Chapter 13: The First Touch
His thumb kept stroking her cheek, a slow, soothing rhythm that seemed to sync with her ragged breathing. The cramp passed, leaving her limp and panting against the pillow. The scent of her distress was shifting, warming, deepening into something less panicked and more purposeful. Her heat was reasserting itself, now that the sharp edge of terror was blunted.Rhys watched the change in her eyes. The fear was still there, a pale film over the hazel, but beneath it a darker, needier current was rising. She was still clutching his thumb, her small hand a hot, damp vise around it.
“You’re getting warmer,” he observed, his voice a low rumble in the quiet room. It wasn’t a question.Aurora nodded, her gaze dropping to his mouth again. She licked her own dry lips.“It… comes in waves. This one’s… bigger.”
“I know.” He didn’t move from his place on the floor. His knees ached against the hardwood, but the discomfort was a grounding anchor.“Your body knows what it needs now. It’s okay to want it.”
A sharp, plaintive whine escaped her. It was different from the cries of pain—higher, thinner, laced with a frustration that was entirely new. Her hips gave a tiny, involuntary jerk against the mattress, a movement she clearly didn’t consciously intend. Color flooded her cheeks.She tried to hide her face in the pillow.
“Hey,” Rhys said, his hand on her cheek applying gentle pressure, turning her face back toward him. “Don’t hide from me.Don’t hide from this. It’s natural.” He waited until her shame-filled eyes met his.“Can you tell me what you’re feeling? Not the pain.The other part.”
She swallowed, her throat working. “It’s… it’s like an ache.Everywhere.But deep. And it’s… empty.” The last word was a whisper, almost lost in the rustle of the sheets as she shifted. “I feel so empty, Rhys.”
The sound of his name on her lips, spoken aloud in her soft, broken voice, did something to him. It bypassed the careful control, the structural plans he’d built in his mind, and struck something raw and elemental in his core. He had to close his eyes for a second, centering himself.This wasn’t about him. This was about her.“Okay,” he breathed out, opening his eyes. They were darker now, the amber nearly swallowed by the black of his pupils. “Empty is something we can work with.”
He finally moved from the floor. Not onto the bed, but to sit on the very edge of it, his weight making the mattress dip slightly. She gasped, her body rolling toward him with the incline, coming to rest against his thigh. The heat from her was immense, a furnace contained in soft, trembling skin.He kept his hand on her face. The other, the one she’d been holding, he slowly withdrew.She made a tiny sound of protest, her fingers grasping at empty air.
“Shh,” he murmured.“I’m right here. I need you to listen to my voice, Aurora.Can you do that?”
She nodded, her eyes wide and fixed on his.
“I’m going to touch you more.To help with the ache.We’ll start simple. My hand on your neck.Just to feel your pulse.Is that alright?”
Another frantic nod. Her consent was nonverbal, her entire body screaming it.
His large, warm hand slid from her cheek, down the column of her throat.His fingers settled gently over the frantic flutter of her pulse. He could feel the rapid, bird-like beat of her heart, the sweat-slick skin. She let out a long, shuddering sigh, her eyes drifting shut. The touch was dominant, claiming in a way, but his pressure was light, just a statement of presence.“Good girl. So good for me.” The praise was automatic, a reflex from their chats, but here it was layered with a tangible, breathing truth.She preened under it, a subtle softening in her shoulders.
His hand moved lower, skating over the thin fabric of her tank top, coming to rest on the tense plane of her belly. She flinched, then pushed into the touch, a low moan bubbling up from her chest.“Does that help the ache?” he asked, his voice hypnotic.
“Yes.No. It’s… deeper.” Her words were slurring, her mind sinking into the heat, into the sensation of his hands on her.“I know where it is,” he said. His palm pressed down slightly, a firm, warm weight. “I can feel the heat right here, sweetheart. It’s burning you up.”
She was crying again, but these were different tears—hot, silent, overflowing with a bewildering mix of relief and unbearable need. “Please.”
The word was a ghost of sound.He stilled.
“Please what, Aurora?” He had to be sure.He had to hear it.
She turned her face into his wrist, her lips moving against his skin.“Please… touch me.There. Where it’s empty.”
A sharp, potent thrill shot through him, clean and hot.He acknowledged it, then set it aside. This was her command.Her request.He was just following her lead.
His hand slid from her belly, hooking into the waistband of her cotton shorts.He paused, his fingers just under the elastic. “This is the line, Aurora.You say yes, and I cross it. There’s no going back to just holding hands.You understand?”
Her eyes opened. The fear was gone, burned away by the fever.What looked back at him was stark, unfiltered need. An Omega in full drive.It was terrifyingly beautiful.“Yes,” she breathed. “Yes, Rhys.”
