8. Lianna

More.

I had never considered myself demanding before. Despite the leg tattoos, the dyed hair, the graphic designer hermit lifestyle, the spinster omega status, I tried to be good and low-key. Go with the flow. Whatever someone could give, that was always enough.

But suddenly, I was a glutton, because nothing could soothe this heat. Vidar was a goddamn savant at the art of the omega orgasm, but it just—wasn't—enough.

Not the orgasm he blessed me with in a sea of gold silk using only his tongue.

Not the climax I squealed through in a narrow corridor of white and gray-flecked marble, trapped against him, my back pinned to his chest and his fingers playing my clit.

Not the tidal wave of pleasure that rocked me as I had crawled toward a giant bed in a dimly lit cave, Vidar's fist inside me, my oceans of slick making it all so effortless.

And not now, my fifth climax pounding through me like an avalanche. It left me tingling and buoyant, utterly breathless at the edge of the round bed with its pine green linens and mountains of pillows. A little dazed, I blinked up at the domed ceiling, from which hung a Moroccan tiered pendant light. Made of pure gold, it bathed the space in a soft, warm light.

Hand on my heaving chest, I chased the high a little longer, Vidar still knelt between my thighs. He licked my smeared slick with low, contented rumbles, like he was on a bench at the waterfront, slowly, happily devouring a dripping ice cream cone on a hot summer's day.

A solid orgasm was one way to stave off the more intense sensations of a heat, but the most satisfying thing for an omega was the fullness. Heats made us… expansive. We were built to take thick, swollen knots, aided by all this messy slick. Betas, male or female, struggled to take an alpha's knot, but we were born to do it, and during our heat, we craved the sensation.

Bonded omegas would retreat to their nests with their pack to take a knot—or many knots. Whatever she preferred. Unbonded omegas like me were left to our imagination. I relied on toys, but some checked in to a heat hotel, where there were alphas on call, ready at a moment's notice with a no-strings-attached knot.

There was a rumor floating around that alpha semen cured heat cramps outright, but that just seemed like typical alpha bullshit.

Like how blue balls was a medical emergency.

Still, five orgasms from my fated mate had helped—a lot. Internal chaos quieted, it was less biological warfare from my own body now, more emotional neediness aching in my chest. If Vidar wanted to give me more orgasms, great, but as I eased onto my elbows, I found myself desperate for intimacy, for him.

With one huge hand around each of my ankles, Vidar kept me spread and sated as he licked and cleaned me. He only slowed when I sat up straighter, and he greeted my bleary blink and lazy grin with a crooked smile of his own. We were both sweaty messes. My slick covered his face, his beard, his hair. Over the last however many hours we'd been together, our scents had intermingled, weaving together like a tapestry. The air around us should have been drafty and cool; there were grates everywhere, exchanging air with the outside world, keeping things fresh. But here, now, it was dense with his pheromones and my perfume.

We smelled beautiful, perfect, this new scent so soothing. Alphas and omegas had an insane sense of smell compared to betas, but I couldn't tell what was him and what was me anymore.

It was just… us.

"Hi," Vidar rasped.

"Hi." After a contemplative lower lip nibble, I held up a finger, a silent command to wait, then rolled onto my knees and crawled up the bed. The alpha behind me growled, low and thick, and I paused to glance over my shoulder. He studied my naked body with massive pupils, his handsome grin gone, a feral energy radiating from him. Heat dribbled down my thighs, and I pushed forward to grab the most basic pillow of the bunch, the kind that could withstand some mess, and then scooted back to him.

Between orgasms, Vidar had given me snippets of a much longer tour through his magically enhanced underground hoard. There were, apparently, sleep spots all over to accommodate for his two primary forms. As a dragon, he snoozed in the mountains of treasure, which hadn't surprised me. Movie dragons were always sleeping in their jewels and gold, so it wasn't hard to imagine Vidar up to his eyeballs in the stuff during a week-long nap.

