Page 32 of Want It All

I didn’t know why I was here.

That’s not true. You know exactly why; his name is Sebastian Aurelius Worthy .

A pair of alphas were fucking in the bushes to my right, apparently unbothered by the fact they were on full show. They were third years, I was fairly sure, a woman and a man; her mouth was bloody, and so was his neck.

Nothing like booze, bites, and bad decisions .

I continued walking into the fray because I was here now, and I might as well.

The scents made my head spin. Some were tolerable.

There was a hint of toffee that caught my interest until I realised there was no depth to it; it was all surface sweetness.

Others were less pleasant – I swore I caught a hint of cheese before a blanket of jasmine descended and I had to cover my nose.

My phone buzzed.

Anything yet?

I could almost hear the hope in Sebastian’s voice. Not yet, but it’s early! I texted back.

It was early, but I’d already had enough.

We’d had a long talk before I’d left our room. Well, Sebastian had talked, while I listened. And it was less a conversation than a litany of descriptions, all delivered in excruciating detail, of what he was okay with me doing tonight, provided I found a complementary scent.

Not much was off the table, as it turned out.

Sucking is fine , he’d said, ticking it off his fingers.

Fingering is in – ha – and fucking is all good with me, as long as they’re clear or you’re using protection.

He’d given a long list of suggested positions and techniques – do that thing with your tongue, babe, we want to impress them – before pausing.

Oh, I suppose kissing is okay, too. He’d studied me for a moment.

But only if you think they’re a keeper .

I grabbed a bottle of water from the fountain.

The groundskeepers would be furious; someone had knocked the grotesque cherub off the top and it lay on the ground next to an empty soft drink can.

I took a swig of water, trying to clear some of the scents from my mouth, then wove through the packed bodies, intending to skirt the party once more, and then head back to bed.

I hated disappointing Sebastian, but I hadn’t been hopeful, and nothing about the party was changing my mind.

I’d taken two steps when I caught it, faint through the lemon myrtle.

This scent was sweet, too, like the toffee, but it was the kind of sweet that had layer upon complex layer.

The kind of sweet that settled over your tongue until it coated your throat and when it was gone, you craved it, desperate for another hit of delicious burnt sugar with its undertone of butter and offset of salt.

My mouth started to water.

I was sniffing like a dog before I could stop myself, trying to catch more.

My heart was beating in my ears and my alpha rose to the surface, howling at me to find its owner.

Mine , my instincts roared, and my body listened, because I was weaving through the crowd of alphas like a shark through a school of fish – only I didn’t want to eat any of them .

I inhaled again. The scent was still in the air, but faint, as if its owner had been and gone. No , my instincts insisted. Mine . The owner of that scent couldn’t be gone , because it was making my skin tingle and my blood rush around my body at speed.

I’d never felt anything like it.

My canines ached, pushing down through my gums as I caught another hint, closer to the maze. I paused at the entrance, breathing in deeply.

The scent was stronger there. Most of the alphas were in the garden, desperately searching for complementary scents. But the scent I was following – the scent that was mine – was stronger in the maze, so I strode inside.

A few steps in, I was rewarded with another mouthful of salted caramel, and with it, the sudden and painful swelling of my cock.

I snarled wordlessly with need and prowled further into the maze.

It was pitch black, and it took my eyes a few moments to adjust. I followed the scent through the walls of lemon myrtle as if there was a rope pulling me forward, attached to my ribs, and someone was holding the other end, tugging.

By the time I saw a faint light, my hands were shaking, and I realised the square of brightness was too wide for a phone, it was an eReader instead, and –

Byron fucking Griffiths was getting to his feet, his eyes almost comically wide in the faint light. He inhaled in surprise. ‘Grace? What –’

I saw the moment it dawned; he took another half-gulp of air, and his pupils blew out as he staggered.

‘ Vanilla ?’ he said, his voice half-incredulous and half a groan. ‘Your scent is vanilla ? Are you fucking with me, Grace? I –’

I didn’t hear what he was going to say, because I closed the distance between us and seized two handfuls of his shirt, pulling him down so I could devour his mouth with mine, my tongue invading, searching for another hit of caramel.

