Page 47 of Shattered Salvation
It doesn’t.
The spike builds, too fast for the slow warning signs I know how to handle. My fingers curl in Skylar’s shirt, and I bite down on the soft sound trying to get out of my throat. The fabric of my clothes feels wrong all at once, too close, too rough, too much against skin that has started to ache for contact instead of comfort.
“Okay,” I whisper into Skylar’s shoulder, because the word gives me something to do besides panic. “Okay, this isn’t supposed to happen.”
It doesn’t help much, but the sound of my own voice keeps the room from feeling too large.
Another wave rolls through me, sharper than the first, and my body moves before I can stop it. My thighs press together, seeking pressure, and a soft, involuntary noise slips out of me. Shame follows it, my face burning as slick coats my underwear.
Skylar stirs beneath me, his arm tightening around my waist before his eyes open. He comes awake quickly, like some part of him has been listening even in sleep, and his hand moves to the back of my neck with careful fingers. His scent rises a second later, amber and sandalwood cutting through the thick sweetness in the room, steady enough that my body reaches for it without asking me first.
“Emrys,” he says, voice rough from sleep. “What’s happening?”
I try to answer and lose the first attempt to another hard pull of heat. My hand flattens against his chest, gripping at him through his shirt, and I shake my head once before I manage words. “I don’t know. It’s too early. My heat shouldn’t be here yet.”
Skylar sits up slowly, bringing me with him until I’m half in his lap and half braced against his chest. He doesn’t rush. He doesn’t pull away to look at me like a problem that needs a solution. He only steadies me, one hand at the back of my neck and the other low on my side, his thumb moving in small, grounding strokes while I try to breathe through the next wave.
The contact helps but it also makes it worse.
My body leans into him before I can make a decision about it, chasing warmth, pressure, scent, anything strong enough to take the edge off. Skylar goes still for half a breath, and I feel the moment he understands I need more. His hand shifts against my side, his scent deepening in answer before he can control it.
“I’m sorry,” I say, though I don’t know what part I’m apologizing for. The timing, maybe. The scent. The fact that Kade isn’t here. The fact that my body has picked now, of allnights, to tilt into something off-schedule and hungry. “It’s not my heat. It’s just a spike, I think, but it’s never come on like this before.”
Skylar’s gaze stays on my face, not drifting, not making me feel exposed in a way I haven’t chosen. “Do you need Kade?”
The question is careful enough that my throat tightens.
“I don’t know.” My voice shakes, and I hate that it does. “Yes. No. I need him, but I need…” I press my forehead to Skylar’s shoulder, breathing hard. “I need it to stop hurting first.”
His hand slides up and down my back, slow and steady. “Tell me what helps.”
The tenderness in his voice makes my eyes sting. He’s asking like there’s nothing shameful about it. Like this is only another part of me he can learn if I let him. I shift against him without meaning to, and the friction drags a broken sound out of me before I can swallow it.
Skylar’s breath catches, his body tightening under mine, in the way his hand grips my hip and then loosens again like he is making himself be careful. “Emrys,” he says, quieter now.
I lift my head enough to look at him. His eyes are darker than they were a minute ago, but his focus is still on me. That’s what undoes the last of my pride.
“Please,” I say, the word coming out raw and too honest. “I need you. I need something to take the edge off.”
Skylar goes very still, and for one awful second I think I have asked wrong.
Then his hand cups the side of my face, thumb brushing once beneath my cheekbone. “I’ve got you,” he says, voice low. “We go as slow as you need. You tell me if anything changes.”
I nod, pressing closer before the next wave can make words impossible again. “Okay.”
His mouth touches my temple first, then my cheek, then the corner of my mouth with a restraint that makes my body shiverharder than if he had rushed me. I turn into him, hands twisting in his shirt, and kiss him because I need the point of contact, need the weight of him real beneath me, need the ache in my body to have somewhere to go that isn’t panic.
He shifts us so I'm straddling his lap properly, facing him. His hands move quickly, pushing my shirt up and then working my pants and underwear down just far enough. I help him, lifting my hips, too desperate to be embarrassed. Slick coats my thighs and his fingers when he reaches between us. He strokes through the slick, pushing inside of me, and I moan, dropping my forehead to his shoulder.
"You're so wet already," he murmurs against my neck. His voice is low, almost reverent. "I've got you, Rys. I've got you."
He frees himself from his own pants and lines himself up beneath me. I sink down onto him in one slow, slick slide, taking him all the way in one go. The stretch burns but it’s perfect, a cry tearing from me, the sound muffled against his throat. Skylar groans, his hands gripping my hips hard as he bottoms out inside me.
"Fuck, Emrys," he breathes. "You feel so good."
Some part of me knows I’m only going to aggravate the situation without having an Alpha to knot me. The other part already feels the panic of the spike dissipating as I wrap myself around Skyler.
I start moving, riding him with desperate, uneven rolls of my hips. Every thrust sends another wave of heat through me, but it's the good kind now, the kind that has somewhere to go. Skylar meets me halfway, thrusting up to meet me, his hands guiding my hips as I fuck myself on his cock. The couch creaks beneath us, slick making everything wet and easy and filthy, and I can't stop the sounds pouring out of me.