In his human form, however, my alpha preferred to sprawl. He waxed poetic about the delectable silks and outrageous thread counts, insisting that dragons loved comfort and luxury. Sleeping on a cloud was how he described this bed, and, honestly, yes. So much yes. If I wasn't horny and wide awake thanks to this fucking heat, I'd be dead to the world, buried six blankets deep.

Unlike that first cave with its columns and torches, endless piles of loose gold and marble busts, this little nook felt almost nest-like, which I adored. Omegas almost always made their own nests, because none of us were alike with our wants and needs, but the desire for safety in a secure, enclosed space when we were at our most vulnerable was universal. Even if the climaxes had technically made me feel better, I was still in a strange place, riding out an unfamiliar heat.

Without any direction, Vidar had positioned himself between me and the door behind him. It was a nuanced promise that if a threat came barging in, he was the first and last line of defense.

The only one I needed.

And he was all mine.

Legs dangling over the side of the bed, I clutched the pillow to my chest and gave Vidar an appraising once-over. Messy. Messy and coated in slick. Before, I would have buried my face in this square beige pillow and squealed, because, ugh, embarrassing. Now, seeing my alpha smugly sporting the most intimate part of me, allowing it to smother his own scent glands, triggered a sense of pride that was foreign and comforting.

Still, it was a lot.

He twitched when I grabbed the end of his beard and tugged him forward. Then, without asking, I slapped the pillow to his face and rubbed.

"Omega." Vidar laughed, the sound startling the butterflies in my tummy, the ones that had never taken flight for anyone before. "You're stealing from my collection."

"There's plenty more," I told him as he squirmed and fussed. If he wanted to, Vidar could have batted me aside like a bear shooing a fruit fly. Instead, he let me hook him around the neck and hold him in a pathetic headlock until I wiped the messiest spots clean.

Task complete, I tossed the damp pillow aside and kept my hands to myself—but still shuffled to the very edge of the bed. Vidar had taken a knee in front of me, but he was just so big and delicious and unf.

At five-seven, I wasn't exactly a delicate, petite omega, but he made me feel that way. Maybe it was this mating heat, as he called it. Maybe it was the bond between our hearts warping my perspective—but I liked how big he was. Before, I loathed how much space alphas intentionally took up in public. They threw their size and dominance around, especially the unbonded assholes who had no one to rein them in.

The thought of Vidar throwing his weight around, this mountain of an alpha, had my toes wiggling giddily as I swept his messy mane away from his face. This time, he let me preen him, brushing my fingers through his beard, swooping his hair over his shoulders.

"I-I just want you," I admitted, suddenly shy, unable to look him in the eye. "Not… my slick."

Pressure met my wandering fingers; Vidar leaned into my caress with a pleased rumble.

"Have you ever tasted your own slick before?"

Cheeks hot, I rolled my eyes and chuckled. "Obviously. Anyone who says otherwise is lying."

Everybody got curious. Mine tasted like sweetened vanilla, which wasn't bad, per se, but it kind of put me off vanilla-flavored sweets afterward.

Vidar's hands settled on my knees, engulfing them whole, his gaze more black than green now, and I licked my lips as I leaned closer. My lashes fluttered and fell as I focused on his lips, and Vidar knuckled under my chin, then drew me in for a kiss.

I always expected an alpha's kiss to be domineering and rough. Strong, assertive, and pushy as hell.

But the moment our lips met, time stood still. This was—soft. Sweet. Romantic and slow in the way we explored each other. It was quick pecks and stolen glances, Vidar angling closer and me bracing on his broad shoulders. It was… peace. Quiet. Perfect.

When he did deepen it, Vidar wasn't a brutish invader. No, he cradled the back of my head and nudged at me, nipping playfully, asking for permission before slipping his tongue between my parted lips.

Bonus points to my forever mate for not trying to tongue-fuck my throat. So many betas had done it to me, like they thought an omega only got off on alpha bullshit and therefore they should act all macho and gross. Ugh.

