Chapter 202: No more silence
Arion’s expression didn’t shift into a smile, but the terrifyingly still, ’careful’ Alpha mask finally cracked. His eyebrows twitched upward, barely a shift that, in Arion-speak, was equivalent to a full-blown double-take.
"Better," Arion repeated. His voice was still a gravelly rumble, but the dark, suffocating weight of his guilt was being rapidly replaced by a much more familiar brand of blunt exasperation. "You find this better, Dean? Being pinned against a door because I’ve spent seven days trying to calculate if you were going to file a diplomatic protest if I touched your shoulder?"
"I find it recognizable," Dean countered, his breath hitching as Arion’s weight pressed firmer, effectively grounding him back into reality. "I’ll take your territorial nuisance mode over your ’gargoyle-at-the-window’ act any day of the week. At least I know where I stand when you’re busy trying to occupy my personal space like it’s a strategic hilltop."
Arion let out a huff of air - a short, sharp sound that served as his version of a laugh. He leaned in, his nose brushing the shell of Dean’s ear. The touch was no longer agonizingly light or tentative; it was firm, possessive, and completely unapologetic.
"I was following the protocol Lucas and Trevor laid out with annoying precision," Arion muttered, his hand sliding down to Dean’s waist, fingers splayed wide. "They used terms like ’psychological decompression’ and ’re-establishing autonomy.’ They made it sound as though if I stepped within a meter of you, the entire Alaminian-Palatine alliance would collapse under the weight of your trauma."
"Lucas thinks in terms of floor plans and treaties," Dean said, his fingers winding into the short hairs at the nape of Arion’s neck. "He doesn’t realize that the ’space’
was just giving my brain room to invent six new versions of why you weren’t looking at me. I’ve handled Nero for years, Arion. I can handle you. Plus... a month with no sex? Really?" Arion went dead still. The low, rumbling vibration in his chest cut off so abruptly it was louder than the argument they’d just been having.
He pulled back just an inch, barely enough to look Dean in the eye, and for the first time in a week, the terrifying Crown Prince of Alamina looked like he had been hit by a tactical strike he hadn’t seen coming.
"A month?" Arion repeated. The word sounded like it had been dragged over dry gravel.
"A month," Dean confirmed, his voice dropping into that dangerously casual tone he used when he was about to dismantle someone’s entire worldview. "It’s been thirty days, Arion, since the ’scratches’ from Nero, my first hospital stint, and our decision to test my structural integrity during that demonstration. We’ve spent more time looking at my medical charts than each other."
Arion’s eyes narrowed until they were thin slivers of gold. The possessive weight of his hand at Dean’s waist didn’t just return; it doubled. He looked like a man who had just realized he’d been tricked into a ceasefire he never signed.
"Is that so?"
"And you believed him because you were busy blaming yourself for the first collapse," Dean said, his hands sliding up Arion’s chest to lock behind his neck. "My father didn’t even have to say a word to you. He just had to stand in the room looking stern and ’strategic,’ and you filled in the blanks yourself. You let the guilt build the fence for them."
Arion made a low, rough sound in his throat, a jagged mix of scoff and snarl. "I let myself be handled by a medical opinion that was actually a psychological trap. I’ve been a ’gargoyle’ because I was terrified that if I touched you, I’d be the one to break you again."
His eyes, burning like molten gold, tracked the slow, defiant tilt of Dean’s head. The ’careful’ distance was officially a memory. Arion crowded him harder against the door, his massive frame effectively erasing the outside world and the Council’s endless opinions.
"Thirty days," Arion growled, his mouth hovering just an inch from Dean’s. "I’ve spent a month being a martyr because I was waiting for a ’safe’ signal that was never going to come. Lucas might not want to know the details of our private life, but he certainly knew how to use my restraint against me."
"Well," Dean whispered, his fingers tangling firmly in Arion’s dark hair, "I’m still here. I’m still strong. And I’m very tired of autonomy."
Arion didn’t wait for a further invitation. He snatched Dean’s mouth with a desperate, crushing hunger that erased a month’s worth of restraint in a single blow.
Arion’s mouth was hot and demanding, his tongue swept in, tasting every corner of Dean’s mouth with a possessive fury that left Dean gasping. One of Arion’s hands had slid down to grip Dean’s ass, pulling their hips together, while the other fisted in Dean’s blonde hair, holding his head at the perfect angle for perfect access.
Dean made a muffled sound against Arion’s lips, a low, needy vibration that was both protest and surrender. The sudden, violent return of Arion’s full attention felt like being caught in a landslide; it was heavy, overwhelming, and exactly what he had been looking for.
He moved his hands from Arion’s neck to his chest, fingers curling into the black fabric of his shirt, trying to pull him even closer, as if the lack of space between them still wasn’t enough. The scent of vetiver was thick enough to make Dean’s head swim and his knees finally give up the argument.
Arion felt the shift in Dean’s weight immediately. He didn’t let him fall. Instead, he pushed him harder against the door, which creaked under the weight of their combined speed. The kiss got deeper. Arion was checking every inch of Dean and demanding to know through the bond if Dean was still his and if the ’silence’ of the last week had left any lasting damage.
"Tell me," Arion growled against Dean’s lips, his voice raw and stripped of its Crown Prince polish. "Tell me to stop, Dean. If you want the distance back, you say it now. Because if we move from this door, I am not giving you another choice for the rest of the night."
Dean let out a shaky, jagged breath, his purple eyes blown wide and dark as he looked up at the man who had spent a week acting like a ghost.
"If you let me go," Dean whispered, his voice trembling but certain, "I will actually throw you out the window. Stop talking, Arion. Just... stop."
Arion didn’t need to be told twice. He swept Dean up, his large hands anchoring him with a blunt strength that ignored every ’neural stabilization’ chart Seven had ever drawn.