Chapter 8 In which it becomes clear I’m a lot kinkier than I thought

I wake to the slide of cold metal on my neck and a heavy weight settling over my body. I’m confused at first, but when I inhale a deep breath of sea salt, sunshine and coconut, it sinks in.

My eyes flutter open, my heart pounding in my chest.

There is a man laying on top of me, pinning me to the bed under my blankets.

I should scream or fight or do something. Screaming should, in theory, bring the men upstairs to my rescue, unless Maddox decided he’d rather just kill me than deal with me being bonded into his pack. I wouldn’t put it past him, seeing as he’s head of the Falcone pack. The death of an omega at their hands, and not even a real omega, isn’t out of the realm of possibility.

“Shh, cherrybomb,” he whispers, lips hovering just over mine. “Shh, you’re okay.”

I relax, believing him even though I have no fucking reason to. But then, something cold and hard and sharp drags over my neck, opposite the side of the mating mark, and I’m tense all over again.

“Did Luca bite you, baby?” he murmurs, mouth still hovering just over mine. “Did he knot you and claim you for our pack?”

I swallow carefully, worried if I move too much, the knife pressed into my skin will slice me right open. My heart’s pounding in my chest and my clit is pounding between my legs and I have no fucking clue why that would be. It’s not like I’ve ever thought a madman brandishing a knife at me would turn me on.

But then, he smells like mine. I thought it from the first inhale of his rum soaked beach scent at Bonheur .

He chuckles against my mouth, and I swear it takes everything in me not to lunge up and swallow the sound. Well, everything and the knife pressed against my neck. “What’s your name, cherrybomb?”

My tongue darts out to wet my lips, and I maybe sort of accidentally lick his plump bottom lip as well. He tastes fucking amazing and there’s no stopping the groan that falls from my chest.

“Your name, omega,” he rumbles out, voice sounding heavy with lust.

“Sadie,” I manage to squeeze out.

“Sadie.” I feel his mouth curve into a smile against mine as he tries out my name. “Sadie. Sadie . My name is Swift.”

“ Swift ,” I breathe and he groans.

“That sounds so fucking good coming from my little cherrybomb.” He rolls his hips against mine, grinding his hard cock against my soft belly. I whimper. He groans again. The knife scrapes against my skin, just enough for me to feel it, but not enough for it to hurt. My perfume floods the room and Swift lets out another dark chuckle.

“Filthy little omega. This turns you on, doesn’t it? Waking up to your alpha pressed against you, a knife to your throat, no clue what I’m gonna do with it.” His lips brush over mine with every word out of his mouth. “That fear, that uncertainty, it makes you so slick, doesn’t it, cherrybomb? Fucking perfect.”

He pulls back a little, and I can feel his eyes on me, but I can’t see him. I have the brief thought that maybe an alpha’s vision is better in the dark like a predator, but then all thought flees as he brushes his lips over mine, softly, so fucking softly.

He groans, pulls back and then dives in again, hard this time, more insistent. More like I’d expect an alpha to kiss. Like his lips are claiming mine, like I belong to him and he’s proving it to me, to himself, to the world.

The blade slides away from my neck and I don’t know if it’s because he’s sure I know my place is under him, or if he’s just lost in the fog of desire created by our mouths and tongues meeting. Maybe it’s both.

“Mm.” His nose nuzzles into the place where his knife just was. “Smells like mine.” I gasp and my back arches involuntarily when his tongue darts out to lick the spot. “Tastes like mine too.”

A breath shudders out of me, shaking and strangely heated.

He shifts, sitting up in a move too fast for me to follow, until he’s straddling my hips, his weight still pinning me to the bed, cock hard and straining against the fly of his jeans. I blink up at him, not following the movement of his arm in the dark, but a second later, the fabric over my chest parts and the rush of cool air makes my nipples pucker even more than they were before.

He groans and trails his knife between my breast bending to follow the path with his tongue. He drags the knife up in a swirl around the swell of my breast to my nipple where it pricks just the right amount, not enough to draw blood, but enough for me to feel it.

I swear I hear a smile in his voice when he says, “my filthy little omega loves this, doesn’t she?”

I shake my head to deny it, because I never in a million years thought I would be into knife play. I’ve read about it, sure. Who hasn’t? Sylvie has introduced me to some positively filthy smut. But I could never imagine getting off on it in real life.

“No,” I say, even as my body makes a liar out of me, dripping slick, soaking my panties and the sheet under me.

Being an omega fucking sucks.

He chuckles. “It’s okay if you like it, Cherrybomb. I like it too. Gets me so fucking hard.” He rolls his hips forward, grinding his cock into the soft flesh of my belly, before he slides down my body, nestling his shoulders between my spread thighs.

The tip of the knife drags down, circles my navel in a teasing way, making goosebumps erupt on my flesh as the sensation tickles over my skin. I feel him turn the blade flat, feel him slide it under the fabric of my panties and slices first one side and then the other before he rips the fabric away and I’m exposed to him, wet and dripping with need.

I expect him to bury his tongue in me, to lick my folds and slurp up all that slick like he said he was going to. Instead, he buries his nose in my pussy, nudging my clit, taking deep inhales of my scent from where it’s strongest. “So fucking good,” he snarls into my pussy.

I’m so entranced by the sight of him, the feel of him right there between my thighs, that I miss the hard object nudging my entrance. Not his fingers. It’s too hard and cold to be them. I look down, startled. I certainly don’t have any sex toys in the room, and I doubt he brought along a plastic dildo.

But that must be it because he wouldn’t-

My brain stutters out as I see that he’s positioned the hilt of his knife at my entrance, his gold eyes blazing with savage lust.

