Shadow Unit Scandal: The Commander's Omega-Chapter 75: Guide review (2)

Gregoris did not wait for Rafael’s shaky response. The playful glint in his silver eyes turned into something way hungrier. His hands, which had been gently cradling Rafael’s face, moved.

One slid to the small of Rafael’s back, pulling their bodies flush. The other tangled in the damp hair at the base of Rafael’s neck, tracing the mark still healing. The fuzzy robe between them was a laughable barrier.

Rafael’s hands had nowhere safe to go. He ended up curling them into Gregoris’ shirt, clutching it like stability itself, as if he let go, the floor would vanish.

"I think," Gregoris murmured, his voice a low vibration against Rafael’s lips, "we’ve reviewed enough theory."

Rafael’s laugh sounded like a surrender disguised as defiance. "You’re... this is absolutely not-"

"Academic research?" Gregoris finished for him, amused. "No. It’s field application."

He didn’t kiss him.

Not yet.

He hovered painfully close, letting the anticipation stretch, letting Rafael feel every soft, controlled breath. His scent deepened-winter air threaded through warmth, settling around Rafael.

Rafael tried to think.

He really did.

But thinking became difficult when Gregoris lowered his head just enough to drag his nose slowly along Rafael’s cheek, inhaling him like something precious he fully intended to keep.

The bond pulsed.

Rafael’s heart tripped over itself.

"Still unimpressed?" Gregoris asked softly, his lips ghosting the corner of Rafael’s mouth without touching it.

Rafael hated him.

Rafael absolutely, unquestionably, deeply did not hate him.

"I..." The word dissolved into breath as Gregoris’s fingers tightened just slightly in his hair, guiding his head back the smallest fraction, enough to bare his throat a little more, enough to make instinct flare bright and helpless.

Gregoris stilled there for a moment, as if savoring the sight.

"No," he said quietly, his voice softer now, sincerity threaded under the hunger. "Didn’t think so."

The world narrowed to heat, breath, scent, and the dizzying awareness of how close they were and how skillfully Gregoris was holding the line of restraint.

Gregoris finally closed the last inch between them and kissed him...

Gregoris’s lips were firm, insistent, and Rafael opened for him with a helpless gasp, winter mint and alpha heat flooding his senses. The kiss deepened fast but was controlled and thorough, like Gregoris never did anything halfway. His tongue brushed against Rafael’s, slow at first, then surer when Rafael melted into him, hands fisting into Gregoris’s shirt like he needed something solid to hold on to.

The air shifted again, pheromones thickening sweet and sharp between them. Rafael leaned into him without thinking, his body already choosing before his mind could catch up.

Gregoris didn’t rush.

He kissed like someone who wanted to feel every reaction, every tremor, every small helpless sound Rafael tried, and failed, to keep trapped in his throat. His hand stayed firm at Rafael’s back, keeping him close. The other stroked slowly through his damp hair, fingers tightening just enough when Rafael shivered.

The bond hummed in pleasure.

Gregoris eased back eventually, just enough to breathe, to hover close again. Their mouths were still barely apart, breaths mingling.

Rafael swallowed, dizzy and dazed, eyes unfocused for a heartbeat before he managed to speak.

"You kiss like you’ve been starved," he breathed.

A faint, crooked smile touched Gregoris’s lips.

"That’s because I have," he murmured back.

"Gregoris..." Rafael leaned more into Gregoris. "I don’t care who is calling this time. You are not going to leave me alone."

"Good," he said quietly. "Because I’m not going anywhere."

Ether stirred around them, responding instinctively to him, to the bond, to the intent neither of them bothered pretending it didn’t exist anymore. The wards in the room flickered, shimmering with brief light... and the world folded.

One heartbeat, Rafael was standing.

The next...

Softness.

He hit the mattress with a breathless sound, the world tilting as his back sank into cool sheets and the room reformed around him. The ceiling above was dim-lit, a familiar room, safer than anywhere he had ever been and currently far too small to contain the weight of Gregoris’s attention.

Rafael stared up, half stunned, half wrecked, and aware of it.

Gregoris stood over him for one still, devastating second.

A man who had spent a lifetime walking away from what he wanted and had finally decided he was finished doing that.

He planted one knee on the bed, then the other, the mattress dipping under his weight as he leaned forward, bracing a hand beside Rafael’s head. The other settled at Rafael’s hip firmly, a silent anchor that said, ’You’re not falling, I’ve got you.’

Rafael swallowed, throat tight, eyes wide and a little hazy. "Gregoris..."

He grabbed weakly at Gregoris’s shirt and then tugged it with more force than either of them expected. "Didn’t you say something about being starved?" Rafael managed to breathe out, his other hand loosening the belt from his bathrobe.

The fluffy material slid over each part of his body, exposing his naked body behind.

For a breath, Gregoris forgot to breathe.

He bent slowly, one hand remaining at Rafael’s hip, thumb stroking slow reassurance into skin. The other dragged each line from Rafael’s sternum up over his collarbone, pausing there, feeling the rapid heartbeat beneath his palm.

"No."

Gregoris’s voice was a low, raw vibration that settled deep in Rafael’s bones.

The hand on his hip tightened, just shy of pain. Gregoris’s gaze burned a trail down his body, from his flushed face, over the pale stretch of his throat, across the trembling plane of his chest, and lower.

Rafael’s breath hitched. "No... what?"

"I may be starved," Gregoris murmured, his eyes finding Rafael’s again, hungry and focused. "But I’m not a brute. I don’t ravage a feast without tasting it first."

Gregoris shifted his weight, his knees sliding down the mattress until he was kneeling between Rafael’s legs. His hands, warm and sure, smoothed up Rafael’s inner thighs, pushing them wider apart. The sheet whispered against his skin, while Gregoris’s touch made him tremble.

"You’re beautiful like this," Gregoris said, his voice thick. "Laid out for me. All that sharp talk, that defiant little mind... and here you are."

Rafael wanted to argue, to snap back. The words dissolved into a choked gasp as Gregoris bent forward, not to his cock, but to the sensitive skin of his inner thigh. His lips were soft, his breath hot. He placed a kiss there, just above the knee. Then another, an inch higher. A slow, torturous ascent.

Each kiss was a mark. Each soft exhale against his dampening skin made Rafael’s hips twitch. He could feel himself hardening, the ache building low in his belly, a sweet, heavy pressure. His scent, that floral sweetness, bloomed in the air, thick with arousal.

Gregoris inhaled deeply, a low, appreciative rumble in his chest. "Gods, Rafael. You smell like heaven."

His mouth reached the crease of his thigh, so close to where Rafael burned for him. He nuzzled there, his nose brushing coarse hair, and Rafael cried out, his back arching off the bed.

"Please..."

"Please what?" Gregoris asked, his lips moving against his skin. "Use your words, my love."

"Please... don’t tease."

A soft, dark chuckle. "But teasing you is half the fun."