Page 70 of Pin My Alpha
“Then don’t ask stupid questions.”
That should be enough. It’s not.
“Shay.”
He grabs the front of my shirt and yanks me down into a kiss.
There’s no softness in it. His mouth is angry, teeth catching my lip, his breath coming in short, sharp pants. He tastes like whiskey and sandalwood and the specific scent of an omega who’s so upset it’s making my own instincts go haywire. That dark chocolate edge is so sharp it coats my tongue, and all I can think about is the hollow at the base of his throat where his scent always gathers hottest, right where his pulse jumps under thin skin when he’s trying not to want me.
I kiss him back because I’m weak. Because I’m hurt. Because he’s here, and this is the one place we’ve never had to talk.
His hands shove at my chest. “Move.”
“Shay—”
“Move, Byrne.”
I do. He turns, palms flat on the bar, and looks at me over his shoulder. His face is all challenge and sharp edges, but his scent is already changing. That dark chocolate going sweet and thick in the air. My body reacts before my brain can catch up.
The space between us feels measured in heartbeats. Two inches. One. None. I can feel the heat rolling off his back against my chest even before we touch, and every fraction I close makes my cock throb harder against my zipper. I want to map the exact temperature of his skin with my palms. I want to press my mouth to the slope where his neck meets his shoulder and feel the way his breath catches when I breathe him in.
“Tell me what you want,” I say.
He laughs, a bitter sound like burned coffee. “You know what I want.”
“I need to hear it.”
His eyes meet mine in the mirror behind the rows of bottles. “Fuck me.”
This is wrong. He’s upset, I’m upset, and we’re using this like a weapon because we don’t know how to say what actually hurts. I know it. I know it, and I still step between his legs.
“Say it again,” I murmur against his neck, lips hovering just above the warm skin without landing, close enough that my breath raises goosebumps along the fine hairs there.
His fingers curl on the polished wood. “Fuck me, Declan.”
“Hard?”
His eyes squeeze shut. The column of his throat works as he swallows, and I fixate on the way the tendon shifts under that smooth brown skin, how the faint shadow of stubble catches the low light right at the hinge of his jaw. My mouth waters with the need to taste that exact spot. “Yes.”
The word wrecks me.
I pull him flush against me, my chest to his back, and his head tips forward as I kiss the side of his neck. Nowhere near the mark. I can’t touch it. Not right now. Instead my lips find the delicate skin just behind his ear, the one place I’ve learned makes his knees unsteady, and I drag my mouth there slow enough to feel the involuntary shiver roll down his spine. My hands bracket his on the bar, not quite covering them, close enough that the heat of my palms radiates against his knuckles. Four inches between our fingers. Three. The almost-touch burns worse than actually grabbing him.
“You tell me to stop, I stop,” I say against his skin.
“Just do it.”
So I do.
There’s no romance in it. Just fumbling with his belt until he swears and helps me, tearing at clothes until we’re both exposed to the cool air of the bar. This isn’t slow hands and checking in. This is need with its teeth showing.
Shay braces himself over the bar, breathing hard. His skin is warm under my hands, smooth except for that little scar through his eyebrow when he turns his head just so. I can see it in the mirror.
That scar usually makes him look skeptical. Tonight it just makes him look young.
Too young.
The thought should stop me. It doesn’t. I grip his hip harder, thumb pressing into the cut of muscle just above the bone, feeling the way that particular dip fits my hand like it was carved for it. The involuntary clench of his ass against my thigh when I shift closer makes my breath stutter.
