ghost girl inc.

warnings/content tags: unedited, graphic depictions of sex, explicit verbal consent king!kai, birth control (reader), mutual desperation, bareback sex/no protection/barrier/condoms, penetrative heat sex, knotting/cock warming, scent kink/pheromone overload, slick play/squirting, messy filthy sex, spitting/licking, possessive sex/breeding kink, dacryphilia, nipple play/nipple sucking/biting, edging, over-stimulation, multiple orgasms, fingering, biting/nibbling (no mate claims), marking/scenting (non-mating), semi-clothed sex (half-clothed male/unclothed female), hair pulling/hair fisting, manhandling/rough sex, spanking, restraining/holding down, dom!kai (light mean dom), brat!reader, brat taming, dirty talk, swearing author's note: so truly sorry for the delay. the combo of school+work+health problems have been kicking my butt!!! first off, i wrote part 1 in google docs but i heard that google is censoring/deleting smut saved on drive so i switched over to microsoft word for part 2! if there’s any discrepancies in how certain things are formatted or what words are hyphenated/compound/split into two or other grammatical/syntax things, that’s why. i usually just take the suggestions they offer and when i transferred part one to word, i noticed there was a lot of red and blue swiggles so that’s how i know they adhere to different grammatical rules. moving on, in order to get this story out in time, i had to change my outline/story structure a little bit. technically if you want the story to end here for you, you can have it do that. but if you want to read even more scenes of graphic heat smut then that’s what part three will cover! kinda like… a bonus? or an epilogue? but you will have to wait a bit for it because i have two fics i need to complete before then! OH! But if there's like certain kinks or things you want to see featured in the extra rounds of heat sex, please send in asks, I will most likely try to indulge you. We can treat it like a bonus/outtakes type thing! (will add links later! & please let me know if any of the formatting is fucked up!)

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With your forehead pressed against the glass passenger side window, you don’t notice it at first. You’re breathing shallowly, trying to keep your mind off your discomfort. You haven’t felt like this in years. You don’t want to think about what that means, or rather, implies. When you chance a glance at the A/C dials in the center of the dashboard, you notice that the temperature has already been set to the lowest possible number and that the speed is at the maximum setting. The vents roar a cold that feels thin, recycled air with a plastic bite, and beads of condensation pebble along the fins without touching the heat under your skin. You don’t want to complain, or seem ungrateful, but it isn’t enough. You’re sticky with sweat and… something else, making your loose white t-shirt cling to your skin and your heather gray leggings darken as they become superglued to your thighs. The seatbelt cuts a hot line across your collarbone; every inhale drags fabric a fraction over your tender breasts as your ribs flinch like they’re being filed down with sandpaper.

And worse, your skin seems hypersensitive, you want to rip off your Lululemon jacket, would’ve done it already if you weren’t convinced it would distract Kai, who is steadfastly focused on driving. His right hand sits high on the wheel, tendons raised while the left drifts to the gearshift and back in that precise, unhurried rhythm you’ve watched for years. He smells like cedarwood and bourbon with that ripe peach note ghosting the cabin; it wades its path into your panting mouth before settling in, heavy at the back of your throat, tickling your tonsils. 

You’re already deeply regretting your choices in underwear that you had picked that morning, the gusset of your panties seems to be digging into you, giving you the worst wedgie and your bra’s underwire is rubbing the skin underneath your breasts raw. Every seam is a provocation; the underwire scrapes, the elastic bites, and your glands answer with a low, traitorous throb that has nothing to do with comfort.

As you sniffle, hating the pain and feeling mentally vulnerable, Kai’s scent floods into your nostrils again. Except this time, instead of sending you into distress, the resinous cedarwood smells consoling. The bourbon’s booziness helps to dull your focus, so you are no longer distracted by pain. The sweet peach makes you want to climb into his lap and burrow into his chest, seeking comfort and respite.

It's okay, you urge yourself in your head. In a few minutes, you’ll be at the rest stop. You can get out, stretch your legs, breathe in the much-needed clean air of the outdoors, and freshen up in the restroom. You desperately need to check your panties to see if they are stained with sweat or slick because if it is the latter you will need to come up with a contingency plan immediately. You’ll be in no state to go to a work retreat. Worse, needles the tiny annoying voice in your head. You need to get rid of Kai. You refuse to give that voice any attention, even though it’s right. You both know, you and Kai, not you and the voice, that he’s an alpha. Even someone like Kai, who is as close to a saint that any alpha can be, can’t be with an omega going through the full throes of her heat without experiencing some sort of deterioration of his mental resolve.

The minutes blur as the highway lines melt into each other; fortunately, the traffic has finally picked up, allowing the hum of the tires and the low mechanical whir of the A/C fusing into one steady vibration under your skin. The air still feels syrupy. You don’t want to risk rolling down the window, your scent would spill and catch in the slipstream, instead you sit and simmer, feeling like you are resigning yourself and Kai to getting slowly hotboxed in the Lexus. Your pulse has a weight now, a sharp pressure like an ice pick digging into your skull, and your glands throb in counterpoint at the base of your throat and wrists, a second heartbeat lower, heavier.

Your chest heaves as you try to desperately gulp in air, your breasts feel swollen and tender. Your primary throat glands throb beneath the jacket collar; the secondary ones at your wrists prickle where the seatbelt rubs. Your bones hurt and your muscles ache. Never have your ribs felt so fragile and prone to feeling pain, never have your hips felt so stiff like they aren’t getting enough space to flex and move. Heat collects under your shirt as a trickle of sweat slides down your spine and you quickly chance your fingers underneath the fabric, hoping Kai doesn’t notice as you rub it away, your fingers coming back damp. The cotton clings harder, static-charged, every thread alive against your skin. When you breathe, the air tastes faintly chemical, of alcohol, faintly syrupy sweet, of juicy summer fruit. Him. It coats the back of your throat like something you shouldn’t swallow. Which turns your thoughts towards something you could swallow. Something you desperately want to swallow, to coat your mouth with thick creamy whiteness, to drip down your throat. You feel ravenous. Hungry. Desperate.

You turn toward the window, cheek to the glass, trying to bleed some of it off. Trying to distract yourself from the appealing nearly two meters of prime virile alpha-ness next to you. The chill lasts only a heartbeat before the vibration of the car travels through the frame and into your jaw, shuddering down your neck. You shift, cross your legs, uncross them, shift again. The pressure building between your hips doesn’t ease; it just moves.

