Chapter 727: The Alpha’s Stretch Goals

From the first morning, River sat at his right hand, and nobody in the Moon Kingdom questioned it for the reason nobody questioned anything the Alpha decided, which was that he was the Alpha and the arrangement of his table was the arrangement of his will.

The war council convened in the long hall with the painted-star ceiling, and the chair at Lucian’s right was hers before she’d thought to wonder whether it should be.

It was a place laid for her with the same unremarkable certainty as the places laid for the Beta and the generals. When she hesitated at the threshold on that first day he simply looked at her, then looked at the chair, and the looking settled the matter the way his looking settled everything.

The councils were tense, because the councils of a growing kingdom surrounded by houses that resented its growing were always tense.

???

THAT NIGHT - MOON KINGDOM

The first night, River changed in the bathing chamber with the door closed. When she opened the door, Lucian was already in bed, "sleeping."

She got into the bed on her side, unsure. Then she turned on her side.

"You are not asleep." Fin dragged a hand down his face, watching a version of himself in a past life fake sleep while she turned on her side away from him.

Lucian opened one eye. Saw her back was to him. The reconnaissance was thorough. The reconnaissance was also ridiculous. Satisfied, his eye closed.

Then the "stretch" began. The stretch was enormous, theatrical, and entirely unnecessary, and it ended with his arm draped across her waist and her back pressed against his bare chest magically.

The design had been drafted while she was in the bath chamber. Possibly before that, when he ordered her things moved into his chambers.

Her eyes opened wide, surprised. She glanced up at him. His eyes were closed. His breathing was even. His face was the picture of deep, unbothered, absolutely-did-not-do-that-on-purpose sleep. She studied him for three seconds, decided the stretch had been involuntary, and settled back against his chest, which was the conclusion Lucian had been banking on, and the banking paid off, and the payoff was the woman he loved falling asleep against his bare skin while he held his breath and tried not to smile.

Fin stared at the ceiling. He had just watched himself execute a move so transparent that any conscious observer would have seen through it in a heartbeat.

"It worked. Can’t hate it," he commented to no one.

Lucian understood that she had just broken a fated tie and was held together by discipline and stubbornness and very little else.

???

Fin watched himself rinse and repeat the exact same goddamn move every night. It worked. River assumed he just did that in his sleep. Her nightmares went away.

A month went by before the stretching plan failed him.

She got into bed and turned towards him instead of away.

He opened his eyes. Found her looking at him. Neither of them spoke for five seconds, and the five seconds contained an entire negotiation conducted in breathing and proximity, and the negotiation concluded with his arm sliding around her and her forehead pressing against his collarbone and both of them pretending the arrangement was accidental.

Lucian’s hand slid from the nape of her neck down the length of her spine. Each pass of his palm pressed a little firmer, claiming another inch of her back until the tension she carried like armor began to melt.

She let out a shaky breath against his chest, and he answered it with a low hum of approval that vibrated through her bones.

The following night, she faced him again.

Lucian was already watching her and closed the distance.

The kiss started slow, then deepened when his hand slid into her hair and tilted her head so he could take her mouth the way he wanted. He rolled them, settling her over his hips so the hard length of him pressed right against her. His hands gripped her waist.

"Feel that?" he murmured against her lips. "That’s what you do to me."

He dragged her down against him in a slow grind. The friction pulled a broken sound from her throat. He swallowed it with another kiss, guiding her hips so she kept rocking over the rigid line of his cock.

"Grind on it," he said, voice low and rough. "Fuck."

He sat up and pulled her night gown off. His mouth closed over one nipple, sucking hard while his hands kept working her hips in that grinding rhythm.

One hand fisted lightly in her hair, tilting her head back so her chest arched into his mouth. He bit lightly at the soft underside of her breast, then soothed it with his tongue. "Keep moving. Don’t stop."

The grinding turned faster, more desperate, her hips rolling hard against the rigid length of him. Her breathing broke. A low, helpless moan tore out of her as the pressure snapped.

"Lucian—"

She came with his name on her tongue, thighs shaking, body jerking against him as the orgasm rolled through her. He felt it hit through the one-sided matebond and groaned, deep and satisfied, arms locking around her to keep her grinding through it.

"That’s it," he rasped against her skin, voice wrecked. "Cum for me. I can feel it. Fuck, River, I can feel all of it."

He held her through the aftershocks, still hard beneath her, still guiding her hips in slow, lazy rolls while she trembled and gasped his name against his shoulder.

When he finally stripped his pants, he lifted her and lined them up.

"Look at me," he ordered. She did. His hands locked on her hips. He started to lower her, but the head of his cock met tight resistance. He had to pause, jaw clenched, and rock her down in short, careful increments. Each inch stretched her more than the last.

"Hang on," he gritted out.

He forced another inch, then another, watching her face the whole time.

Her breath caught. Her fingers dug into his shoulders. She was shaking by the time he was halfway.

"Hey. Breathe, River. Let me in. I need all of it."

He stopped, holding her there, cock only partially inside her, letting her adjust. Then he pulled her down harder, driving the rest of the way in one slow, relentless push until she was fully seated and he was buried to the hilt. Both of them were breathing hard. His grip on her hips was bruising.

"That’s it," he said, voice strained. "All of it. Gods, you’re tight, baby. You feel so good."