CHAPTER 498: CHAPTER 492: THE THIRD TRY

Damian laughed again under his mate’s command, the only one who could ever dare give it. With a flick of his hand, the study door locked, the wards pulsing faintly as they synchronized to seal the room. His golden eyes glinted with mischief. "Let’s see how ready you are for a third pregnancy."

The words had barely left him before Gabriel pulled him back down by the tie, their mouths crashing together. This time the kiss wasn’t neat or measured but consuming, a clash of teeth and breath that tasted of challenge and surrender all at once. Gabriel’s cologne, with sharp green notes and smoke, mingled with the warmer undercurrent of his natural scent, his pheromones rising unrestrained. It hit Damian like a strike of lightning.

The alpha’s control wavered. The molten thread of his pheromones poured into the air in response, heavy and heated, wrapping around Gabriel until the very walls seemed to thrum with it. The kiss deepened, tongues tangling, Gabriel’s breath catching when Damian’s hand slid higher along his thigh.

Damian broke only long enough to drag in air, his lips brushing the corner of Gabriel’s mouth. "You drive me mad with that scent," he murmured, voice low, ragged with want. "Cologne over skin, pheromones beneath, it’s enough to burn through every restraint I have."

Gabriel’s answering smile was sharp, his breath ghosting hot against Damian’s lips. "Then stop restraining yourself." His fingers tightened on the tie, pulling Damian closer until there was no space left between them.

Damian obeyed without hesitation. His mouth claimed Gabriel’s again, hungrier this time, tasting the layered mix of mint tea still clinging to his tongue and the raw pulse of pheromones bleeding into the air. It was dizzying, intoxicating, Gabriel’s scent threading through him until thought itself fractured into want.

The wards hummed louder, resonating faintly as if the ether itself bent toward their bond. Damian’s golden eyes flickered half-shut, his control unraveling with every drag of Gabriel’s mouth against his. He pressed him harder against the desk, hands gripping tight, desperate to ground himself against the only thing that ever unraveled him so completely.

Gabriel exhaled a low laugh against his lips, smug even as his breath stuttered. "Mad already, Emperor? And I’ve barely started."

Damian’s reply came rough, swallowed between kisses. "You’ve undone me since the first moment; what chance do I have now?" His voice dropped, molten and unyielding. "You’re mine, Gabriel. Every scent, every breath, you’re mine."

Gabriel’s smirk curved against his mouth, but his hands betrayed him, clutching at Damian’s shoulders like a man no longer in control. "Then prove it."

A low growl rumbled from Damian’s chest, a sound of pure possession. His hands, which had been gripping Gabriel’s hips, moved with a new, devastating purpose. He deftly unbuckled Gabriel’s belt, the slick shhh-click of the leather echoing in the tense quiet of the study. The button of his trousers went next, followed by the rasp of the zipper being drawn down with agonizing slowness.

"Is this what you want?" Damian murmured against his throat, his breath hot on Gabriel’s skin. "To be laid bare on my desk, completely at my mercy?"

"Yes," Gabriel hissed, his back arching off the polished wood as Damian’s fingers finally slipped beneath the waistband of his briefs. The fabric was pushed down just enough, and Damian’s warm, calloused palm cupped him. Gabriel’s head fell back with a sharp gasp. He was already painfully hard, his cock straining against the confines of his clothes and now against the intoxicating friction of Damian’s hand.

"So eager for me," Damian purred, his thumb sliding over the slick head, gathering the pearl of moisture already beading there. He brought his fingers to his own lips, never breaking eye contact, and tasted. A dark, predatory satisfaction flashed in his gaze. "So ready."

He made quick work of the rest, pulling Gabriel’s trousers and briefs down to his knees in one swift, forceful motion. The cool air of the study hit Gabriel’s feverish skin, a stark contrast to the heat coiling deep in his belly. Damian shoved a stack of important-looking papers to the floor with a crash that neither of them acknowledged, the sound swallowed by the heavy thrum of their bond.

He lifted Gabriel’s hips, positioning him, baring him completely. Gabriel’s breath came in short, sharp pants, his knuckles white where he gripped the edge of the desk. The primal scent of Damian’s intent filled the room, thick and spicy, a promise and a threat all in one.

With a grip that was both possessive and reverent, Damian guided himself to Gabriel’s entrance. He was slick with his own arousal, but the stretch was still divine, a blinding flash of pleasure-pain that made Gabriel cry out, a raw, unfiltered sound.

Damian pushed in with one relentless, smooth stroke, sheathing himself to the hilt. They both froze for a heartbeat, suspended in the shocking, perfect fullness. Gabriel’s eyes were wide, his lips parted on a silent moan. The feeling of being so utterly claimed, so completely filled, was a drug he would never tire of.

"Mine," Damian breathed, the word a prayer and a curse.

Then he began to move. Each powerful thrust drove the air from Gabriel’s lungs, each withdrawal a sweet agony that left him aching for more. The desk creaked in protest with every snap of Damian’s hips, the sound a lewd counterpoint to their ragged breathing.

Damian’s hands were everywhere, gripping his thighs, spreading him wider, tangling in his hair to angle his mouth for a searing kiss. He was lost in it, in the tight, hot clutch of Gabriel’s body, in the knowledge that this, this was where he belonged. Deep. Home.

"You feel that?" he gritted out, his pace becoming punishing, almost brutal. "You feel how deep I am? This is where I put my children. This is where you keep them for me."

The filthy, primal words sent a violent shudder through Gabriel. His own cock, trapped and leaking between their sweat-slicked stomachs, throbbed with each driving impact. His mind was fracturing, whiting out with pure sensation. The building pressure was immense, a coiling spring in the base of his spine, fed by Damian’s relentless pace and the dark, possessive promises he growled into his skin.

"Close," Gabriel choked out, the word barely recognizable. "Damian, I’m so close."

"Look at me," Damian commanded, his voice rough with his own impending release.

Gabriel forced his eyes open, meeting the burning gold of his mate’s gaze. He saw the raw, unfiltered need there, the love, and the terrifying, beautiful obsession. He saw the emperor completely and utterly undone.

It was that sight that shattered him.

His climax ripped through him, wrenching a broken cry from his throat. His body clamped down around Damian’s, milking him, pulling him deep, as waves of pure ecstasy radiated out from his core, leaving him trembling and boneless against the desk.

The convulsions of Gabriel’s orgasm were Damian’s undoing. With a guttural roar that seemed to shake the wards on the door, he drove into him one last, final time, and spilled himself. It was a flood of heat, pumping into Gabriel’s willing body with pulse after pulse after endless pulse.

He collapsed over him, his forehead pressed to Gabriel’s shoulder, his entire body shuddering with the aftershocks. The only sounds were their harsh, ragged breaths and the slow, steady drip of cum onto the expensive rug below the desk.

For a long moment, they stayed like that, tangled together in the wreckage of the study and their own overwhelming need.

Damian was the first to stir, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to the mating mark on Gabriel’s neck. His voice was a hoarse whisper, saturated with a possessiveness that went straight to Gabriel’s spent and sensitive core.

"I will never get enough of this."

Gabriel could only moan, the sensation still too intense, too overwhelming. He was gloriously, messily full.