It takes ten whole minutes for the realization to click. For you to blink and gather your thoughts. You stare at the trees uncomprehendingly, not understanding why the world outside doesn’t look like gray and lanes upon lanes of cars driving at breakneck speed endlessly. You feel slow, like you can’t make sense of anything right now besides desire and seeking relief. But no, the landmarks outside are wrong; there are no diner signs, no countdown arrows. Kai had exited the highway and you two were now driving down the urban streets. The fuzz in your head clears just long enough for irritation to cut through. No. You can’t deal with this right now. What is he doing? Why is he upending your plans?

“…Kai?” It comes out scratchy; a scrape of sound that’s more breath than voice. “Where the hell are we?”

He doesn’t answer you right away. In fact, with both hands on the wheel, steady, professional, and his chocolate brown eyes fixed forward, he seems resolved to ignore you. But you see his tells, how his knuckles blanch against the leather, how the mole on his neck moves when he swallows to clear his throat, how his jaw flexes just a tad.

“This isn’t the diner exit,” you push, the heat making your own voice wobble in a way that you hate. You sound emotional. Pitiful. “You missed it.”

“I didn’t miss it.” There’s no inflection. It sounds final. contained—too sharp for your frayed nerves. Harsh. Mean. The tiny voice in your head whispers again, but you know that it is judging him too unfairly.

Your stomach drops. Why wouldn’t he tell you about a change in plans? “Then what—”

“It’s safer this way.” His tone is low, clipped, inflexibly striving for calm but missing it by a mile as he drums his fingertips on the steering wheel, his nails digging into the leather. “You can’t be out in public like this.”

The words hit like a slap of cold water, shocking you upright, your spine straightening as you flinch. Public. He means your scent. The glands behind your ears spark; your wrists prickle; your throat pulses. 

Fuck. No. No. He couldn’t have noticed. Why?

“I’m fine.” The lie splinters as soon as it leaves your mouth. It goes out shakily. Sounding unconvincing to even your own ears.

He doesn’t glance over. “Yeah, right. You’re not.” He kindly doesn’t scoff at your words but you’re still in a state of agitation. Where the hell is he taking you two if you can’t be at a diner right now?

The silence that follows grinds at your nerves. Kai’s strange—or perhaps not so strange—behavior and your own symptoms are making it feel like someone is going at your body with a meat tenderizer. The A/C hums, a poor melody for its attempt at comfort, but the air is still viscously thick, tasting faintly of gross recycled air through the vents and the more pleasant taste of him. You certainly prefer it to the floral vanilla citrus triple combo that is leaking out of you. You try to breathe shallowly, as if you can hide it, but each exhale drags more of that sweetness into the cabin.

You pull at the neckline of your T-shirt—a poor miscalculation—as the movement makes the scent rise off your skin in a warm wave. Your throat glands flare; the ones behind your ears spark. His fingers twitch on the wheel, just a flicker, then go still again. He’s trying not to react. The disciplined rigidity of it makes something inside you twist as you find yourself both wanting and angry at once. You shouldn’t feel thrilled at how hard he is trying to resist and to stay principled.

A green sign flashes past the windshield: not a diner, not a rest stop. A flickering neon vacancy sign. Motel. Instantly your mood shifts to panic. Anxiety immediately strums through your entire body.

Your heart jumps as you cry out, “Kai.” Sharper now, though your voice cracks halfway through. “That’s a motel.” You shouldn’t feel suspicious of his intentions, but you can’t help but rake your eyes over him, noticing the differences in your forms and the amount of strength that seems to be thrumming through his entire body; the breadth of his shoulders, the easy strength coiled in his forearms, and the way the veins bulge when he tightens his grip.

 He exhales through his nose, and somehow that sound comforts you momentarily. “Yeah, right. I know.” The indicator clicks once, twice. “It’s safer than a diner with 50 patrons. Much safer than you walking across a parking lot to the unisex public restroom, sharing a line with alphas as you wait. You need to be somewhere private to ride this out.”

The image knocks the breath out of you. Your head bows as you stare into your lap, the fucking telltale darkness where your thighs and the seam of your gray leggings meet, your pale blue nails biting into the leather grain of the seat underneath you. The car slows under the buzzing light. He shifts into park and finally looks at you.

You hate it. You hate how it makes you feel.

Kai unbuckles his seatbelt and shrugs off his black leather jacket. He gently places it on top of your lap, the oversized material nearly swallowing your frame, covering most of your legs.

“Put it on,” he murmurs, clear-eyed, calm but focused. It’s obvious that Kai has come up with some kind of a game plan and he’s taking the lead, already has set it in motion. But you’re unnerved. You still don’t understand what’s happening. A part of you wants to push back, to ask what he’s thinking, what exactly he's preparing for, but your own thoughts feel like they’re wading through mud. Your own mind feels foggy and it hurts your head to think too hard.

You blink, slow to process. “What?”

“Put on my jacket. It should be big enough to cover you, to go down low enough so that no one can see the thick slick dripping down your thighs.” His voice is still low, still calm, but there’s authority under it now, the undertone firm in a way that makes your body curve towards his even as you flinch at the vulgarity of his words that don’t seem to match, “It’ll help mask you until we can get you in the room. No one will bother you if you smell like me.”

The words crawl under your skin. You want to argue, to insist that you can hold it together, that it isn’t what he thinks. But your mouth won’t form the sentence. You can’t lie to him. Not when you can feel what he means. Heat radiates from your throat and wrist glands, that second pulse under your skin that isn’t just heartbeat. To hold on to your pride and pretend you weren’t being affected by the onslaught of a surprise heat would be foolish at this point. But still…

“I can handle—”

“No.” His word cuts, quick and sharp. Gratingly alpha, making you almost buckle under his rebuttal. Then he curbs his tone, moderating it to be softer, steadier when he notices the impact he’s having on you: “Please. Just do it. We’ll deal with things after. But for now, we need to get you inside quickly.”

You shove your arms through the sleeves, throwing it on over your own jacket. The leather is cool at first, but then it traps the warmth, locking his cedar-bourbon-peach scent against your body until it’s all you can taste. You pull the lapels tight, seeking comfort but your pulse won’t settle. How can it, when you are buried under all these layers in the late August heat?

He watches you with sharp focused eyes until you’re covered, nods once. “Good.” A pause. Then, more quietly: “Good girl,” like he just couldn’t help himself from saying it.