No, Vidar tasted like vanilla, like me, and he was just as talented and, best of all, restrained with his tongue here as he was between my thighs. He knew when to push, when to pull, how to encourage my inner huntress.

I chased. I wanted more. My tongue darted into his mouth, flicking at his. Next came a calculated retreat, followed by the snap of my teeth at his lip that had us both grinning, mine bold and teasing, his crooked and wild.

Hot hands explored my body, their touch firm, possessive, and I reciprocated in kind, mapping the peaks and valleys of his masculinity in a trembling conquest. Even though he had been nose-deep in my pussy more than once already, this was more intimate, more exposing somehow.

I might have started this, but Vidar took the lead in steering us onward. His passion eased from my lips to my jaw, my ear, my throat. As he scent-marked my neck, nuzzling, kissing, making sure any alpha would know I was his, I rubbed both hands between my thighs. As fire flamed in my cheeks, I covered my hands in slick, the best natural lube on the market, and went for his cock.

It had been very present through all five of my orgasms, but Vidar had never pushed it on me. He never steered my head down or forced me to grab and pump. He had been all about me, but I actually enjoyed pleasuring my sexual partners. His gruff groan when I took his shaft in both slick-covered hands sent a thrill crackling through me—and I wanted more.

"I feel like I've been monopolizing the pleasure here?—"

"You think—" Vidar growled, shuddering as I stroked him from head to base, to the start of a blooming knot, and then back again. If it was possible, his cock swelled more at the attention, and he stiffly retreated, abandoning my throat to loom over me. "You think I take no pleasure in you?"

With an innocent flutter of my lashes, I pinned my lower lip between my teeth and continued stroking him. He broke the charade, however, when he grabbed my chin, capturing my face in his palm and squeezing. I flinched, rhythm below ruined, and tumbled deep into his dark, intense gaze.

"Feasting on you, devouring your moans and squeals and cries, savoring every gush of desire," Vidar whispered heatedly, our noses nudging and my lips buzzing as he closed in, "is not a selfless act, I promise." His grip on my jaw loosened, and he plucked my lower lip from between my teeth with his thumb. "It's really rather greedy on my behalf, sating my wants."

A shiver cut down my spine, and I gulped, pressing into his palm as I pushed closer. "Then let me be greedy too."

Before he could stop me, I slid off the mattress to my knees. Me and that massive cock, we briefly saw eye to eye until I patted the bed. The first time, Vidar didn't move, still as stone as I settled between his legs. It took me pointing to where I wanted him and insistently clearing my throat to finally break the alpha, and even then, he moved slow as molasses. Once that perfect ass touched down, I crawled between his knees and nudged them wider, desperate to feel small and safe again, protected under his wing.

Or, more like, under that dick. Seriously, cities could use this thing as a sun dial. It was thick and swollen, with a velvety head flushed crimson from the strain. He wasn't at a full knot yet—not that I had ever seen one in person, only in omega-centric erotic cinema—but my mouth watered and my core clenched pleasantly at the sight of one blooming.

All for me.

Honestly, he was a god for lasting this long.

And I rewarded him by throwing my all into what I hoped felt like a reward. Hands and mouth wasn't something I trotted out for many guys, but Vidar deserved that and more. I stroked him with both hands, smearing my slick around, all the way down to his balls. The head of his cock was just as smooth and supple as it looked, and he snarled when I slipped it between my lips. The first swirl of my tongue had his hips jerking. The next made him buck, driving deeper into my mouth.

When I was the star of the show, it was all moans and whines, cries and keens. Vidar, however, was primal. He was pure alpha in the way he growled and hissed, how he throttled the blanket, twisted it so it groaned and tore.

"Fuck, Lianna." My name whispered from the shadows, deep and gruff, an eerie echo that layered his voice and his dragon roar. Goosebumps broke out all over in response, and I worked harder, pumping him, bathing that velvety head with my tongue.

I never fooled around with alphas for fun. I had never felt inclined to before Vidar.

