Chapter 17: The First Morning After
The knot had subsided, leaving them both loose-limbed and drowsy. Aurora nuzzled into Rhys’s chest, her breathing slow, her scent mellowed to a warm, sugary glow. He lay on his back, one arm flung over his eyes, the other curled possessively around her. The room was a testament to the past hours—tangled sheets, pillows on the floor, the air still thick and intimate.A low growl echoed in the quiet.Not from him.
Rhys cracked one eye open. “Was that your stomach?”
Aurora made a soft noise of denial, burrowing deeper against him. “‘M not hungry.”
“Yeah, you are.” He shifted, disentangling himself.The cool air hit his damp skin. “You haven’t eaten since I got here. You’re gonna crash.”
“Don’t need food,” she murmured, her voice slurred with residual bliss.Her hand wandered down his abdomen, her intent clear. “Just need…”
He caught her wrist, gently but firmly.“Nuh-uh. Food first.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed, the floorboards creaking under his weight. He pulled on his boxers and padded out to the kitchen, a man on a mission.
He returned with a small bowl. The morning sun now sliced through the curtains, illuminating dancing dust motes and the vibrant colors in the dish. He’d cut strawberries into precise little hearts, arranged alongside cubes of pale green melon and a few plump blueberries.“Here. Easy stuff.”
Aurora looked at the bowl like it contained broken glass. She shook her head, her blonde hair sticking to her damp temples. “Can’t.”
“You can.” He sat on the edge of the bed, speared a strawberry heart with a fork.He brought it to her lips. “Open up.”
She turned her face away, her lower lip trembling. A different kind of desperation was setting in, the single-minded focus of her heat narrowing again, but on a new target. Her hand snaked out, not for the fork, but for the waistband of his boxers. “Just want you.Please, Alpha.Need to taste you.”
He leaned back, just out of reach. “Aurora.”
“One more time,” she begged, her hazel eyes wide and glassy.“Then I’ll eat.Promise.”
He knew that promise was worthless. The heat-haze had her in its teeth. He felt his own body responding, the sight of her pliant and begging stirring the alpha aggression just beneath his surface.He wanted to give in. To flip her over and lose himself again. But the rational part of him, the part that owned a business and paid taxes and fixed complex engines, saw the faint tremor in her hands, heard the hollow note in her stomach’s growl.
“You’re going to eat this fruit,” he said, his voice taking on that low, uncompromising tone that usually made her melt.
This time, it made her whine. She scooted closer, her mouth aiming for his throat, his chest, anywhere she could press a kiss.“Need your knot…”
He stood up, holding the bowl aloft like a trophy. “New deal.”
She stared up at him, frustrated tears welling.
He kept his voice casual, almost businesslike.“Five bites. You take five bites of this, nice and slow, and I’ll give you an orgasm.My fingers. Right after.”
Her whine cut off.She blinked.The frantic energy stuttered, rerouted by the new, tantalizing proposition. Sex was the currency.He was just making a trade.
“One… orgasm?” she whispered, as if clarifying terms.“One.Good one.But only after five bites. Cheating means no deal.”
She chewed on her bottom lip, her gaze darting from his stern face to the bowl in his hand, then down to the noticeable bulge in his boxers. The calculus of her need was almost visible.Five bites.Then pleasure.It was a bridge she could cross.
Slowly, she gave a tiny, hesitant nod.
“Okay,” Rhys said, the tension in his shoulders easing.He sat back down, closer this time.“Good girl. Now open.”
She parted her lips, her eyes locked on his.He placed the strawberry on her tongue. She closed her mouth, chewing slowly, her expression one of profound reluctance.But she swallowed.
“One,” he counted.He fed her a cube of melon.It was cool and sweet. She took it, her movements becoming more automatic.“Two.”
Another strawberry.A blueberry. The process was painstakingly slow, a quiet contrast to the frenzy that had filled the room before. He watched her throat work with each swallow, watched the faint color return to her cheeks. He found himself focusing on the simple act of care, on the way her lashes fluttered when he praised her.
“Five,” he finally announced, setting the empty bowl on the nightstand.
Aurora’s eyes instantly darkened with renewed hunger. She reached for him, but he guided her back onto the pillows.“I said my fingers. Lie back.”
She obeyed, a shiver of anticipation running through her. He kissed the inside of her knee, her thigh, working his way up with a deliberate slowness that made her gasp.He was true to his word. His touch was expert, patient, building her up until she was clutching the sheets, her back arching off the mattress with a silent, shuddering cry.
When it was over, she lay panting, a soft, dazed smile on her face.Spent.Satisfied.Rhys brushed the hair from her forehead. “See?You can listen. You can take care of yourself.”
She caught his hand, holding it against her cheek.Her voice was a sleepy murmur. “Thank you, Alpha.”
He watched her as her breathing evened out into true sleep, this time fueled by sugar and simple satisfaction. He looked around the wrecked room, at the empty fruit bowl, at the small, trusting omega curled in his sheets.
The anonymous chat window was still open on her laptop, a forgotten portal to a different kind of transaction.He reached over and closed the lid, plunging the screen into darkness. For now, the only connection that mattered was right here, in this sunlit, messy room. The silence felt heavy with something he hadn't agreed to, something that was settling deep into his bones anyway.