Taming the Wild Beast of Alamina

The bedroom swallowed them whole.

Thomas laid her across the turned-down sheets, his hands trembling just slightly, allowing Sylvia to feel he was holding back.

She reached up and pulled the robe free.

The fabric whispered against her skin and then pooled beneath her.

Thomas made a sound.

His gaze moved across her body as if he were memorizing forbidden territory, and Sylvia observed his throat work as he swallowed.

”You are—” He stopped.

”I am still demanding.”

His mouth twitched, but the darkness in his eyes didn’t lighten. ”You are incorrigible.”

”I am naked in your bed. Vocabulary can wait.”

The collar at her nape pulsed once, registering proximity, registering him. The new gland beneath the protective barrier answered with a warmth that spilled down her spine.

”Your scent changed,” he said.

”Good changed or alarming changed?”

”Wet changed.”

The bluntness of it hit her low in the belly.

Sylvia’s thighs pressed together involuntarily, and Thomas’s gaze was drawn to the movement and remained there.

”The monitor—”

”It is not alarming,” Sylvia finished. ”You are stalling.”

”I am savoring.”

”Then savor faster.”

His laugh was startled out of him, rough and surprised and so painfully him that Sylvia’s chest ached with it. Then he was leaning over her, one knee pressing the mattress, his shirt still on, and that was unacceptable.

Her fingers found his buttons.

Thomas went still above her.

”May I?” she asked.

”You are asking now?”

”I am always asking. That is the point.”

His jaw tightened. ”Yes. Always. Ask me for anything.”

She undid the first button. ”Your shirt.”

The second. ”Your skin.”

The third. ”Your mouth.”

The fourth button didn’t survive. Thomas pulled the shirt over his head with the efficiency of a man who had lost patience with fabric, and Sylvia’s hands met the bare heat of his chest.

”Jasmine,” Thomas murmured. ”And rain. And—”

He stopped.

”And?” Sylvia prompted.

”Honey.” His voice roughened. ”You smell like honey at the edges. Where the heat is gathering.”

Her body answered before she did, a flush spreading across her chest, her nipples tightening.

Thomas watched the blush travel.

Then his mouth was on her throat, over the column of her neck where her pulse beat frantically. He kissed her there with an open mouth, his tongue pressing against the flutter of her heartbeat, and Sylvia’s back arched without permission.

”Still fine?” he asked against her skin

”Still clothed.”

He laughed again, softer this time, and pulled back just enough to meet her eyes. ”You are the most demanding patient I have ever had.”

”I am your only patient.”

”You are my everything.”

The word landed between them like a stone dropped into still water.

Sylvia’s throat tightened. She reached for his belt.

Thomas let her.

He let her unbuckle the leather, let her work the fastening of his trousers, and let her push the fabric down until he was as bare and kneeling above her on the bed.

Her breath caught.

He was thick. The kind of thickness that made her fingers spread wide when she wrapped one hand around him and still couldn’t close her grip, the kind that made her add her second hand to completely wrap it, the head of him dark and flushed and already slick at the tip.

”Tom... This is different.” She said, raising her eyes with a glint of mischief.

Sylvia’s hands tightened, one over the other, her thumbs pressing into the sensitive ridge just beneath the slick head. Thomas hissed, his hips jerking forward briefly before stilling, a muscle jumping in his thigh as he struggled for control. She watched his face, the way his eyelids fluttered, and the strain in his jaw as he endured her exploration.

”Tell me,” she whispered, her voice husky as she began to stroke him slowly, from base to tip. Her fingers barely met around his girth. ”Tell me everything I don’t know.”

”Everything?” he managed, his voice a low rumble that vibrated through his chest and into her palms. ”That could take a while.”

”Start with the knot,” she said, her eyes fixed on the thick base of his where the flesh seemed to swell even more. She’d read about it, of course, in the sterile medical texts. But this was not a textbook. This was Thomas, hot and alive in her hands.

Thomas let out a shuddering breath. ”Of course you’d go straight for that.” He looked down at where her hands worked him, his gaze dark and possessive. ”It’s... a biological response. At the peak of... of mating, it swells. Locks us together.”

”To ensure conception,” Sylvia stated, her strokes becoming firmer, more confident. She felt him thicken in her grip, the skin growing taut.

”To ensure the omega is bred,” he corrected, his voice roughening. ”To make sure none of it is wasted.” He swallowed hard. ”It can be... intense. For both of us.”

”Can you do it now?” she asked, her thumb smearing the fluid weeping from his tip across the crown.

Thomas’s whole body went rigid. ”Sylvia... don’t ask that.”

”Why not?” she challenged, leaning up to press a kiss to his sternum. ”I want to know. Can you knot me? Right now?”

”No.”

The answer came so quickly that she paused.

Thomas caught her wrist, not pulling her away but holding her still before her touch destroyed what remained of his control.

”It does not work like that,” he said, his breathing uneven. ”A knot is not something I can summon because you are curious.”

Sylvia glanced toward the thicker flesh at his base. ”So you cannot show me?”

”No.”

”Even if I continued?”

Thomas’s jaw tightened.

”Not like this. Some alphas may be capable of triggering a partial response alone, though I have never cared enough to investigate whether that is truth or boasting.” His voice lowered. ”I cannot.”

”Because you need an omega?”

”Because my body needs the entire act. Your body around mine, your scent at its peak, and both of us cuming.” His thumb pressed against her pulse. ”It is not something that happens from only masturbation.”

Sylvia considered that with infuriating seriousness.

”So, medically speaking, I need to conduct the full experiment.”

Thomas closed his eyes, a long, shuddering breath escaping him.

”An experiment,” he repeated, his voice rough with disbelief and something dangerously close to amusement. He opened his eyes, pinning her with a look that was equal parts warning and surrender. ”You’re going to be the death of me, Sylvia.”

”Unlikely,” she countered, her free hand coming up to trace the line of his collarbone. ”But if you don’t do something in the next few minutes, I’ll lose my mind.”