The words hit something low and soft in your gut. You hate how much you love hearing those words coming out from the curve of his amaranth-pink colored lips which have never looked more kissable.

There’s a faint pause, as Kai appears to wrestle with what to say. “I’m going to go out to get you a room. I think it’s best if you stay in the car. I’m leaving the keys with you so that the A/C stays on. Keep the doors locked. You don’t open for anyone but me. If anyone comes up to the car and starts bothering you, ignore them and call me immediately. I’ll be there in a flash. I promise.”

He presses the keys into your palm. His large hand lingers, warm, solid, reassuring, before he reluctantly pulls away. “I’ll go get the room.”

And then the door opens, closes, leaving you alone with the jacket, the cold air, and the echo of his scent circling the cabin, a poor substitute for the man who just left. Even without trying you can easily recall the cadence of his voice, the timbre that echoed assurance as he stepped out of the vehicle, saying he would be back soon. The warm heat of his espresso brown eyes branding you as he looked you over before he left.

Now alone, you try to close your eyes. Meditate and focus on regulating your breathing, stave off the panic attack that feels like it’s forthcoming. You can feel everything. Every whisper of air from the vents feels like nails raking over your figure, making your hairs stand. The unyielding silence crawls over your skin like ants, sharp and weightless, the static-y sensation of a limb regaining feeling after having fallen asleep. Your primary throat glands throb under the jacket collar; the ones at your wrists prickle against the seatbelt; behind your ears heat flares and recedes. You swear you can still feel the warmth that had radiated from his form when he was sitting beside you in the driver’s seat, the imprint of his nearness like a bruise on your nervous system.

Worse, even though you’re all wrapped in Kai’s jacket breathing in his woody boozy scent, even though the windows are blacked out with privacy tint, and the doors are securely locked, you don’t feel safe.

Your scent is leaking into the air, the citrus note sour from stress, the rose notes smelling heavily of wilting flowers, the vanilla is no longer sweet and decadent, it is thick and bitter; the scent of distress is cloying and impossible to ignore. It’s stress mixed with arousal. Shame and instinct tangled together in a humid, nauseating loop. You can feel your slick sliding down your thighs, soaking into Kai’s car seat, drenching your leggings, pooling onto the part of his jacket that was so long that you ended up sitting on it. You worry your lips as you wonder how Kai will ever be able to remove the slick from his brand-new car. The detailing would cost a fortune. But you know you should ask him to send you the bill. As it is, you should probably get his leather jacket dry cleaned as well.

Your thighs are soaked and too warm, and no matter how tight you squeeze them, it’s not enough. There’s no pressure. No friction. Nothing but empty space and the slow, drowning ache that just keeps spreading. You want to unzip the jacket. You want to rip your clothes off and crawl over to the driver’s side, writhe your hips over where he had just been sitting, press your face into the headrest where his scent still lingers the strongest, wanting to part your lips and mouth at the leather, but the thought of someone—anyone—catching even a glimpse of you, so obscenely wanton and desperate like this makes your stomach twist into tight unyielding knots.

You curl in tighter instead, fold your arms against your chest and press your face into the collar where Kai’s scent is strongest. You wish he had scented the penguin. That would have been handy right now. As it is, his scent from where his collar had kept brushing against his scent glands makes your throat tighten until you feel like you can breathe, like you can’t get in enough deep lungfuls of that dry, bourbon-sweet smoke mixed with the ripened peaches that always clings to his shirts, his skin, the base of his throat. You mewl, distressed because the purity of his scent in his jacket is getting overwhelmed by your stronger heat-rich one, contaminating it. Destroying it. It’s as though the fabric is rejecting you. As if his scent is slipping away with every breath you take. The second you breathe it in; you are removing it from the environment. But that can’t possibly be right. Can it?

Where is he?

It’s barely been five minutes, if even that, and you feel like the whole parking lot is watching you. It makes no sense because there doesn’t seem to be another soul in the lot and Kai had parked away from the other cars, but you can’t shake your paranoia. The windows are tinted, but it offers a poor barrier when your body is screaming for attention—every breath desperate, every gland throbbing, every nerve sparking like a live wire. You swear the air is rippling with the proof of your condition, like heat wafting off asphalt on a summer day. Anyone walking by would know what you are. What’s happening? What you’re trying to suppress. And they’d know you’re alone. That no one’s claimed you. That no one’s come to help. That no one wants you like that. The defective omega.

You’ve gone through heats before. In the past. Alone. Never with an alpha. It’s not like you are a virgin. You’ve slept with betas before. But you hadn’t even wanted them around for your heats. No. You had suffered through your heats, which had always been painful and torturous, and then had decided to go on suppressants. Your previous heats had been managed with ice packs and towels, spending most of your time curled in a bathtub to keep your slick from getting on every surface of your apartment, with enough shame to last a lifetime. You’ve handled it. You’ve survived it.

But it’s never felt like this. Never this fast. Never this sharp. Never this tethered to someone else’s absence. Never this centered on one scent, one voice, one goddamn man who said he’d be back and is still not here.

And even worse, it wasn’t supposed to happen. It should have been suppressed. Your omega health doctor had warned you of the long-term consequences of being on Rhea for too long, but you hadn’t listened. It’s biting you in the butt now, and you know you’re going to have to cut it off cold turkey from this heat onwards. You can only imagine the state of your endocrine system. You’re going to have to book an appointment with your doctor as soon as they can see you, because you don’t know if you could deal with this happening to you again. Suppressants blunt hormones but this time they couldn’t prevent your heat from coming on; they don’t switch off fertility. That’s birth control, and you handled that—but your combination of medications doesn’t help this. Worse, what if next time it happens at work.

You involuntarily shudder, your joints cracking as you straighten up and peer out the window. You feel exposed. Unmoored. Untouched and unraveling. Waiting for your—no—an alpha to come back and take charge. Tell you what is going to happen next.

But not just any alpha. Not a stranger. Not a hypothetical. Him. Kai. You need him. Your body has already decided, and your mind is scrambling to keep up.

You hate how badly you want him back. It’s not even for the sex. You doubt that that’s on the table. He didn’t seem interested. The omega side of you is offended. He seemed a little bit annoyed, if anything, over the matter of your heat. He probably was really looking forward to going to the corporate event. He’s probably going to get you sequestered in the motel room and take off for the event, come back on Monday morning to pick you up or tell you to take an uber to the train station. Leave you here with snacks and silence and the lingering memory of someone who wouldn’t touch you. Leave a jacket scented just enough to warn off other alphas, but not enough to truly soothe you.