For a moment, his lips were soft with surprise, then he groaned again, wordlessly, and dropped his eReader on the ground so he could bunch his hands in my hair.

The kiss turned hard .

I wanted to crawl beneath his skin, to take his heart in my hand and hold it, just to keep him close, so I knew that he was safe – and I wanted him to do the same thing to me.

I wanted him simmering in my blood, wanted to breathe his every breath, to know what every inch of his body felt like beneath my hands and against my tongue.

I’d never felt like this before: so uncontrolled, so fucking desperate .

His tongue swept over mine, hot and sweet, and my knees threatened to buckle.

Our kiss was a clash, a furious battle of lips and tongues, so I tried to slow it down, to slant my mouth against his and show some shadow of skill, but it was impossible; I wanted him too badly.

My body and my alpha were driving the show, and my mind was lurking somewhere beneath my instincts, lulled into quiescence by his scent.

When did he get so fucking perfect? some far-away part of me mused. When did he get irresistible?

I suspected he wasn’t either of those things, but biology was at play, and logic had flown far, far away.

He held me just as tightly as I grasped him, his hands tugging at my hair, one moving down to clamp hard on my waist, keeping me flush against his body.

My hips were rolling shamelessly against him, chasing whatever friction I could find, my cock rock hard.

From what I could feel, he was in a similar state; when I moved back, he made a wordless sound of protest and followed.

I had the sudden notion that if I didn’t taste him I would die, so I broke the kiss and dropped to my knees.

‘Need you,’ I rasped, my hands going to his belt.

‘Fuck, yes,’ he hissed, and let me open him up like a present, shoving his jeans and trunks down until his cock sprang free.

Fuck. Me.

Sebastian was going to lose his mind .

I took him in hand, using my thumb to spread the precum beading at his slit over his head.

His cock was beautiful, curving gracefully and carved with veins that begged tracing with my tongue.

I did just that, listening to the music of his moans before throwing caution to the wind and swallowing down as much as I could manage.

I was going to need to practise if I wanted to take all of him.

‘Fuck, Grace,’ he swore, but held himself still, letting me work up and down, taking him further into my throat with every dip.

I’d be hoarse and sore tomorrow, but I gave zero fucks as the taste of salted caramel covered my tongue and made my mouth water.

I popped off his cock, panting and wiping the saliva off my chin, then looked up to see him staring down at me, his eyes wild.

‘What is this?’ he whispered, half-desperate, half-anguished. ‘Grace. Tristan . I don’t … I need you.’

‘Yes,’ I said roughly, because I needed him, too. ‘Strip for me.’

His expression turned wary, and the air pulled tight between us. It was a risk, I knew, giving orders to another alpha, but we needed to sort this out now.

I knew what a complementary scent felt like; Sebastian was one. I knew the heady sense of connection, the pleasant shiver as one body recognised its link to another, the hunger .

This was entirely unfamiliar. I didn’t just want Byron; I wanted to consume him.

I wanted to be under his skin, and for him to burrow beneath mine.

I wanted to break down every barrier between us, to taste his blood as it flowed over my tongue after I sank my teeth into his neck.

I wanted to mark him as mine, and be marked in return; I wanted every single person on the planet to know that I belonged to him, and him to me.

He was pack. But we weren’t just complementary. We were something Sebastian’s talk hadn’t covered.

We were a scent match.

And as scent-matched alphas, we needed to work out which one of us was in charge.

‘Strip for me,’ I said again, gently, my voice a caress. An invisible wall of dominance washed over me in response, so strong I stepped back.

He was stronger than me .

Byron was the dominant alpha of our pack.

I inclined my head, acknowledging the fact as my heart raced like a freight train, holding eye contact all the while.

Even if he was stronger, I still needed to be in charge.

He stared back – then pulled off his shirt.

I let out a shuddering breath, my eyes hot with unshed tears.

He’d ceded to me, and I’d give him the fucking world in return. Starting by making him come so hard he saw stars.

‘I need to be clear about what I want,’ I said, reaching out to trail my nails lightly over his skin, teasing. ‘I want to be inside you. Yes or no?’

‘Yes,’ he said hoarsely, immediately.

‘Have you done this before?’