27. Want

Want

Titus

The gas lamp on the library table provides just enough light to read, except for the really old texts where the ink is faded and the paper is yellowed. Then, I have to hold the book up, angling the pages to decipher what it says. So far, nothing important.

I'm telling myself that the reason I've been holed up in the Estate's library for the last couple days is because of what Ferdinand Beryll said at the dinner party. I tell myself I'm just trying to give us the best chance to succeed. The Elders keep us in the dark about most of the Trials. If I can figure out what Beryll meant about Sinclair being an asset for the Intelligence Trial, we will be one step ahead of them.

That's what I tell myself.

But I know it's a goddamn lie.

The real reason I'm spending hours pouring over page after page is because here, I know where I stand. I'm a Cerulean alpha competing in the Trials.

One identity, one goal. It's safe. It's what I know.

But everything changes as soon as I walk into our wing. I'm a brother, a pack leader, but I'm also an outsider. She's made me an outsider within my only family.

It rankles because I know it's my own doing, but I don't regret the decisions I've made. I stand by my actions no matter how fucked up they might be, and I'm not going to feign remorse just to get some pussy.

I laugh to myself in the empty library. If only it was as simple as chasing pussy.

I rest my elbows on the table and push the heels of my palms into my eyes. Sometimes, I feel like I'm the only one who hasn't lost my goddamn mind in this godforsaken place.

The flame in the lamp gets smaller and smaller until finally it dies completely, running out of oil. The library is one of the few places in the Estate that hasn't been updated to electricity. The space goes from cast in orange light to dark save the silvery moonlight cutting through the window.

Rather than hunt down another lamp or more oil, I pack up the book I'm in the middle of and head out. I didn't check the time, but the halls are quiet, and I hope this means our wing will be too.

The incident with the Cyans yesterday morning snapped Sinclair out of her bond lust, so last night was the first night since the games I was able to sleep through the night.

That's another lie I like to tell myself.

That the only reason listening to them fuck all night pissed me off was because it messed with my sleep, potentially disadvantaging my physical and mental performance for any upcoming Trials.

I scoff to myself. Yeah, that's the only reason.

Something feels different as soon as I step into the common room.1 Different, not off. It's eerily quiet, but I expected that. Sweeping my gaze around the room, I realize everyone's bedroom doors are closed. Which doesn't necessarily mean anything, but lately, whoever's room the three of them are sleeping in that night is the only one closed.

I set my backpack on the couch and find my heart rate accelerating as I approach my room. Anticipation swirls in my chest as something pulls to me from the other side of the door. Goose bumps run down my arms as my hand twists the knob, opening the door. I reach for the switchblade in my pocket, but as soon as my hand wraps around the cool metal, I release it.

Like moonlight streaming through the window, her silver hair lays across my pillow. My pillow. In my bed.

My feet stutter, and I unconsciously hold my breath to not wake her. I wait for the feeling of a trap to tug at my senses, but it never comes. She doesn't stir when I close the door or when I walk slowly around the bed, even looking under it for signs of a trick.

Finding none, I think about the pull I felt before I even knew she was in here. It was visceral, a tugging string in my gut, like I was compelled by something other than habit. It must have been her somehow calling to me, drawing me. To her.

Vexed, I carefully peel the covers back, revealing her small body drowning in a big T-shirt . . . my T-shirt.

I expect my mind to race to make sense of this, but somehow the understanding is innate. I'm so uncharacteristically calm that it barely feels like a realization, more like a correction. Correcting what was always meant to be this way.

She's ready. Not just to be theirs, but ours. Mine.

My hand hesitates, hovering over her bare leg. It could still be a trap, but with unwarranted confidence, I lower my hand to touch her skin.

I feel nothing.

Well, not nothing. My stomach flutters. My entire body seems to rise ten degrees. My skin tingles and desire flares to life in my chest. But there's no pain. None. Even when I let my hand linger for several breaths, I feel none of the bone-splitting, mind-breaking pain I did last time I touched her for a mere half second.

I remove my hand to undo my belt. I watch her fastidiously for signs of waking, but her breathing remains even the entire time I undress. Leaving my clothes in a pile on the floor, I walk to the foot of the bed and pull the covers all the way down before slowly climbing onto it.