You don’t even know why you’re starting to feel resentful towards him all of a sudden. Maybe it’s the scent deprivation. Maybe it’s the way your body feels like it’s starving for something only he can give. Maybe you’re just furious that he didn’t see this coming. That he wasn’t already inside the car again the second you needed him. No, you know your mind is just picking him as the easy target. You’re mad at yourself for not picking up on your body crying out for help earlier. For not begging off of the trip and telling Sakura yesterday that you thought you were coming down with something. No, you’re livid that you put yourself in this situation with Kai, for him to see you like this when he’s only ever seen you as strong and confident.

And just when your breath starts to stutter and become shaky, just when you feel the tears start to prick behind your eyelids and the sniffles coming on—

The door next to you opens, making you recoil to keep from falling against him.

The burst of outside air cuts through like a slap, at least 20 degrees warmer than it is in the car, muggy and asphalt tinged, worsened by Kai’s heady scent—the woody, boozy, fruity concoction—and your body reacts before you do. Knees jerking, chest heaving, your throat and wrist glands flare as you’re involuntarily jerking away from the proximity to such a prime specimen of alpha.

You haven’t calmed down from his reappearance. Your mood has curdled into something volatile. Twisted into something uglier. Hotter. Sharper.

“You were gone forever,” you snap, voice too raw to carry the anger you’re feeling. You’ll never admit it’s born out of the fear that he’s going to abandon you here while you suffer yet another heat in your lonesome. “What, did you decide to book the honeymoon suite?”

Kai’s cap is tilted down, covering most of his face so you can’t see his expression, but he doesn’t flinch. You just feel the pressure of his gaze on you for one long, unreadable moment as you sense him taking in your posture, the way you’re curled against the center console, jacket draped over you like protective armor. You feel like he’s scanning you for cracks in your façade.

His scent is more fragrant now. Wafting off in fresh droves from his skin. The black fabric of his T-shirt keeps you from seeing if it’s sweat-dampened, but you’re sure it is under this cruel oppressive scorching heat. You know that that heightens the intensity of his scent too, making it cling to the rim of his t-shirt’s collar, brushing again and again against his flushed scent glands at his throat. Bourbon-sharp, cedar-heavy, peach-sweet. It makes your throat tighten. Makes your back arch minutely, out of your control. Makes the brat in you dig in, acting out fiercely, coming out harder out of self-defense.

“I was gone for maybe six minutes,” he says slowly. His voice is measured. Steady. Nothing like the shrill sound that you had attacked him with. “The room’s ready. Let’s get out of here.”

He leans in to unbuckle your seatbelt, and you instantly feel claustrophobic, one hand attempting to shove his away, the other hand on his chest trying to bar him from getting any closer.

His chest is hard beneath your palm. Warm. His shirt does cling with sweat, damp where the cotton meets his sternum. You can feel the faintest pulse of his heart beneath your fingertips, steady and a little fast, likely from him rushing back to you, yet it’s still maddeningly controlled.

“I don’t need help.” The buckle clicks open anyway. Your efforts are pitiful against his alpha strength. He pulls it gently out of the way. Doesn’t touch you again. Steps off to the side and just waits for you to get out.

You reach for the edge of the door with shaking hands, your fingers trying to find purchase so that you can brace yourself against the Lexus’ frame and attempt to get out. You put your right foot down and turn your body until you can place your left foot down as well. You gingerly lift your body off the seat and stand fully outside the vehicle, blinking rapidly against the harsh blinding white light of the summer sun.

Your legs hold—until they don’t. Your knees instantly buckle, making you crumple like a leaf. Heat pulses behind your ears. Your head throbs from a migraine. Your palms land against his chest harshly, the sound of a slap echoing across the empty lot.

The feel of him, unyielding firm muscles under soft cotton, shocks your system. You feel the shape of his pecs, the rise of his breath, the warm hard frame of his anchoring your flailing form like it’s nothing. Not even shifting from your sudden weight plowing into him.

His hands are on you before you can fall to the ground, holding you against him for a moment. And then…

He doesn’t ask. Doesn’t hesitate. Just reaches down to hook an arm underneath your knee, the other, the other securely across your back, lifting you easily, his grip unshakable. You gasp, not from the sudden movement but from the contact, the way your body melts into him like it’s been waiting for this. You fit against him perfectly, to your horror.

His scent hits you all over again, this time directly from the source. The sharp edge of cedar under his jaw and behind his ears, the faint bourbon-vanilla-tinged salt at his nape, the wild tang of clean male exertion threaded through with juicy lush peach rising from the black cotton at his chest. You find yourself submerged in it. Your pupils blown wide, until only the blacks of your eyes remain.

Your thighs clench instinctively, and he adjusts his hold to position you higher, like he knows you’re fighting it, and he doesn’t want to give you the chance to break out of his hold and attempt to run away just to prove a point and spiral further.

“Don’t,” you whisper, fists curling against his chest. “Don’t carry me like I’m—”

“Like you’re what?” he murmurs, his voice low and maddeningly even as his nose brushes the crown of your head. “Feverish? Unable to stand, let alone walk two steps on your own? Dripping slick in a parking lot where any passing alpha could smell you?”

You flinch. Not from the shame of the words, but the growl buried beneath them. The protective, primal thread stitched into his tone. It should terrify you. Instead, your omega scrambles toward it like a lifeline.

You want to yell at him to get away from you. You want to pull his head down to kiss him. You want to slap him. And you want to beg him to hold you tighter, to never let you go.

Instead of doing any of that, you choke on a whimper and look pointedly away from him in the direction of the motel. Belatedly, you mumble, “asshole,” under your breath. As if to prove a point.

He doesn’t answer. Just adjusts your weight in his arms like it’s nothing and keeps steadily walking towards the stairs on the side of the building leading to the second floor.

His footsteps are unhurried. His breath remains steady. The heat from his arms is seeping into your bones, and every step he takes reverberates through your spine with a faint promise. You hate how secure you feel. You hate how your body collapses into him, loving the way that you fit so well against him. You hate how badly you never want him to put you down.

