simple. Adalene has opinions and ideas and preferences that may well be very different to your own. She’s not just an omega or a slave, no matter how comfortable a slave she might be. She’s a human being. And if you want to bond with her, you need to see the whole of who she is, not just your idealised notion of who you want her to be. It’s a hard truth, Niles. But if you’re serious about your relationship with her, you need to be willing to dig a little deeper than how nice it would be to have someone who worships the ground you walk on.”
Niles’s eyes narrowed, the barb hitting home. “That’s not-” He cut himself off before he could finish whatever he’d been about to say. Gabriel smiled as Niles’s shoulders sagged and he sighed. There was hope for the boy yet.
???
Gabriel was dreaming. He knew he was dreaming, but somehow, even knowing that didn’t make his guilt any less real. He was in the stable, in one of the horses’ stalls, and Connor was in front of him, naked as the day he was born, presenting his ass for Gabriel to slide into. Gabriel’s hands grasped Connor’s hips, feeling surprisingly real and solid. Was this a dream? Yes, he was almost certain it was.
“Fuck me, alpha,” Connor pleaded, and yes, that meant it certainly was a dream. Connor would never ask such a thing in reality. And if it was a dream, that meant Gabriel could slide inside his warm, tight body and there would be no repercussions. No need for guilt. No chance of Connor actually getting hurt. God, how he wanted to. He leaned down to inhale the scent at Connor’s neck. It was exactly as he remembered it from Connor’s heat, musky and tangy, and he felt his erection throb.
He shouldn’t do this. There were so many reasons it was wrong, and yet none of them would really apply if this was a dream. Did Connor want this? Or was dream Connor just saying what Gabriel wanted him to say, when real Connor would be telling him to fuck off and leave him alone?
He reached his hand down to wrap around his erection, feeling the thick, hard length of himself. That, at least, was probably real. And if he stroked himself… no, that was also a bad idea, but he couldn’t quite remember why. God, he wanted this to be real. He wanted to be with a real naked Connor, and this vague, twisted imagining was only making the longing worse.
With a sharp inhalation, Gabriel woke, opening his eyes to a dark, blank ceiling. He was in his bed, in his room, threads of moonlight sneaking in around the curtains. He cursed to himself as the dream faded out, the images of Connor’s naked body evaporating like mist in the morning sun. But one thing that didn’t fade as wakefulness took over was Gabriel’s raging erection. His hand wasn’t actually wrapped around it, as it had been in the dream, but the slightest shift of the bedsheets sent shivers racing through him as smooth cotton stimulated over-sensitive nerves.
“Fucking hell,” he muttered, throwing back the sheets. It was two weeks since Connor’s heat. Two weeks of heated dreams and waking with a raging erection. Two weeks of trying to avoid Connor and doing everything in his power to distract himself from thinking about sex.
He couldn’t do it anymore. He’d become stroppy and short-tempered lately, and he was well aware that it was a direct result of his unsatisfied libido. He needed release. And since mating with an omega was still entirely out of the question, there was only one other possibility. It was a crude option, messy and uncouth, but given the circumstances, it was the only acceptable way for Gabriel to solve his current problem.
Gritting his teeth against the throbbing in his cock, he swung his legs out of bed and went to the wardrobe. He rummaged around in the dark, finding what he was looking for at the bottom of his rucksack; a bandage, one of a handful he’d taken with him after he’d left the army hospital. He sat on the edge of his bed and spread his legs. His cock was more than ready, throbbing and leaking fluid from the tip, and he gritted his teeth for a moment. Climaxing before he’d got everything set up would be extremely painful. If there was nothing to put pressure on his knot, it would swell too much, damaging the structures and possibly rupturing a blood vessel, and such an injury could take weeks to heal. A part of his mind welcomed the idea of harming himself in such a way. It would be a fitting punishment for his ongoing obsession with Connor. But a saner part of himself rejected the idea, knowing that in practical terms, he’d done nothing wrong as far as the lad was concerned. He just needed some relief from the incessant physical desires.
Carefully, he wrapped the bandage around his penis, just at the place the knot would grow. He did it loosely, to allow the knot plenty of room to expand, but as the bandage stretched, it would pull tighter, providing a firm pressure to keep the knot from getting too large. It was always a risk doing it this way. If he got the bandage either too loose or too tight, the result could be very unpleasant. And there was also the danger that it could slip off altogether. So far, in the two or three times he’d done this in the past, he’d got it reasonably right, but there had been one time when the binding had slipped and he’d spent a very anxious five minutes desperately clinging onto the edge of the bandage, until his knot had finally receded.
He gritted his teeth as he finished preparing the wrapping. Even the light friction of the bandage against his cock was threatening to set him off. He got the last piece in place and tucked the end under, keeping one hand on the bandage to prevent it sliding out of place.
