Chapter 4: Morning Brutality
The gray light before dawn found them still tangled. Leonid had shifted sometime in the night, his back against the headboard, one arm draped over Jennie who slept curled against his side, her head on his chest. Her breathing was deep, even. His was not. He’d been awake for hours, watching the shadows soften on the ceiling, feeling the weight of her on him, the dried sweat and other things stiffening his skin.
Her scent was in him now. Not just around him, in the air, but in him. It lived under his skin, in the back of his throat, a permanent flavor beneath the taste of tobacco he craved. The mark on her neck, a dark violet bruise peppered with the precise crescents of his teeth, was a blatant, shocking claim against her pale skin. He traced it lightly with his eyes, a strange, possessive ache tightening his chest.
He’d fucked her. He’d knotted her. He’d claimed her.
And she’d schemed for it.
The thought should have made him angry again. It only made him tired, and hard. His cock, heavy and full, pressed against his thigh, uncomfortably confined. The restless, raw edge of his alpha nature, usually banked to a low smolder by cigarettes and solitude, was awake and prowling. It was focused entirely on the omega in his bed.
Jennie stirred, a soft murmur escaping her lips. Her body shifted against him, her thigh brushing over his erection. He sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth. Her eyes fluttered open, the sleepiness in them clearing as she registered their position, his warmth, the solid reality of him. Her cat-like gaze lifted to his face. He stared down, his expression unreadable.
“Morning,” she said, her voice raspy from last night’s screams.
He didn’t reply. He watched a flicker of uncertainty cross her features, watched her shields slam back into place a moment too late. He’d seen behind them now. He’d felt her come apart.
She tried to move, to put space between them, and a hiss escaped her. Pain. Soreness. Her muscles, her insides, all protested. The slight movement made her aware of the dried streaks on her inner thighs, the ache deep in her pelvis. Her cheeks flushed, but she held his gaze, a defiant spark returning.
“You’re crushing me,” she lied.
“No, I’m not,” he said, his own voice rough from disuse. His arm tightened around her, preventing her retreat. He shifted his hips, letting his morning erection press more deliberately against her side. “You feel that?”
She went still. “It’s hard to miss.”
“It’s your fault.”
A scoff. “My fault? You’re the one who—”
He moved fast. In one fluid motion, he rolled, pinning her beneath him. The sheets twisted around their legs. The morning air was cool on her exposed skin. He looked down at her, his dark curls falling into his eyes, his gaze intense enough to pin her in place as surely as his body did.
“You,” he said slowly, “broke your suppressants. You let your heat hit me full force. In our room. You knew what would happen.” He leaned down, his lips a breath from hers. “So yeah. It’s your fault. Own it.”
Before she could fire back a retort, he kissed her. It wasn’t like last night’ feral claiming. This was deliberate, deep, and shockingly thorough. He tasted her, explored her, until her fists unclenched from the sheets and rose to tangle in his hair, until she was kissing him back with a fever that matched his own.
He broke the kiss, trailing his mouth down her jaw, to her throat, licking over the mark he’d made. She trembled. His hands slid down her body, over the curve of her waist, the flare of her hips. He squeezed, the pressure just shy of painful. Then he flipped her.
It was so sudden her head spun. One moment she was on her back, the next her face was pressed into his pillow, her ass in the air. The cooler air of the room hit her wetness, making her acutely aware of how exposed she was, how sore and used and open she was from last night.
“Leonid, wait—” The protest was instinctive, a fragment of pride.
He didn’t wait. He spat, a crude, wet sound, and the slick warmth landed directly on her tight, untouched hole. She jerked, a shocked gasp caught in her throat.
“You said you wanted it raw,” he muttered, his voice thick with need. He positioned the broad, leaking head of his cock at her entrance, not where she was wet and waiting and sore, but there, where she was tight and clenched and utterly unprepared.
He pushed.
The burn was instantaneous, white-hot and brutal. She screamed, the sound muffled by the pillow. He wasn’t gentle, wasn’t slow. He used the spit and the lingering slickness from her heat to force his way in, an inexorable, stretching invasion. It hurt. It burned. She clawed at the sheets, tears springing to her eyes.
“Fuck… fuck, you’re tight,” he groaned, his own breath hitching as he buried the first thick inch inside her resistance. He paused, shuddering, his hands gripping her hips hard enough to bruise. Then he shoved forward again.