It almost distracts you from remembering that you’re also leaking and sweating through your clothes and writhing in his arms from oversensitivity. Your throat and wrist glands throb. You’re warring with yourself, seconds away from sobbing and begging him to take you out here in the open.

During the walk up to the room, which could’ve been two minutes or even ten minutes, you have no concept of time anymore. The only thing grounding you now is him.

Kai’s arms are around you, solid and bare, thick with corded muscles and strength. Since he gave you his jacket, he’s in nothing but that fitted black T-shirt, the fabric thin enough for your heat-ruined body to feel every shift of him beneath it. His biceps flex with each step, powerful muscles sliding beneath warm skin. His forearm veins stand like cords, fine arm hairs lifting as if his body can’t help answering yours. You have a cheek pressed so close to his chest you can feel the rise and fall of every breath, and worse, the steady rhythm of his heartbeat as you stare up at his face transfixed. Under your palms you can feel the tee dragging over hard ridges of his abdomen, warm hard planes you shouldn’t know so intimately considering he is your coworker. Your breasts lift with each jostle, nipples tightening beneath cotton and leather, and your thighs press, slick gathering in a warm, humiliating slide.

You know exactly where his moles are, looking at him with hyper focus. Seven on his face that you’ve counted to distract yourself from how you are coming apart at the seams. There’s two next to left eye, one that’s tucked under the curved tail of his eyebrow and another that’s about two centimeters away from it, directly parallel. Another one underneath his left eye, at the edge of his cheekbone, a centimeter away from his left nostril. And then one a little below it that kisses where his lips meet; it has a twin on the right side of his face, mirroring it. A sixth one a little above the curve of his jaw on his left side; you remember that he always had a little difficulty shaving around that one in college. The seventh sits on the tip of his nose, your favorite. His fucking perfect Roman nose. He told you once that he had broken it twice by walking into the same glass wall on two separate occasions in middle school. You wouldn’t have realized that his nose’s appearance was due to being broken and rehealed if he had never told you. To you, you have never seen a more perfect nose. You have had dreams about that nose, trailing down your body as he covers you in kisses, dimpling into your skin when he applies pressure.

Kai shifts his gaze to you, likely catching the heat from your gaze upon him. His nostrils flare once, a controlled inhale; his pupils blow wide, leaving thin chocolate brown rings at the rims. Your cheeks warm as you duck your face, eyes traveling down the side of his neck where your gaze is captured by yet another mole, this one darker, bigger. You stare at it now, fixated, yearning beyond relief, wanting to kiss it desperately. Your throat tips up without permission, glands fluttering beneath his jacket collar; the peach note of his scent ripens, and your slick answers its siren call, a soft surge that makes your breath catch. You don’t know if it’s intentional, but it feels like he straightens up, nostrils flaring again as he walks taller, shoulders set broader, biceps and forearm muscles swelling under your knees as he adjusts you.

He doesn’t pant as he continues the walk. Doesn’t seem to strain or even feel like he’s putting in an effort. He just carries you like you’re weightless. The easiest burden he’s had to carry all day. A single nostril flare, then a slow, practiced exhale; the vein at his wrist jumps against the hollow of your knee as he carries you higher, cradling you against his chest.

Meanwhile, you’re suffocating on the smell of him. Bourbon and cedarwood, biting sharp spice and deep smoky wood, made heavier by the peach saccharinity that lingers low in your ribs. You want to drown in it. You want to gnaw it off him. You want him to scent you—just once, just so you could see if it would help. Your glands are throbbing, swollen beyond relief, your nipples have never been harder or more sensitive, there’s slick soaking through the seat of your bottoms, coating the upper half of your leggings, and every movement makes you twitch, femoral pulse kicking, wanting to jump out of your skin.

You can see the hairs on his forearms as they brush against your shape—fine, soft, brown-black. Not quite visible in the sunlight, but you know they’re there because your nerves are screaming about them. They’re ruffled up until they’re standing, and the veins along his forearm ropes up when he adjusts you. Even the breeze feels like too much. But his hands… his hands don’t. One spread across your back, warm and unforgiving. The other locked behind your knees. You don’t think you’ve ever felt hands that big, hands so obviously alpha—his fingers almost overlap under your thighs, pressing through the fabric like he’s touching skin. Heat drags from his palm; the hard bracket of his grip makes your hips tip, and your slick answers with a soft, mortifying surge.

You hate yourself. You hate how much your body wants him.

And worse—you hate how calm he is. How unaffected. His breathing never stutters, it never even speeds. He seems unmoved, breathing a single slow exhale. The sweat that clung to him earlier has dried, yet he still somehow smells clean, dry, not sticky, heat-slick, and sour like you—if anything, his scent turns musky, a dangerous heady aroma that settles heavy in your lungs. His shirt drags over a six-pack you can feel more than see, that stretch of muscle underneath his ribs. His arms cage you like steel bars, trapping you in what feels like a staking of claim. Your body tilts toward it without your permission.

And then you’re inside.

You don’t really see the room, still caught up in looking at Kai. You can’t make yourself care at the moment. All you know is that the temperature changes, cooler, slightly smelling of menthol-tinged cigarettes and stale potato chips. The air conditioning is off, but you don’t find yourself as irked by it as you should be as the scent of Kai still overwhelms every bit of your senses.

He lowers you gently onto the edge of the bed. It feels like a lover’s caress. Your heart pangs when you remember yourself asking if he booked the honeymoon suite. You regret your outburst. The second his arms let go your body reaches; hips tipping for pressure, the throbbing and emptiness in your core worsening until your slick floods the seat of your leggings once more, a low, humiliating answer to nothing but his proximity, your nipples tighten under cotton and leather, and you feel like you’re seconds away from your façade cracking, collapsing into tears from sheer humiliation.

The moment your feet hit the floor, you grip the bed behind you to stay upright, not wanting to fall back upon the bed, not wanting Kai to see you in that vulnerable sprawled out position. Your throat tips up a fraction, glands fluttering under his open jacket collar; your wrists subconsciously turn palms-up on your thighs like you’re offering them in submission like your body has forgotten the rules your brain wrote for alphas.

Kai doesn’t hover, quickly taking a step back, angling his body between you and the shut door protectively, his dark thick brows drawn as he carefully watches you. There’s that unreadable look on his face again that sits somewhere between concern and calculation. You’ve seen that expression before, in meetings, in hallways, behind glass walls. It always makes people nervous. Now, it makes you gulp as your limbs seem to lock. Your eyes track a single nostril flare, then a slow exhale; his forearm veins lift when his fingers flex open again.

