Mated

Chapter 5

 Mated

With my face pressed into Ian's pillow, I had to struggle for air. He pushed my thighs open, nudging so that my knees slid up the mattress and left me splayed open for him, completely exposed. I turned my head a little and gasped in a breath, squeezing my eyes shut.

Ian reached over me and rummaged in the sideways milk crate he apparently used as a nightstand, and I cracked my eyes open enough to see him pull out a bottle of lube. It was only half full. Maybe he had visitors to his shack of solitude once in a while, then.

The thought made my stomach twinge with…something unpleasant. How many of the Armitage pack had been on this bed, right where I was, ass up and ready for Ian to thrust inside? As the biker chick incident proved, he wasn't exactly picky — or at least, since according to Jared's account she'd been hot as hell, he might have been picky but he wasn't gay.

Actually, strike that. Was he even bi?

“Ian,” I whispered, and then let out a whimper as two slick fingers pressed between the cheeks of my ass.

“Yeah?” One fingertip dipped inside, and I squirmed, clutching the sheets and trying my damnedest not to slam my legs closed and try to get away. He didn't sound all that composed anymore, his voice hoarse and scratchy.

I swallowed hard. “Have you ever done this before?”

There was a long silence, and Ian's hand stayed where it was but stopped moving completely. The pillow was cool against my burning cheek, and I focused on that as much as I could, trying to ignore the way his thick, callused finger was still pressed inside me. It felt huge. I knew it was nothing compared to what I'd get next.

“I'm not going to hurt you,” was all he said at last. And then, in a grudging tone, “I know what I'm doing.”

“Yeah, not so much with the taking you at your word when you won't tell me —” My words died out in a cry as he suddenly pushed his finger in all the way to the knuckle and crooked it at the perfect angle, hitting my sweet spot with force. “Fuck,” I gasped. “Jesus fuck.”

“Told you.” Fucking smug asshole.

Ian didn't let up, just kept working me open and making me moan into the pillow, until I was biting down to stifle the humiliating sounds that kept on pouring out. How the hell he was so…damn…oh fuck…good at this, I didn't know, but when he finally pulled his fingers out, I pushed my ass back, achingly empty.

He slid his hand around and stroked my cock — which was completely soft. His hand jerked back like I'd burned him. “Fuck, Nate.” He sounded gut-punched. “You're not even —”

“I can't,” I whispered into the pillow, and then started to laugh, or maybe sob, hysteria bubbling up. I was too fucked up from the drain on my magic for my body to get there. If I'd been myself, I'd have wanted to will any erection away, salve my pride by pretending I didn't and couldn't want him. It was too fucking ironic that the curse that was killing me was also letting me one-up Ian.

“Nate,” he said, sounding almost frantic now. “Nate, come on.” He slid his not-lubed hand under my cheek and turned my head out of the pillow, bending down to peer into my face. He was frowning, lines of worry between his eyebrows, his eyes feverishly bright. “If I'm hurting you, then this isn't going to —”

“Like you care,” I gasped. Even though, bizarrely, it seemed like he did. What the fuck was wrong with him? Was I so pathetic that even Ian felt sorry for me? Fuck that. “Just get it over with.”

“Fine,” Ian growled, and dropped my head back down so that it bounced on the bed. I squeezed my eyes shut against another wave of nausea.

I heard the slippery sounds of more lube, this time going on Ian, and then he was pressing into me, carefully but not slowly enough. I moaned, half pain and half…something that wasn't pain, something I didn't want to acknowledge. My head spun, from the curse, and the feeling of an enormous alpha cock filling me, and just from everything.

Too much of everything, all at once. My back bowed as I clawed at the sheets, and Ian stopped, all the way in, his supernaturally warm and heavy body pushing me down. I felt like I was about to fly apart, or maybe split in half. Fuck, but the rumors about alphas were really not exaggerated.

And then Ian started to move, and I lost the plot completely. It was an overwhelming blur of curse-induced dizziness and Ian thrusting so hard I shifted up the bed, his hands anchoring my hips hard enough to bruise, and finally, impossibly, Ian's cock getting larger.

It was his knot, swelling up and forcing me open. It hurt. But it was the kind of pain that could have been something more, if I'd only been able to do more than lie there and take it, if I'd been anywhere close to normal. It grew and grew, and Ian's hips pounded into my ass, and I jolted with each thrust, my whole body strung as tense as a stretched rubber band.

I'd never been so full, and the pressure kept mounting. I scrabbled for leverage, but my whole body slid up the bed as I squirmed, helpless. I opened my eyes. Nothing but white sheets, and the wood-paneled wall, blurred in my watery sight.

“Are you ready?” he growled from somewhere above me. “I'm going to do it, hold on.”

He leaned down and set his mouth against my shoulder, pressing what could have been a kiss into my skin — probably not — before I felt the scrape of fangs. I tried to pull away, instinctively needing to escape from the apex predator with his teeth right by my jugular, but he took one hand off my hip and planted it between my shoulder blades, pinning me down onto the bed.

And then he bit, a throbbing, stinging pain that jolted through me like lightning and spread out along every nerve. I screamed, and my lungs burned. Every muscle and tendon tightened and tightened — I was going to fly into pieces, oh gods his knot was so fucking huge and his teeth were still clamped in my flesh and — I felt the magic of the bond snap into place, the rushing uncontrolled flow of my power diverted and pooling between us rather than emptying into the ether.

It felt like being plunged deep into a cool lake at the height of summer, soothing and refreshing and invigorating and terrifying all at once. I couldn't breathe, but I didn't care. I drifted, letting go of it all.