But there was a strange power in controlling him, snaring him in my thrall—on my knees, vulnerable, forever at his mercy no matter how pretty his words.

It was thrilling. Empowering. It wasn't dominance. It wasn't even real control, I guess.

It was… trust.

Trust that I had given him before with my body, my heart, my needs—returned in kind.

And, apparently, trust made me slick. A lot. I moaned at the sound of Vidar breathing me in, devouring the fragrant plume suddenly dominating the space. Just as I got a few thick inches of him in my mouth, however, he snaked an arm around me and dragged me off the ground. Threw me on the bed. Snarled as he twisted around and prowled after me.

I landed on my side, bouncing a little, and stayed there, a little horny deer in the headlights of a ravenous dragon. As he approached, I angled my hips ever so slightly, offering my alpha a sumptuous view that made him curse and growl under his breath. He dragged his nose along my calf, up my outer thigh, over my hip, all the while rasping sweet nothings in a language that I didn't understand but resonated in my marrow.

A gasp tore from my lips when he nudged that thick head into my pussy from behind. My vision tunneled, everything dark and desperate as I wriggled onto my belly, arched my lower back, and pried my slick-stained legs apart. Vidar braced above me, a hand on either side, easing in an inch at a time. Every bit of ground gained was met with a rasp or a hiss, his harsh, choked groans only making me dance around the intrusion, my inner walls all aquiver like the butterflies in my stomach. Another gush of slick seasoned the air, though his girth kept most of it inside now, and next came a wave of such visceral want that wildfire burned across my whole body.

Whining, I fisted the blanket and buried my face in it, muffling a scream-squeal when he finally sheathed himself to the hilt.

Fuck. So—full. Never been so full in my whole life. Dildos and dilators were just sad imitations of the real thing, and I'd never go back. I needed him now. I needed a hot, heavy alpha body bearing down on me, his pheromones wrapping us tight in a cocoon of amber, cypress, and bonfire smoke. My perfume, my slick, had gotten us this far, and now it was like the alpha face of our shared coin was telling me, "Let go. I've got it from here."

His presence intensified as Vidar lowered onto his forearms, precariously balanced so his heft didn't crush me—even if a twisted, needy part of my omega soul wanted to be smothered. He pumped slow and steady at first, dragging his cock out to the last inch, then working it back in. My slick all but sucked him home, my walls stretching, the pulse in my clit sharper, hungrier, every time his knot nudged my ass.

I had gotten so used to this rhythm, to the blissful surrender of his size, his body, that when he snapped his hips, my eyes rolled back and I cried out in surprise—in delight.

"Tell me to slow?—"

"Harder," I begged. Make me yours.

He responded with a snarl and closed his hands over mine, pinning them to the bed. No more long, slow strokes. No, Vidar gave me what I needed: harder. His thrusts were shorter, more vicious. I forced my head up, gasping for air between the curtains of his hair, fighting just to hang on as he ravished me.

"Alpha!"

"Omega." He growled it in my ear, and never had my designation sounded more like a prayer. "My omega. My goddess." Vidar ground down, driving my clit into the bed and milking a strangled whimper from me. "You will want for nothing, do you understand? Nothing."

Relief splintered the hazy inferno of pleasure and desire. As tears full of everything but sadness pricked my eyes, I turned my head to the side with a whine and Vidar answered with a hungry kiss. He conquered my lips as he did my body: brutally, savagely, all dragon, all fire.

And I let him. I took it, him, every last bit of ferocity until I was about to pass out. Only then did I break the kiss and grit my teeth, loving the force of his thrusts, the weight of his body. He speared me hard and fast and rough, pounding home every time.

Until, on the brink of an orgasm that would shatter my whole worldview, he stopped.

"Wait—" I wailed into the blankets as he eased out of me. The bed dipped deeply with his every move, until he was just gone.

"Here." His first bark had me shooting onto my knees, heart in my throat, pussy dripping with need. I found my alpha at the head of the bed, his back to the wall and surrounded by so many squishy pillows it made the omega in me sing. "Now."