He slips your phone out of his back jean’s pocket. You don’t even know when he had grabbed it, hadn’t remembered to get it yourself. As he slips it into your open palm, he nods once toward your phone. “Yeah, right… You should text Sakura.”

His voice is low. Steady. That particular cadence that makes people obey him without question. It cuts through the thick fog in your brain—but not cleanly. It doesn’t dissipate the cloudiness gently. Rather it hurts. Sharp disorientation It drags you back to your body too fast, like he pulled you out of a lake and had pressed hard on your chest until you coughed up all the water in your lungs.

“What?” you breathe, blinking slowly, you can’t pay attention to his voice, distracted by the loud sound of blood coursing to your ears. Your heat-fogged brain moves before you do; your passcode is in when you don’t remember touching the screen.

“She’s going to wonder why you’re not there. Tell her you’re sick—something that makes sense. You don’t have to tell her you went into heat. Just make it sound plausible enough for you to be missing the retreat.”

Your head jerks up at that as you stare at him like a deer caught in headlights, but you’re also furious with irritation sparking through the haze of your heat-driven brain fog. “Do you think I’m a fucking idiot? I’m not about to announce to my boss that I’m in heat, Kai.” The word spits out of you like it burns. “I know how to cover my own ass.”

Kai sighs, posture straightening, shoulders quietly broader, moving closer towards you, his eyes are almost completely black, comforting brown irises swallowed up by his dilated pupils, “I know you’re not stupid,” he says, almost gently, his voice at odds with his demeanor as if he’s trying hard not to spook you. “I’m telling you because you’re burning up and exhausted, and I don’t trust Sakura and everyone else at work not to push if your excuse is flimsy.”

You open your mouth, ready to fire back, to spit something mean, but his gaze holds you in place, dark and unflinching. Your throat feels tight. His hand settles on your knee, two seconds, one precise squeeze, not sexual, firm enough to silence you. “Write the texts. I’ll get the bags.”

This is why omegas need alphas, the tiny voice in your head makes its presence known again. This is why omegas have alphas to guide them during their heats.

You understand the appeal.

He could say anything right now and you’d do it. You want to do it. Want to fall to your knees. You want to cry. Scream. You want to claw at him. You want to beg. You want to tell him that you’ll take any scrap that he gives you.

Because he doesn’t look at you like you’re unraveling. He looks at you like you’re important.

“And don’t tell anyone else,” he murmurs. “No one. You don’t have to. It’s none of their business.”

There’s something different in his face now. A flicker. His jaw tightens for half a second. His brows knit, but not in anger. You think he’s scared. Or furious. Or both. “Stay put. Don’t open the door for anyone. I have a key,” His jacket is still draped over your body; he tugs it tighter, like he’s attempting to shield you. “I’ll get our stuff.”

Concern and fear then, you decide. You don’t get to ask. You don’t get to speak before he’s gone, the door thudding closed behind him.

You swallow hard, turning your gaze to look around the room, finally noticing the details of it properly. The walls are beige-gray, while the carpet is a pattern of browns, greens, and grays meant to disguise stains, and the overhead ceiling lights are warm-toned but still grating to your sensitive eyes, appearing to buzz and go in and out of focus as you stare right up at it, making yourself go dizzy. You inhale and exhale roughly, trying to shake your head out and get rid of the faint nausea you suddenly feel. The air smells faintly of disinfectant, salt, and cigarette smoke, not strong enough to mask your own scent bleeding into the room. And because you’re still obeying Kai even when he isn’t here, your omega bowing down to him and accepting him as alpha, you thumb out exactly what he told you into your iPhone and hit send, making it instantly start to buzz with quick replies from Sakura. You can’t deal with it right now. You turn your ringer off and then throw the device onto one of the nightstands facedown. And the bed. One bed, a double bed masquerading as queen-sized, tucked against the main wall, centered in the room. The white comforter adorning it looks scratchy, appears stiff with industrial detergent. The sight of it makes your body contort as a small, mean cramp hooks low behind your navel at the thought of Kai’s heavy weight pressing down on you, trapping you against the mattress, your body reacts in opposite ways of desire and pain, reminding you that you will be suffering until you give into the cruel omega biology that doesn’t negotiate.

You stare at it too long. The implication of it. The inevitability of it. A slow, liquid ache keeps spreading like heat under your skin, and you can feel your glands thrumming along your throat in time, as if they know what’s better for you than your mind does.

Rising on shaky legs that make you feel like a newborn foal, you make yourself cross to the bathroom. The large wall length mirror is merciless, showing you your pale countenance, your cheeks are swollen and flushed a bleeding pink, the only spot of color on your pallid visage. There’s a sheen of sweat glinting along your hairline while your eyes are rimmed red from holding back frustrated tears. You grip the edge of the sink, willing your reflection to look prettier, more put together. You want Kai to find you desirable.

Your body tortures you for not giving it what it needs; your lower belly being yanked by a tight, petulant tug, a warning you pretend not to feel, and your hips feel loose and wrong, like the joints want to tilt and present while you force them to stand stiff, and the effort makes you a little lightheaded. Behind you, the two layers of clear shower curtains hang limp, plastic against plastic. Water calls to you, you can so easily imagine the steam that would be fogging the cheap glass, seeing your hands braced and your mouth open while you have the detachable showerhead pressed just right—cold water, hot water, any water—pressure—hitting you right where you need relief, but you don’t have the energy to peel your clothes off. And you don’t know if you should until Kai decides to stop going in and out of the room and finally makes the decision to leave permanently or stay put inside, keeping you company. Because if he leaves, you will be loud in grief. But if he stays, you will be loud for different reasons, and your thighs press together just from the excitement of the second possibility while your slick decides to punish you for the thought by another thick flow streaming out as a small spasm pinches deep where you don’t have words, making you press your palm harder to the counter until it passes.

When you return to the bedroom, the air is thicker with your scent, and you slowly shuffle towards the bed, holding the leather jacket closed tight at your chest as you carefully lower yourself onto the mattress. The sheets smell like bleach and something faintly floral. They are clean but not comforting. You find yourself lying on top of the scratchy polyester cotton blend duvet cover because you are too exhausted to untuck the bedding from around the mattress. And the fabric scrapes along your shoulder blades with each restless squirm you make as each breath you take makes your nipples pucker harder, turning into peaks that are as hard as diamonds. A dull ache settles along your inner thighs, and the femoral pulse is thudding like a bad drum that keeps speeding up whenever you think of his hands and all the possibilities of what they can do.