“Swift,” I protest, heart thundering in my chest. “Wait.”

He doesn’t wait, just holds eye contact as he plunges the handle of his knife into my clenching core. Since he’s staring at me, I know he sees my lips part on a gasp, my eyes roll into the back of my head.

“Gonna bleed to bring you pleasure, omega,” he growls, and then he curls his hand around the blade. Blood wells between his fingers and drips onto the bed between my legs. His tongue finds my clit as he pulls the knife out and then plunges it back in.

Oh fuck, I don’t know why I find this so hot. That he’s slicing his hand in order to fuck me with his knife. I shouldn’t. I really, really shouldn’t. Yet, here I am, hips thrusting up, trying to take the knife deeper inside myself and finding it completely and utterly not enough. I need more.

“Swift,” I groan, fingers lacing into his hair to grind against him. “Please. Please. Please.”

He makes a pleased feral nose and scrapes his teeth over my clit. My body jack knifes up, the sensation too much. He’s quick to press my legs open with his shoulders, keeping my flesh away from the sharp blade.

I don’t know why that care, that sweet move does it for me, but when Swift sucks my clit into his mouth and then plunges the knife hilt so fucking deep inside me I come, screaming at the ceiling.

He stays with me through the release, lapping up the flood of slick leaking around the makeshift dildo, and then even more when he pulls the knife from inside me and tosses it on the ground.

His fingers smear blood on one of my thighs as he spreads me wider, until my hips ache at the stretch and he fucking feasts on my cum, slurping and moaning like it’s the best thing he’s ever tasted.

He lunges up, teeth bared. “Gonna fuck you now, omega, gonna knot you and bite you.”

And although part of me wants that—really, really wants that—a larger part of me is fucking terrified. Because I’ve already been claimed by one stranger tonight, and even though Swift feels like mine, I don’t know him.

Luca left me alone hours after claiming me. What if Swift does the same?

I’m not sure I could handle it. Feeling more like a trophy, to be won and then put on a high shelf, never to be touched again.

Swift pins me to the bed with his hips. His gold eyes are wide and manic, intent on my neck. He’s arranged me just so, and I have the distinct feeling that he’s going to plunge his cock into me at the same time he bites me, and, even as more slick pours from me at the idea, a whine pours from my chest.

Not a whine of arousal and need.

No, this one sounds terrified.

Swift blinks, that gleam in his eye fading slightly, but his head keeps moving toward my neck and his cock is nudging my entrance. Panic claws at my throat. Another whine pulls from my chest. My hand moves on its own.

Smack! It makes contact too hard with his forehead, pressing him away from me, holding his teeth at bay.

Swift blinks down at me again, more of that feral gleam fading. His expression softens, and he stops trying to impale me on his cock, which isn’t the part of this situation I have a problem with. But I think we need to have a conversation.

“What’s wrong, cherrybomb?”

I swallow the whine that wants to erupt and take a deep breath, forcing myself to calm down. My omega is telling me I need to whimper and whine and twist this alpha around my finger, but I push those instincts aside. I can tell him this like a normal fucking adult woman who is in control of her instincts. “I’m not ready for a bond, Swift.”

There’s a flicker of pain in his eyes, like he thinks I’m rejecting him. When his gaze latches on to Luca’s mating bite, it deepens. His pain makes my own heart ache, and a weird rusty vibration starts in my chest.

Swift’s gold eyes fly to meet mine. “Are you purring for me, omega?”

Am I? Is that what I’m doing? I’ve heard that omegas can purr, typically when their alphas are upset and need calming, soothing. But I know it’s rare. And Swift definitely feels like mine. I give a small nod. “I guess, I am.”

A slow smile creeps over his face. “Oh, cherrybomb. What a good little omega you are for me.”

Trying not to preen under his praise, I repeat, “I’m not ready to bond again. I wasn’t ready the first time. With Luca. I didn’t… Yesterday when I woke up I was a beta. You met me. I was a beta, right?” At his nod, I continue. “So I go to the club to see you and meet Luca and Ethan instead. Suddenly, I’m not a fucking beta anymore? Luca says he went into a rut and claimed me on instinct, but I’m not sure that’s what happened. And then he left me. They left me. They put me as far from them as they could and just went to bed. And as much as you… as much as I think…” I can’t say it, can’t complete the thought that he feels like mine, like we belong together. It’s too vulnerable and after the night I’ve had, vulnerable is the last thing I want to be. But I don’t have to because Swift gets it.

He turns his head and presses his lips to the pulse point on my wrist, drawing my attention to the fact that I still have my hand pressed against his forehead, as if I’m worried he’ll strike if I release him.

“That’s okay, cherrybomb,” he murmurs against my skin. “I can wait. I can be patient if I have to be.” Something about his tone tells me he’s lying through his teeth right now to make me comfortable. And I can’t appreciate it more. “My pack mates are fuck ups.”

A surprised giggle bursts from me and he grins, curling his hand around my wrist to pull my palm from his face as he settles more fully against me. Not in a sexual way, but to soothe me, wrap me up and make me feel safe. And damn if I don’t melt under him into a puddle of Sadie goo.

“It’s the truth.” His fingers play with the end of my braid. “They never should have left you alone if you didn’t want it.” His forehead kisses mine. “I promise I won’t do the same thing, Sadie. I’ll be right here for as long as you want me. Okay?”

I nod. “Okay.”

Swift curls his arms around me, still laying on top of me, and even though I should be uncomfortable as hell, my eyelids droop, and in moments I’m asleep surrounded by the scent of coconut, sea salt and sunshine.