If another alpha barked at me, I would have been forced to comply, yes, but, like Dewey fucking Synn, I'd hate him for it. I would flip him off in my head, in my heart, going through the motions like a robot. For Vidar, for the darkness in his gaze, the rasp in his voice, the tremble in the hand offered to me—I moved. Body weak and battered and deliciously alive, I crawled to him. It was a trek, a chore, and bruises were already starting to form all over, but I'd wear them like a badge of honor tomorrow.

Eyes locked, I scampered along his side and straddled him. It felt like climbing onto a horse, saddle and all. He was just so big, my alpha. But I sank onto his cock like it was made for me, and I for him. My hands clenched into the muscle of his shoulders as I worked my way down, slick weeping between us. Then, when I met his lap, I wrapped both arms around his neck and crashed into a kiss that took my breath away.

He came at me with all the fire of our last kiss—but also the passion of our first. The intimacy made me clench and flutter around him, pebbled nipples brushing his chest as he hugged me closer.

"I was worried for a second there," I mumbled against his lips, which kicked into a handsome smirk.

"Apologies, omega." Vidar eased me back by my hips, pressing me against the fully formed knot that I was desperate to take. Hunter green twinkled like starlight in the storm of his eyes, and he slipped a hand between us. "I promised that you would want for nothing. I meant it."

"You—ah!" I jumped when he thumbed my clit, his pace, his rhythm, his pressure just right from the first stroke. Squealing, I twisted my hands into his hair behind his neck and closed my eyes, leaning into the swirling pleasure climbing higher and higher.

This climax went off with a bang, a symphony of fizzing, whizzing fireworks in my belly that had me keening and gasping. If my tugging and yanking at his hair bothered him, Vidar kept it to himself. When our foreheads met, he was all focus and intensity, all passion and monster.

All greed.

He said that it wasn't selfless, pleasuring me, and when his gaze snared mine, I finally realized he meant it. As his cock pulsed inside me, thick and hard and powerful, I felt his whole being swell with pride, with greed, milking the pleasurable aftershocks for as long as I could stand it.

Until it felt like torture. Moaning weakly, I grabbed at his wrist and pulled, but I couldn't move him. Vidar indulged me as any good alpha should, full of rumbles and murmured praise as he cupped my breast instead. Glancing down, I spotted his knot. It made my mouth water, sure, but that thing was… intimidating.

I definitely hadn't woken up this morning mentally prepared to take my first knot—or meet a dragon. Shit happens, but for the first time in years, it happened for a good reason.

The perfect reason.

"Have you ever been knotted before?"

My gaze leaped to his. If I thought less of Vidar, I would have needled him a little, poked and prodded to see if he was secretly the misogynistic alpha many were under the handsome surface. Instead, I met his husky question with honesty.

"No." I shrugged one shoulder, ever so slowly rocking back and forth. "Only silicone knots for me so far."

He tensed beneath me. "You poor thing."

Laughing, I swatted his burly tattooed chest. "Like it's so great, huh? Is my life incomplete without an alpha's knot?"

"Hardly." His crooked grin made my tummy all squirmy again. Of all his expressions, that one was my body's favorite. "My life has been incomplete…" Vidar sighed, stroking his knuckles down my arm, making me shiver. "My omega has never taken my knot, never drawn pleasure from it. That is my loss."

I nibbled my lower lip through a smile, then smoothed my hand up his chest, his throat. Plucking at his lower lip once, twice, just as he'd done with me, I nudged his nose with mine. "You're sweet, Vidar."

"Not often." He snapped playfully at my thumb, rumbling at my yelp. "And only for you, Lianna. Only for my mate."

Mate. I stole another kiss, wanting to swallow the way he growled that word. Mate. Mine. Goddess. He had no problem saying what he meant, what he felt. No games. No push and pull to make my head spin. Vidar kissed me back with the intensity of the sun, and he tasted like earnestness and forever.