You stay there, staring at the ceiling, noticing the water stains on the speckled gray particle boards. You don’t touch yourself. How could you? You don’t know when he’s going to be back. And if you even think about sliding your hand down, your scent will spike and he’ll know in a single inhale—the thought of that humiliation alone is enough to constrain you, and you are too proud to chafe from it in front of him. Yet you still find yourself bridling again at his lack of reaction. Omegas make up about 5-10% of the population (the ten being a generous, high, estimation). Why doesn’t he want you? Why isn’t he attracted to you? You wouldn’t switch off being in this situation with Kai as opposed to the sales team in Jake’s Rivian, but it can’t help but sting. Those alphas made you feel pretty, made you think that you were alluring from all the attention. But attention is cheap, and provision is not; your omega body does not care about population percentages or covetous eyes, it cares about being taken and getting knotted, it cares about you getting filled up with come and getting breeded until there is success. It will only assuage the ache once you give it what it demands, and because you aren’t providing it, a sharper cramp twists low in your pelvis, hard enough to water your eyes, making you break through tightly clenched teeth and lie very, very still for a moment.

But you can’t make yourself stay on the bed. Even with the pain you are too restless. Lying there with the duvet stiff under your hands, the bed stretching out behind you feels scary. You stand too fast, forgetting to move gingerly lest another bout of cramps hit you with vengeance and your knees immediately turn wobbly, making you slowly migrate toward the small armchair wedged against the window. The cushions are lumpy, the fabric rough against the back of your thighs, but it feels less… incriminating than the bed. So you fold into it, making yourself smaller, curling up into a ball and trying to hide all of your glands as if that will help, living under the delusion that if you hide the scent then maybe you can get rid of the need and confuse your body into behaving. It’s hopeless. A thin, needling pain flares low and left, then subsides to a throb; your body keeps bargaining with you, communicating in cramps and pulses as its version of Morse code: Find an alpha. Take him. Keep him. Make him make you his. You shake your head like that could dislodge the biology loose, and your jaw sets stubbornly because you are still convinced that willpower has to count for something.

You breathe slowly. Four counts in, four out. Again, and then again, because the first round barely dents it. On your fifth time through, another little tighten-and-release ripples through your belly hinting that things will soon turn worse if you continue pretending you are fine and refuse to properly deal with it. You pointlessly remind yourself you are on birth control (useless for this) and that suppressants blunt hormones, not instinct, and that none of it matters because the ache blooms anyway and your slick pours out, warm and mortifying. Your knees draw tighter as you try to physically ball up your pain. Your sensitive ears pick up a noise outside in the hallway, and your throat tilts toward the door, traitorous and seeking because it has already abandoned its loyalty to you for what Kai can offer to it. You bury your head in your palms, not able to look at the room any longer. Every surface is a possibility you can’t afford to picture—the bed, the chair, the wall, the table. You think: If he comes back, I will behave. If he leaves, I will survive. And then you think about the more dangerous thing: If he stays.

You hear the him before you see him; the clink of the key in the lock and the soft scrape of rubber soles against thin carpet, alerting you to his presence, enough to make you jolt upright, your spine shifting away from the armchair’s back like you’ve been caught doing something you shouldn’t. There is a pause as you hold your breath, then the latch settles with a clean click and your throat tips toward the sound, glands fluttering under leather.

He enters with the brown paper bag with the leftover pastries in one hand, rustling faintly as it swings by his thigh, your ebony colored Faux-lène and overfilled pink VS duffle bag in the other hand. The sunlight peaking in from the hallway slants in behind him, a line of gold cutting across the motel room’s flat gray-beige tones, and he looks haloed in it for a second. Too tall for the space. Ethereal in a terrifying avenging god type way. Too solid and imposing as his frame eats up the doorway. There’s no way he’s only a little over six feet tall. He always shrinks into himself and tries to make himself look less scary, less intimidating and threatening. Now staring at him against the suddenly cramped looking doorway, you wonder if he’s not 6’3 or 6’4. His shoulder angles to block the hall as the door closes so that no one can look into the room, can catch a glimpse of you. His eyes remain black, pupils still dilated, haven’t constricted back to their pretty brown during his time away from you. A single nostril flares and smooths with a slow, controlled exhale as he takes in your scent that has practically draped itself over every bit of the room. The fine hairs on his forearms are standing.

You try not to stare. You fail miserably as your gaze hungrily flits over his body, noting his appearance from head to toe. He’s flipped his baseball cap so that the brim is no longer covering his face. The fitted black T-shirt pulled clean over his upper half reveals so much skin, more than you have ever seen of the male who favored oversized sweatshirts and hoodies in college and wears long-sleeved button-downs to work.  The black terry cloth joggers hug his strong thighs and firm calves, tapering at the ankle. And still, it’s not enough. Your perusal does nothing to sate your lust. You find yourself wondering if he has a scattering of fine dark hair on his chest or it is isolated to being there from his navel down—a trail you wish desperately to be meant for your mouth. Is he cut or uncut (you hope cut, your body reacts to the image you form in your mind for that version of his cock). What color would he be in your palm; how heavy would he be on your tongue; how would he taste; how would he feel; is he a grower that will swell in your cunt; how massive would the knot be? Are there no tan lines under all that black, just uniform lightly golden cream skin, or is he paler where you’ve never seen, a shimmery pearlescent color. The thoughts come hard and fast, impossible for you to shove them away.

His short sleeves are riding high on his biceps, revealing lightly honeyed skin that seems to glitter, tightly clinging to tendon and muscles, dusted with the random dark mole and the thinnest, almost invisible gold tipped black hairs. His arms have faint green blue veins jutting out, roping around his forearms, traveling over the back of his hands and fingers which are tight-fisting the bags. And there’s a fancy looking Cartier skeleton watch cradling his left wrist, black crocodile leather and gold metal accents, that must have cost a five-figure fortune you hadn’t noticed before. It appears to be well-loved and worn soft with age with tiny cracks in the leather. The strap creaks when he shifts his grip, but his cadence remains unhurried as he moves further into the room.