She sobbed, a broken, ragged sound. The stretch was unbearable, a tearing, searing fullness that was utterly different from last night. It was violation and possession cranked to a deafening peak. He bottomed out, his hips flush against her ass, his entire monstrous length sheathed in her tight, clenching channel. She felt stuffed, split open on him.
He didn’t let her adjust. He drew back and slammed in again.
The rhythm he set was brutal, unforgiving. Each thrust was a punishment and a claiming, a raw, piston-driven fuck that had her screaming into the pillow with every drive. The pain began to transmute, melting at the edges into a sharp, shocking pleasure that radiated from her core out to her fingertips. It was too much. It was not enough.
His hand came down on her ass with a sharp crack.
The sound echoed in the room. A bright, stinging pain bloomed on her skin. She cried out, her body clenching around him involuntarily, which made him curse and thrust deeper.
He did it again. And again. Alternating cheeks, his palm landing on her flesh with measured, relentless force. Each slap sent a jolt through her, a mix of shock and humiliation and a twisted, dirty thrill. Her skin grew hot under his hand. The sounds—the wet slap of his cock driving into her, the sharper crack of his palm on her ass, their ragged, synchronized breathing—filled the room.
“You like that?” he grunted, his voice guttural. “You like getting your ass fucked and spanked like a bad omega?”
She couldn’t answer. Her world had narrowed to the brutal stretch of him inside her, the burning heat of her spanked skin, the coil of pressure winding tighter and tighter in her belly. She was burning up again, a fresh, slick heat gushing between her legs, easing his way, making the brutal slide of his cock into her ass slightly less agonizing, slightly more obscenely pleasurable.
He leaned over her, his chest pressing against her sweaty back, his mouth at her ear. “Come for me,” he commanded, his voice a dark whisper. “Come on my cock while I fuck this tight little ass.”
It was the permission, the filthy order, that shattered her. The climax ripped through her with violence, a silent, breathless convulsion that locked her muscles and drew a long, choked keen from her throat. Her passage clamped around him in rhythmic, milking spasms.
The feel of her coming, so tight and hot around him, dragged him over the edge. With a final, deep thrust, he buried himself to the hilt and stilled, a low, ragged groan tearing from his chest as he emptied into her. He pulsed inside her, his release a hot flood in the deeply intimate space.
For a long minute, there was only the sound of their struggle to breathe. He collapsed partially over her, his weight a welcome anchor. He softened slowly inside her, both of them hyper-aware of the delicate, aching connection.
Finally, he pulled out. The sensation was strange, leaving her feeling gaping and empty. She heard him pad across the floor to the small attached bathroom. The sound of the shower starting a moment later was loud in the quiet.
She didn’t move. Her face was still buried in his pillow, which smelled like him, like them, like sex and sweat and tears. Her body felt ruined, used, thoroughly claimed in every possible way. A strange, heavy peace settled over her, laced with a deep, unshakable soreness.
The shower cut off. He came back into the room, a towel slung low around his hips, water gleaming on the sharp planes of his stomach and chest. He looked at her, a crumpled, marked, beautiful mess on his bed. His dark eyes were unreadable.
He walked to his desk, picked up his pack of cigarettes, and lit one. The familiar scent of smoke began to mix with the pungent smells of sex in the room. He took a long drag, leaning against the desk, watching her.
Jennie slowly pushed herself up. Every muscle protested. She didn’t look at him. She gathered the torn remains of her t-shirt and held them against her chest, a pointless gesture of modesty. She stood, her legs shaky, and walked to her side of the room, to her own bed, her own chaos of hoodies and paperwork.
The silence stretched, broken only by the soft sound of him exhaling smoke.
She found a clean sweatshirt and pulled it on. It swallowed her, falling to her thighs. She finally turned to face him, leaning against her dresser for support.
He took another drag, his eyes cataloging her—the mark on her neck, the fresh redness on her ass visible beneath the hem of the sweatshirt, the exhausted defiance in her eyes.
“So,” she said, her voice surprisingly steady. “What now?”
Leonid looked at the glowing tip of his cigarette, then back at her. He shrugged, a small, fluid motion.
“Now,” he said, his voice quiet, smoke curling from his lips, “you get dressed. And I make coffee.”