Trapped in each other's thrall, we slowly worked ourselves up again, climbing that hill together. As I cradled his face, tugged at his hair, his beard, Vidar rocked and rolled my hips, lifted and lowered me on his cock. Occasionally he thumbed my clit, lazy and unhurried in the way he stroked me now, and no number of bratty whines could sway him. He devoured every noise I made, every sigh, every smile, so attentive to me it hurt.

But I wasn't the only one hurting.

"Lianna, I need…" He made a choked sound as I ground down on his knot. "I can't?—"

I took a deep breath, then willed all my muscles to relax on the exhale.

And his knot eased into me—barely. Vidar snarled, then hooked his arm around my waist and snapped his hips, edging in a little deeper. He kissed me through it, though we were distracted this time, him focused on not going too hard too fast, me stroking my clit like I did at home during my heats with toys.

Again, they didn't live up to the real thing.

His knot was firmer than any stupid toy, hot and present. When we finally worked it into my pussy, I pressed my face into the crook of his neck and squealed a sob.

"Omega—"

"Too much," I gasped, "and not enough."

More. Tears blurred his beastly face when he brought me back to him. He cupped my cheek as they fell, and we both let them this time. As I sucked down frantic breaths, the scars in my soul, the hole in my heart, suddenly came to light. Knotted, cherished, locked, I saw what I'd been missing all this time.

Not a knot.

Him. Vidar. My alpha. My fated mate. My scent match. A connection with him—going without since I awakened…

I was only half living until him. Just surviving one day to the next, never satisfied, never fulfilled.

"You"—Vidar finally brushed my tears away with his thumbs—"are everything, Lianna." He stole a quick kiss, his knot and my inner muscles locking our bodies together. "I have lived in a blind daze until tonight?—"

Gasping, I kissed him harder, desperate for a closeness that was more than skin-deep. He felt it too. Mine.

Breathless, sore from riding a monster but unable to stop now, I held him tight and buried my face in his neck again. Vidar did the same, nuzzling at my scent gland there, where alphas marked their omegas, bonded them for life. We moved slower now, gentle and sweet, riding the waves as one. I always thought knots were more for an alpha's pleasure than his omega's, but his swollen bulge stroked my inner walls like nothing ever had.

And when I came, when the world shattered and the cosmos drowned in pleasure and slick, Vidar finally broke. Climaxing around a knot was a tighter, sharper sensation, and it forced him to follow immediately after. Squeezing the air from my lungs, the alpha thrust and stiffened, choked my name, and spilled himself inside me. His cock pulsed with every spurt, and?—

"Fuck." I groaned and shoved my face in deeper.

"What?" Dazed, high on his own release, Vidar still managed to gently pull me back to him. He looked scrumptious all flushed and pleasure-addled, sweaty like me, both of us slippery with slick. "Omega, what's wrong?"

"Nothing." I stroked his beard, his cheek, the worried set of his lips. "Nothing at all."

Besides the fact that the rumors were true: taking an alpha's seed was like that first drink of cold water in the morning. You know, the one you really felt sliding all the way down. I wasn't exactly in pain anymore from the heat, the severe cramps gone, but his trapped semen seemed to soothe whatever was left. Like a pain reliever had finally kicked in, my core softened.

"Are you sure?" he rasped as I nuzzled under his chin.

"Promise."

To drive the point home, I let out a heady, sighing moan that I usually kept to myself as he rubbed my back.

"Good." Vidar's sweetness extended to my arm, my shoulder, down to my hips where he traced my tattoos. He kept at it for a while, lulling my body into pure bliss. My alpha brushed away the last vestiges of this flash heat with ease as we nuzzled together, locked in place until his knot deflated. However, when those drifting fingers made their way to my chin, he tipped my head back and looked deep into my eyes.

"More?"

I blinked sleepily back at him. "No." I grinned at his crooked smile, my heart full just for me, not my family, not my friends—me—for what seemed like the first time ever. "No more. Enough."

More than enough… for now.