Sauter (Ironside Academy, #3)(64)

“Are you sure you want to live without pain, Illy?”

“W-What?”

“Two fingers,” he grunted. “Now. Good. Good girl. Now three.”

Rein it in, asshole.

He could only have sex when he was in complete control of everything that happened, and sometimes he needed to push his partner, just to make doubly sure that he was still in control, that they would still obey his every command. But he wasn’t having sex with Isobel.

He was … shit, it was so much worse than sex.

He just wanted her to feel good for once.

“Tell me what feels nice.” He tried to temper the dominance wanting to rise up in his throat, to bark commands at her, to push and push and push until she cried again, because there was something not right in him, and he thought she sounded pretty when she was sniffling and calling him Gabe.

“I like your voice,” she whispered back. “It feels good.”

She was going to kill him.

Gabriel eased his hand from his throbbing length, stretching out his fingers as the need to drive into her until he had somewhere wet and warm to release into seized up in his spine.

He preferred to wear condoms, usually, and to tear them off at the last second so that he could come on his partner, instead of having it sticking to his own flesh.

This fantasy was a new one, and he wasn’t sure he liked it.

He needed to end this.

“Time to come,” he demanded, the harsh edge creeping back into his voice.

But she liked it. Of course she did. She liked when he took the pressure off her shoulders and demanded she make herself feel good. Her fingers slipped from her channel, rubbing over her clit, and she flinched as she pinched her nipple too hard, almost making him explode on himself.

“I told you to do something,” Gabriel said calmly. “So do it now, Illy.”

She let out a small whimper, her release flooding through her body in a strong wave that had him biting his lip hard enough to draw blood. The intense feeling must have somehow jerked him back to his own body, but he barely noticed.

He had intended to deny himself, but his hand was a magnet, drawn to the flesh that was already twitching, already exploding along with her. He couldn’t have held it back if he tried, and he thought he might have tried, but that was almost a distant memory, pushed aside as his thoughts filled with her taste, her breath, her scent, and the waves of her orgasm that pulsed through them both, leaving him with the violent aftershocks.

She swore quietly, the sound carrying through his phone speaker as he settled back into his body. Her next whimper was a nervous one. He stroked himself slowly, feeling his own release against his still-hard cock, too distracted to be grossed out by it.

“I think your chain is beautiful,” he said on an exhale.

I think you’re beautiful, he wanted to add, because she deserved pretty words and platitudes, but she deserved clear boundaries even more. There wasn’t going to be a romantic relationship between them.

There couldn’t be.

The Alphas were his family, and he had bet his entire life on what they were doing at Ironside.

One wrong step with Isobel was all they needed to collapse the whole foundation.


Isobel grew still, pain lacing away the gentle aftershocks that shivered through her body. She clutched her stomach, the empty cavernous feeling turning into a cyclone of horrible, sharp agony. When Theodore had touched her, it had helped … a lot.

Maybe Gabriel was right about this particular side effect … but if he had thought that sexual pleasure would help her, he was so wrong.

“You aren’t in my head anymore, are you?” she gritted.

“No.” His tone turned sharp with shock. “What happened? You sound like you’re in pain.”

“It’s worse,” she groaned.

He swore viciously. “I’m going to hang up so I can get some things together. Do you need help getting out of the shower?”

“No.” She stood up to prove it, but her knees immediately buckled as pain travelled like an electric shock through her limbs.

“That’s a yes, isn’t it?”

“Kilian,” she whispered, curling into a ball, and hugging her arms around her knees.

He was silent for a moment, but when he spoke again, it was on a soft exhale. “Okay. I’ll send in Kilian.” He hung up, and she focussed on trying to draw in one breath after another until the door flew open.

“Hey, baby.” Kilian turned off the shower, kneeling in front of her, his hands gently lifting her face. “You okay? What happened?”

He was stroking her cheeks, his pale eyes wide with concern, his beautiful mouth cinched into a tight line.

“Pain,” she moaned. “In my stomach.”

“Okay. Shit. All right.” He yanked a towel off the rack, squeezing out the water from her hair and doing his best to dry her off without disturbing her position. “You feel warm.” His hand pressed against her forehead, a frown digging down the sides of his mouth. He switched out the towel for a fresh one, using it to bundle her up and lift her onto the bathroom counter. He caught her legs as she hugged the towel around herself, helping to lower them slowly.

She winced. “Sorry you have to take care of me all the time.”

“I like taking care of you,” he rumbled, narrowing his eyes on her face. “Take that away from me and you’ll find out what a stage-ten clinger looks like in an Alpha’s body. It isn’t pretty. You feel like being squashed into a pancake?”