Page 5 of Bloom in Darkness

I try again anyway, chasing that thicker pressure as soon as it brushes me. “I need it.”

Bryn catches my hips before I can push down harder, his forehead pressing against mine while his breathing turns rough. “I know what you’re asking for, but I don’t want you hurting yourself trying to take it too quickly.”

His knot drags against me again and the words come apart around a moan, my arms tightening around his neck. “Fuck, I didn’t know I would, but I really fucking need it.”

Bryn kisses me hard, then shifts his grip and carries me away from the wall with his cock still buried inside me. I cling to him through the short walk to the bed, every step moving him just enough to keep the swollen base rubbing where I want it.

He lowers me onto the mattress and follows me down, spreading my thighs wider before settling between them. The first thrust in the new position drives him deeper, and I cry out as his knot pushes firmly against my entrance again.

Bryn keeps the same rhythm, pulling back just far enough before driving forward and letting his knot press a little harder each time. My slick has spread over the backs of my thighs and onto the sheets beneath me now, giving my body everything it needs to stretch around him. I hook one leg higher over his hip and pull him closer, chasing the pressure every time he comes forward.

His knot flutters against my ass, thicker now, and I try to push myself down onto it. Bryn catches my hip before I can force it. “Let me do this.”

I nod quickly, fingers digging into his shoulders as another thrust makes his knot catch and hold for a second before slipping free. “Please.”

His mouth finds mine as he drives forward again. His knot presses harder, stretching me around the thickest part of him until the slick and steady push of his hips finally carry me over the widest point. It slips inside, and my whole body locks around him.

I come so hard my back lifts off the mattress, cock spilling between us while my hole clenches around his shaft and his knot seats deep enough that there is nowhere for either of us to go. Bryn groans against my throat and keeps rocking in short, shallow movements, grinding his knot inside me while the last waves of my orgasm tear through me.

Bryn goes rigid over me a moment later, heat flooding deep inside me as he comes. His hips keep moving in small helpless rolls against his knot while his arms tighten around me. A low roar breaks from his chest, rough enough to vibrate through my body before it softens into the deepest purr I have heard from him all night.

I wrap myself around him while his knot stays swollen and heavy inside me. Once it settles enough to move, Bryn carefully shifts us onto our sides and keeps one arm around my waist so nothing pulls where we’re still locked together. My body follows without much help from me. Everything has gone loose and heavy, my thighs trembling once before relaxing around him while that soft Omega haze rolls in and takes the sharp edges off everything.

I tuck myself against his chest and let my eyes fall shut. Bryn’s mouth brushes my forehead, then lingers there while his hand moves slowly over my back.

“Oh, you fucked me stupid,” I mumble, smiling when Bryn rumbles beneath my cheek. “I still can’t believe you fuck an Alpha with that cock.”

Bryn kisses my forehead again. “Go to sleep, Astra.”

I hum and curl closer, too comfortable to argue and too warm to care that I am probably going to regret half the things coming out of my mouth in the morning. His hand keeps moving over my back, slow and steady, and I let myself sink deeper into him until another thought surfaces through the haze.

“Can I be selfish for a little while longer?” My fingers curl lightly against his chest before I add, quieter, “Will you stay?”

Bryn’s arm tightens around me. “I’m not going anywhere. Get some sleep, sweetheart.”

I tuck my face into his throat, let my body go completely soft against him, and fall asleep with his purr vibrating beneath my cheek.

Bryn

My phone has been buzzing long enough to piss me off before I open my eyes.

Astra’s tucked against my chest beneath most of the blankets, only the top of his blond head and one sleepy eyebrow visible above the edge. He somehow took over half the bed without moving more than six inches, one knee wedged between mine and his hand curled loosely against my stomach. The phone vibrates again somewhere to my right, and irritation flares hard enough in my chest that I almost growl.

If it wakes him, I’m throwing the damn thing out the window. I reach blindly toward the floor before remembering that sometime during the night I put it on the nightstand. My hand finds it on the next buzz, and I answer without looking at the screen because there are only a handful of people who would keep calling me this early.

I answer without checking the screen. “What?”

Caelan exhales through his nose on the other end. “Good. You’re alive.”

I rub a hand over my face and glance down when Astra shifts against me, his cheek pressing more firmly into my chest before he settles again. “You called three times to check whether I died?”

“I called three times because you nearly took someone’s head off before your shift, disappeared afterward, and never answered me.” Caelan sounds tired rather than angry, which means he’s probably been awake longer than I have. “You don’t usually vanish when you’re pissed. You usually find me and make it my problem.”

“Sounds like a you problem.”

“It becomes my problem when I have to decide whether I’m looking for a body or bailing you out,” he says, and I can hear the worry underneath the irritation even if he’d rather I didn’t.

Caelan sounds annoyed, but he called three times. Years ago, before either of us knew what the fuck we were doing with each other, he used to show up when I stopped answering too.