TWENTY

Maybe I was the one to light the flame.
Or maybe together, we started an inferno.

All I knew was the moment his lips brushed mine I was gone, completely and inconceivably falling.

But falling had never felt so good.

I always thought the only thing that lay below was hell, but now I knew.. heaven lay below.
I ran a hand through his hair, it was softer than I had imagined. He was softer than I had imagined.

Everything about him was gentle in this moment.

The kiss was slow, but packed with unguarded want. I felt myself being lifted, as he pulled me into his lap like a china doll, careful not to break me.

The way his feverish lips swept across mine, with such... there wasn't a word to describe to, emotions taken and rolled into felt, that ached in my heart as something I couldn't emote.
A growl so low I felt it's vibrato from the base of my spine to the tips of my fingers rumbled from his chest, I hadn't realised I had been grinding myself into him.

With touch, every slight movement, I could feel his excitement growing.
Greater, harder, stronger.
I let my greedy hands that had been starved for what seemed like an eternity since I had first laid eyes upon this mountain of a man trail their way along the hard, tense muscles of his shoulders, gently raking my nails down the length of his back.

Hungry sounds filled the spaces between us, a gasp as his teeth scraped my lip, a groan as I rolled my hips against the straining length of him, teasing, testing, tasting.

Just a taste of what could be.

-And I licked up every last drop.

In an instant we were standing, well he was. Our lips unbroken, with my legs wrapped around his waist as he carried me to the desk.
He lifted me up, dropping me on the wood, and I broke from the kiss with a hiss as I encountered the cold surface.

Our mouths crashed together, this time a new and different type of need had awoken between us. I yanked on his shirt, calling out breathlessly, "Off."

He did as I said, and I watched entranced with his every move, my eyes clinging to every muscle and contour as he pulled it up and over his head, tossing it into some forgotten corner of the room.

He grunted as his head descended to mine again, and I met those lips with vigor, giving him a taste of my need. I slipped my hands around him to drag my nails down his back, spreading my legs further to accommodate his body, as I pulled him flush against me.

Suddenly something changed, he was off me like I was on fire, suddenly alert.

"What's wrong?" I said, sitting up.
Did I do something wrong?

"Flick's coming." He scanned the room, his eyes settling for the small broom closet. "You have to hide."

Memories of the first time I saw the Alpha flooded back to me, in Astorias cabin I was shoved into the closet. He knew I was there of course, he could sense me, although his senses were superior to most. A chill ran down my spine at the memories of what had happened next, he had strangled me. I found my hands subconsciously moving to my throat.

"Artemis." He said with urgency, throwing open as many windows as he could, trying to air out the suffocating scents of our arousal. I couldn't focus, my mind was swaying at the way he said my name, alone. His shirt was back on now, much to the beast inside's displeasure.
"She can't see you. Not like this."

Less than a minute later I heard the door open from inside the closet, I held my breath.

"What do you want." Theos deadpanned, my skin almost prickled with the icy that hung sharply from his voice.

"You know what I fucking want Theos!"

He didn't answer. Instead her voice turned from shrill to hanging on the edge of control.
"Inside me I carry the next Alpha of the Kingdom, and you refuse to even look at me! Let alone lie with me!"

Even I was taken a back by his cold response.
"My duties to my pack come before my duties to you."

"They thought I had miscarried earlier. There was blood." She sounded like she was holding back tears, her voice shook and broke as she confronted the almost death of her child. "I thought I had lost him. We all did, and where were you, nowhere to be found!"

"I was busy-"

"You weren't there!" She shrieked, "Why weren't you there!"

"Our child almost died, Theos!" A horrid feeling weighted down the pit of my stomach, growing heavier with every word Flick spoke. "That's more important than any pack paperwork or meeting!"

His growl ripped through the tense air, even in here I could feel the waves of rage that radiated off of him at the challenge she was issuing.

"If you ask me to choose between you and my pack." He snarled, -I don't think I had ever heard such malice in anyone's tone before, I could practically hear the beast inside him thrashing like a wild thing, his judgment still slurred slightly by the whiskey. "-I will choose my pack. Every time."

Flick snapped, something shattered and her scream hit my heart. "I gave you everything a woman could ever give a man! I've sacrificed everything for you! And still you don't love me! You won't let yourself, because you're still hung up over her!"

Mare.
He didn't need to shout for his voice to send shockwaves through to chill my bones.
"I told you not to love me." I grimaced at the pain and fresh grief that echoed throughout every syllable. "I told you not to."

But flick was blind to his pain.