She sighs softly and rolls onto her back in her sleep. It feels like an invitation.

I crawl over her, my head just above where her belly button would be under the shirt. I begin pushing up the material. Everywhere I touch feels electric. Her soft hips. Her smooth sides. Her warm skin.

I slide the shirt over her tits and feel my cock thicken like steel. She still doesn't stir as I fill my palms with the supple flesh and ghost my thumb over the rosy-pink tip. It pebbles under my touch, and she only hums unconsciously.

Somehow, it makes perfect sense that this is how it would be. Her asleep, docile, malleable. She's put herself in my bed and given me complete control, full surrender. After everything between us, of course this is how it should be.

If she's asleep, she's not fighting, and I can be slow, soft, sweet.

If she's asleep, it doesn't have to be cataclysmic. There will be time enough for that, but right now, right here, it's about accepting her gift with gratitude.

Gratitude, I think as I lower my mouth to her nipple and tease the sweet bud with my lips before tracing it with my tongue. Her breath hitches and I freeze, continuing only once I know she hasn't woken. A small part of me is disappointed, but a larger part is thrilled, thrumming with desire to taste and explore every beautiful inch of her, unrushed.

I begin with dragging my lips down her sternum and over my carvings on her chest. The feel of the rough, cut skin in contrast to the rest of her makes a proud possessiveness swirl inside me. This time, when the rut starts seeping into my veins, it's a lulling tide, not a rocky storm. It spreads smooth and even, like a steady high rather than a strong hit all at once.

It heightens every sensation. Her sweet neroli and vanilla scent is a rush I want to drown in. Her stomach feels like velvet as I kiss my way down to the dip of her pelvis. Even in her sleep, the wetness between her thighs builds. Especially when I settle on my stomach between her legs, bringing her knees to either side of my shoulders.

She moans when I spread her pussy with my thick tongue. The sound, the taste, it makes my heart trip and stumble. I feel like I'm in free fall.

She begins to rock lightly into me, and my chest hums with desire and pride. I want to make her feel good. I want her to use me. And somehow, it's easier like this, in the dark as she wriggles gently, stuck in between sleep and wakefulness, pleasure and dreams.

But I'm awake. I'm wide awake. And drinking in every single second of this stolen moment.

"Titus." Her whisper floats over my skin like butterfly wings, soft, angelic.

"Shh," I whisper, pushing onto my knees. Her eyelids are heavy with sleep as they flutter, showing me flashes of light gold. I bunch her shirt together above her tits and lift it above her chin. Her mouth opens for me to stuff the fabric between her teeth.

"Quiet now." I kiss her cheek above the shirt. "Let me make you feel good."

She keeps the fabric in her mouth while I slide back down her body. There's a new buzzing sensation now that I know she's awake. It feels more illicit now that she is.

I press my lips against the crease between her hip and thigh and slide two fingers into her dripping heat to the sound of her muffled moans. My cock presses into the mattress, and I find myself rocking into the surface in sync with her needy, stifled sounds.

I stroke her clit with the flat of my tongue, and she bucks into me. A satisfied rumble spills from my lips and I lap it up along with her arousal. She draws her knees up and arches her back, her pussy fluttering around my fingers. Her movements become hungrier, more demanding.

I answer every demand, parting her thighs, holding them wide with my hands, fingers digging into her flesh. She's not getting away until she's coming apart under me, because of me.

I thrust harder into the mattress, my cock aching. I want to bottom out inside her but not as bad as I want her to break with ecstasy.

She frantically cries into the fabric gag, and I'm struck with a realization like an arrow to the chest. I want her to break but not be broken. I want her whole. Whole and mine.

Pleasure wracks her body, and I'm so close to following her over the edge. I'm caught in her whirlwind. Her hands twist in the sheets. A raw moan climbs up my throat, and I'm about to bust into the sheets when suddenly she draws up her knees and kicks me hard in the forehead with her heel.

I drop into darkness.

My head throbs.

Her smell is gone. In its place, the dry, papery scent of old books.

I blink my eyes open, something hard under my head.

I sit up with a groan. The lantern is burned out. Silver moonlight streams over the table and the open book I fell asleep in.

As I groggily pack up my things, the dream begins to fade, and with it the taste of her on my tongue.

1. Play "Night Drive" by Hxnry