He didn’t smile.His face was a mask of solemn concentration. He hooked his fingers and drew the shorts and her damp underwear down her legs in one slow, deliberate motion. She helped, lifting her hips with a weak, awkward urgency, kicking the fabric away until it tangled at her ankles. She lay exposed from the waist down, her legs falling apart slightly, a silent, vulnerable invitation.The scent in the room bloomed, overpowering the lavender. Sweet, fertile, intensely omega.It was a scent designed to enslave an alpha’s reason. Rhys breathed it in, letting it wash over him, but he didn’t move to cover her. He just looked, his gaze tracing the soft, downy thatch of hair, the glistening evidence of her need.“Look at you,” he whispered, awe in his tone.“So perfect. So ready.”
She whimpered, one hand coming up to cover her eyes, overwhelmed by his scrutiny and her own exposure.He caught her wrist, gently pulling it away.“Don’t hide. I want to see you.All of you.” He leaned down, his face close to her belly. He placed a single, soft kiss just below her navel.She jerked as if shocked. “My good, sweet girl.”
He straightened.His own breathing was less steady now. He brought his hand back, not to her core, but to her inner thigh. His touch was firm, possessive, smoothing over the quivering muscle.She jumped at the contact, her thighs trembling.
“Easy,” he soothed, his hand stroking upward.“I’ve got you. I’m just making sure you’re ready for me.”
His fingers finally, slowly, brushed through her folds. She cried out, back arching clear off the mattress, a sharp, broken sound of shock and devastating pleasure. She was drenched, hot, and impossibly soft.
“Oh, god,” she sobbed, her hands flying to grip the sheets.“Shh, I know. I know, baby.” He kept his touch light, exploratory, tracing circles without applying direct pressure. He was learning her, mapping her responses.Every flinch, every gasp, every liquid pulse was a language he studied. “You’re so sensitive. So perfect.”
He finally let his thumb find the hardened nub of her clit.He barely grazed it.Aurora shattered. A raw, choked scream tore from her throat as her body bowed, seized by a climax so intense and unexpected it was almost a convulsion. It ripped through her, wave after wave, her heels digging into the mattress, her fingers twisting in the sheets. Her eyes were wide, unseeing, stunned by the violence of her own release.
Rhys held her through it, his hand a steady, unmoving pressure as she rode it out, his own heart hammering against his ribs. He watched her face, the shock of pleasure wiping every other emotion clean.
As the last tremors subsided, she collapsed, boneless and spent, her breath coming in ragged, desperate pants. The heat-daze in her eyes was deeper, but the sharp edge of the ache was temporarily blunted. She looked up at him, dazed, vulnerable, completely broken open.
He leaned over, caging her with his arms, his face inches from hers.His scent enveloped her. Cedar and linen and now, something darker, more alpha—primal and satisfied.
“That,” he said, his voice gravelly with restraint, “was just the beginning.Just me touching you.” He brushed his nose against hers. “The emptiness is still there, isn’t it?”
She could only nod, a fresh wave of desperate tears welling up. The release had been a temporary relief, but the deep, core emptiness remained, throbbing and insistent.“I know,” he whispered, his lips hovering over hers. He didn’t kiss her.He just let her feel the promise of it. “I’m going to fill it.But not yet.You need to rest for a minute.Catch your breath. You did so well.”
He pulled back, sitting up, and to her dismay, began to unbutton his own shirt. The fabric, damp with sweat and the room’s heat, parted to reveal the hard planes of his chest, the shift of muscle under skin, the dark ink of tattoos she couldn’t yet decipher.
“What… what are you doing?” she asked, her voice thin.
“Getting more comfortable,” he said simply, shrugging the shirt off and letting it drop to the floor.His torso was a landscape of strength, of control barely held in check. “And giving you something better to hold onto than a sheet.”
He didn’t give her time to process the sight of him before he was lying down beside her, on top of the covers, pulling her gently until her back was flush against his chest. His arm came around her, his hand splaying possessively over the same spot on her belly. His skin was hot, his body a solid wall of heat and muscle at her back. He nestled his face into the crook of her neck, breathing her in.Aurora went utterly still, then melted.A full-body sigh of profound relief shook her. The feeling of being enveloped, surrounded, claimed by his bare skin and overwhelming presence, was what her omega soul had been screaming for. The emptiness didn’t feel so vast, so terrifying, with him wrapped around her.
“Is this okay?” he murmured into her hair, his lips moving against her skin.She nodded, turning her head to bury her face against his bicep. Her hand came up to clutch his forearm, holding him to her. “Don’t go.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he promised, his voice a low vibration against her spine. “I’m right here.Just rest. The next part can wait.”
Outside the door, Rina heard the scream, the subsequent deep moans, and then… silence.Not a bad silence. A saturated, heavy quiet. She slid down the wall until she was sitting on the hallway floor, her head in her hands. The fierce protective flare in her chest settled into a weary, watchful ache.He was keeping his word. So far.