Page 41 of Untamed

His mouth twitches without becoming a smile. He does it again harder. I let him set the rhythm, my hands loose at his hips until he grabs one and plants it higher. “Now.”

I tighten my grip. Orion rises and comes down over me again, using my hands for leverage while the pace builds. When I follow too quickly, he catches my jaw and holds my gaze. “Wait.”

I still beneath him. Orion keeps his hand there until my hips stop moving, then shifts his knees wider. “Now. Match me.”

The next time he comes down, I thrust up to meet him. A rough sound tears out of Orion as the added force drives me deeper, and he immediately does it again. We find the rhythm from there, his pace building until my hands have to tighten at his hips whenever he pushes down harder.

After the implant’s silence, every reaction through the bond lands too clearly: pleasure when I meet him right, a sharp flare when my grip catches wrong, then heat when I fix it. Orion bites down on my shoulder when I give him more than he expects, drags his mouth away, and says, “Again.”

I do. His thighs tighten around me, slick warm against my skin while he rides me harder. The checkpoint flashes through the bond for one ugly second: metal rail, a guard’s arm twisted under his hands, Orion dragging himself backward when I called his name. His rhythm stutters, and I keep my hands where he put them until he finds it again.

My knot starts to swell at the base of my cock while he’s still moving. Orion feels the change immediately, his body tightening around me as the thicker pressure catches every time he comes down. I stop thrusting and loosen my hands at his hips. “Orion.”

“Don’t pull out.” He grinds down against the swelling base, breath breaking when it stretches him wider. His palms flatten against my chest. “I want it.”

I stay still beneath him. “Then take it.”

Orion lowers himself the last inch by himself. The knot catches, stretches him wider, and finally slips fully inside. A cry breaks out of him as the pressure spreads deep enough to make his whole body tremble over me, and he folds forward until his forehead hits my shoulder.

I put one hand between his shoulder blades and leave the other loose at his waist. “Too much?”

“No.” Orion’s fingers curl against my chest. “Stay.”

I stay exactly where I am while his body slowly unclenches around the knot. For a few seconds there’s nothing but his breath against my neck, the slick heat between us, and the pulse of the bond opening wider than it has since the Doctor touched him.

The kitchen disappears under the same white room I saw when the permanent bond first opened, but this time the pieces hold. Leather cuts into Orion’s wrists while the Alpha who took his first bond leans over him, too close and too pleased with himself. Orion’s fear goes hard and cold as his fingers start becoming claws, and he keeps watching the man even when the Alpha realizes too late that Orion isn’t trying to escape anymore.

The room tears sideways and Orion gets more of mine too. Miller ignores me when I tell him to stop. The Omega on the table convulses against the restraints while Miller keeps watching the numbers instead of the boy. I put both hands around his throat and squeeze. He understands before he dies that I’m not trying to scare him.

The two rooms crash together until I can’t see the kitchen at all. Orion’s hands fist in my shoulders while mine lock around his back, the knot keeping us pressed together until the white walls finally break apart and the rug comes back beneath us.

Orion is still shaking when he lifts his head and looks at the marks he left across my shoulder and ribs. His expression tightens when he finds the bite near my collarbone still bleeding, and he bends to lick the blood away without thinking about it.

Heat rolls through the wound so quickly that I jerk beneath him. By the time Orion lifts his head, the puncture has closed and the bruising around it is already fading.

Orion goes still for a second before bending over the claw mark along my ribs and dragging his tongue over that too. The torn skin knits together under his mouth until there’s nothing left except a pink line that fades while we stare at it.

“What the fuck?” Orion touches the place with two fingers. “I didn’t know I could do that.”

Blood is still sliding from the incision at his neck. I reach toward it and stop before my fingers touch him. “Hold still.”

Orion tips his head after a second. I put my mouth over the cut I made with the kitchen knife and lick slowly across the blood. Heat gathers beneath my tongue, the bond pulses once, and the open skin starts pulling together under my mouth until there’s nothing left to taste but Orion.

His hand flies to his neck. He feels the spot twice, eyes widening when his fingers find smooth skin. “That’s not supposed to work for you. You’re an Alpha. You shouldn’t be able to do that.”

I look at the ruined implant on the table, then back at the place where the incision used to be. “No. I shouldn’t.”

I pull Orion against me and start to purr. His breath shakes out against my neck before his answering hum rolls through my chest, and his fingers knot in my hair while the ruined implant sits split open on the table behind us.

Chapter Twenty-three

Orion

Having myself back is almost painful. Since the implant went in, the world has reached me through a layer of gray distance; now every scent, sound, and movement arrives at full strength. Arlo’s leather, coffee, soap, and skin crowd the kitchen until I have to breathe through the force of recognizing all of it again. My animal instincts are there too, not roaring or clawing for control, simply present with the same bruised awareness I have.

I didn’t understand how much space that part of me occupied until the implant carved it out. Now every instinct returns at once: Arlo’s scent means home, the door means watch it, the windows mean exposure, and the memory of the Doctor’s hands makes my neck ache even though the wound is already gone. I’m sitting on the kitchen floor with my back against the cabinet while Arlo cleans blood from the rug and table. He is close enough that I can hear him breathing, and somehow that doesn’t settle me.

My animal is back at full volume, but the blank spaces aren’t. I can feel every restless push of him beneath my skin and every shift of my attention toward the doors or windows, but nothing drops out from under me the way it did before. Arlo stays there through all of it, steady on the other side of the bond.