Then he closed his eyes, settling himself slightly more comfortably on the bed – feet planted on the floor, a dirty shirt at the ready to catch the liquid. Then finally, he allowed himself the pleasure of closing his hand around his shaft. He didn’t want to think of Connor, but at the same time, he accepted it as inevitable. He pictured the look of pleasure on Connor’s face when Gabriel had gone down on him. The lusty moans as he’d ridden Gabriel’s cock, sitting in his lap. The tight, wet heat of his passage, squeezing down on Gabriel’s erection like a vice… and as quickly as that, Gabriel came. He bit his lip and tried to muffle his own cry of pleasure, managing to keep it to a muted groan. Fluid spurted from his cock, caught on the shirt, and then his knot swelled. This time, whether by skill or good fortune, the bandage stayed exactly in place. It tightened quickly as the knot grew in girth, and for a moment, Gabriel wondered if he’d got it too tight. But then the pressure evened out, holding firm, but not digging into his flesh. It was a fraction tighter than an omega’s body might be, but well within acceptable limits. Thank God for small mercies, he thought, as he eased back onto the bed.
But now came the harder part. The slow roll of pleasure continued, pulses of sensation rippling through Gabriel’s cock as the bandage gripped his flesh, but with the physical release, reason also returned. The desperation was gone, which meant that Gabriel’s mind was free to indulge in a gratuitous replay of every guilty notion and regretful thought he’d ever had. Fantasising about Connor was a disgusting breach of trust, a totally inappropriate way to remember his heat. He’d been terrified, for God’s sake, trusting Gabriel to keep him safe, and here he was, lustfully imagining what it would be like to repeat the experience, with no regard for the idea that Connor himself would find such a thing entirely abhorrent.
God, he was a worthless bastard. And yet he knew, with absolute certainty, that the next time he woke from erotic dreams, he was going to go straight to the wardrobe and pull out the bandage again, spilling himself to memories of Connor’s shy smile and willingly parted legs.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The months rolled by with little to be remarked upon, much to Gabriel’s relief. Winter ended early, with the snow melting in mid-February and showing no signs of returning again. Once the road into town was safe to travel, Antoine announced that he was going to take Niles and purchase a new horse for the estate. Gabriel had been in residence long enough to validate the expense, he reasoned, and though Gabriel offered to pay for the new horse himself, Antoine wouldn’t hear of it. So at the end of the day, the pair of them returned with a five year old bay mare named Crimson Sunset, an even-tempered creature who seemed perfectly willing to make friends with anyone who offered her a handful of fresh grass.
The Allards, true to their word, brought three squealing piglets to the Calvet estate a few weeks after their sow gave birth. The new arrivals were quickly installed in the pigsty, and everyone on the estate spent plenty of time watching the young pigs scampering around and rolling in the mud. For all that the animals were going to end up on the dinner table several months down the track, they still elicited delight in the estate’s staff with their antics.
The vegetable garden was prepared with manure and the sheep were let out into the paddocks, and by all indications, it was set to be a fruitful year for the estate. And so, aside from his ongoing wandering thoughts about Connor and a newfound skill in wrapping the bandage around his knot in just the right way, Gabriel considered that the future was looking brighter than it had in a long while.
Which inevitably meant it was time for something to go wrong.
The anticipated crisis occurred one morning in late March. Gabriel was in the round yard with Niles as the younger man put the new mare through her paces. “I still think Lucas should be having lessons on one of the geldings instead,” Niles said, as he pulled the mare to a stop. “Crimson’s got a little bit too much attitude. She’ll do what you tell her to ninety per cent of the time, but she keeps testing me to see what she can get away with. A novice rider wouldn’t know to pull her up often enough, and sooner or later, she’d start running amuck.”
“We should give her some extra training then,” Gabriel said, as he leaned on the fence railing. “Teach her something new that will give her something to think about, as a way to channel her energy.”
A frantic shout suddenly got both their attention, and Gabriel turned to see a young woman running across the paddock towards them. She was coming from the direction of the Martin estate.
“What the hell?” A mad dash across the paddocks, rather than taking the roads, likely meant a dire emergency, and fearing the worst, Gabriel abandoned Niles and the horse, rushing to intercept her. He jumped the fence into the paddock in one clean leap and ignored the mud that splattered up his boots and trousers as he landed hard on the boggy ground. Niles wasn’t far behind him, slowed down just a fraction as he dismounted the horse and squeezed through the rails of the yard.
“Help me! Please, help me!” the young woman screamed, her skirts caked in mud as she rushed towards them. Gabriel met her in the middle of a large swath of grass, catching her under the arms as she seemed about ready to collapse. She clung to him, fighting to catch her breath. “Help me. They’re going to kill me.”
“Who’s going to kill you?” Gabriel scanned the field for anyone who might be chasing after her. The paddock was empty. “Where are you from? What’s your name?”
Niles arrived at his side a moment later, breathing hard from the sudden run. “Avril?” he said, sounding shocked as he looked at the woman. “What are you doing here?”