His shirt is still faintly wrinkled from carrying you, like he hasn’t thought to brush it down and smooth the fabric that clings to the tight pectoral muscles of his six-pack. His hair is a tumbleweed explosion of black stick straight hair jutting out in every direction at the nape of his neck, barely contained by his cap. You want to reach out and smooth it down. You want to, well not fix him, but take care of him. Make him look more put together. But you also want to mess him up. Leave proof of you on his form. He smells musk-warm now, the cedar and bourbon thickened with skin-salt and that ripe peach is tooth achingly sweetened; your nipples tighten meanly as the scent’s hits you low, making your gut tighten and your slick answer in a slow, hot slide, soaking the armchair’s seat.

He doesn’t say anything at first, just crosses to the nightstand beside the bed and drops the paper bag with a soft thud that still manages to sound impossibly loud in the stillness. Your bags are deposited onto the free armchair by the window. His posture remains tall and straight, his shoulders set broader, but his movements are neat, economical, reassuring.

He’s still looking at the bags when he speaks, saying, “You need to eat something.” The words are low. Measured, even as his voice is gravelly, worn thin from the long drive. “You haven’t had anything since the car. You’re not—” his jaw flexes, eyes flicking to your flushed skin, then darting away, “—you’re not going to last like this if you don’t get something in your system.” He keeps his volume soft, pace even, calm that’s threaded with iron. The vein at his wrist jumps and vanishes as he lightly tightens a fist from where it hangs besides his thigh.

You look at the pastry bag, stomach clenching for reasons that have nothing to do with hunger. “Kai, I can’t—I’m—I’m not hungry,” you reply automatically, breathier than you meant to sound. Your throat wobbles on his name while your behind-ear glands spark the heat pinching soft.

His dark eyes flick to yours. “You can,” he cuts in, softer but firm. He digs in the tote, taking out a water bottle that’s still somehow cold, unscrewing it before he presses it into your hands. “Start with that. I’ll… I’ll check if the motel kitchen does room service, or if anywhere delivers this far out. You need real food, not just sugar. But for now, this will do until I’m back with the rest of the bags.” A pause. A break. He seems to struggle with what to say. “Eat now,” he adds—gentle yet absolute—then, after a heartbeat that feels like a hand on your sternum, “Please.” His pupils don’t change; his tone doesn’t rise; the authority lives in the steadiness.

The silence stretches, making you focus on the thick, sweet, humiliatingly vibrant abrasiveness of your scent, curling heavier into the room. His nostrils flare for a split second before smoothing quickly; he pretends not to notice and the pretense makes you ache from his consideration.

You feel every inch of it, like it’s pressing down on your skin. You want to argue, to toss some half-hearted line about needing privacy or needing space or needing a moment to think. That’s what you need. Not food.  But you’re not thinking. Not really. You’re reacting. Entirely hormonal, helpless, and vibrating with shame. Another small, mean cramp hooks low above your ass. Your knees turn in, trying to hide the heat even as your body angles toward him.

You sip the water because he’s staring until you do, but the cool liquid doesn’t soothe the burn rising inside you. He nods once in mild satisfaction, but it quickly dissipates, a frown returning to his lips as he pointedly looks at the leftover pastries. He grabs one of the croissants, tears it into chunks and places it on the wax paper for you before handing it off to you. “Small bites,” he suggests, as if that will help.

The jacket around your shoulders feels suffocating now, not protective. You clutch it tighter, anyway, burying your face half in the collar so you don’t have to look at him.

Your voice comes out muffled, “It’s cold. Hard. Stale.” It isn’t. You just want him to figure out a solution, tend to your needs, but you don’t know how to ask.

He doesn’t move. But you can feel the shift in his attention. The way his eyes go over you—jacket, flushed skin, hunched posture, clenched fists. He drops his chin a tad, reading you the way he usually reads error reports.

He steps closer. Not much. Just enough. His tone doesn’t change. “Use the microwave. I’m bringing the rest of the bags. I expect you to have eaten by the time I get back.”

The cadence is gentle command, not question; the expectation in it lands low enough to make your slick answer and your pride bristle in the same instance. His shoulder turns back to the door, ready to leave.

That does it.

Something inside you kicks, mean and restless. You want to snarl that he can’t order you around. That you’re not some omega stereotype, desperate for food and instructions and a babysitter. That you’ve survived worse heats than this. Alone. Freezing in your bathtub with a towel stuffed underneath your thighs, biting down on your palm just to keep from sobbing too loud. The memory knifes through your belly and leaves a cramp in its wake; you breathe through it—four in, four out—and your body betrays you by wanting to give into his commands anyway.

But he’s already walking away, probably hasn’t even noticed you bristling. And something about that—his confidence, his certainty—makes your anger sputter and flicker like a match in the wind.

The door closes behind him.

And you’re left again, wondering what the hell is your life? You’re supposed to be at a corporate retreat, pretending to care about synergy and morale. Instead, you’re in a roadside motel, sweat-damp, restless, every nerve in your body screaming at you. The weak ceiling fan that Kai had turned on, flipping the switch by the door as he left, rattles, shaking the tepid air in the room that does nothing to cool the fever under your skin.

The door opens again.

You don’t startle this time. But your body still reacts, jolting lightly, shifting minutely, keen hungry eyes dragging toward the threshold before you can stop yourself. The movement is compulsive now. When Kai leaves, something in you strains to track him like you’re tethered by instinct and not reason. Your throat tilts in his direction without permission; your glands, swollen and blood flushed, flutter at the edges of your clothing as if they could beckon.

He reenters heavier this time. You can hear it in the way his boots hit the laminate. The subtle shift of breath under movement. The bags slung over his shoulders redistribute with every step, brushing against each other with the soft hiss of ballistic nylon and thick straps. There is a new color on him—scarlet and fuchsia mixed with cream—a flush starting high and darkest at the ears before running in a faint ribbon along his cheekbones, looking the most muted as it disappears into the collar of his shirt.

He’s got everything now.

The silver Rimowa clinks softly at his side with each stride, wheels squeaking once as they bump over the lip of the carpet. His laptop bag is hooked over his shoulder, same as it was yesterday, no longer looking as threatening as it did when it kept you cornered in the elevator yesterday. His massive backpack hugs his back, straps making it snug to his frame. And then there's the reusable grocery tote, that ridiculous overstuffed snack bag, hanging off one arm like it might split open at any moment from the weight of energy bars, crinkly bags of sodium, pouches of chewy gummies, and fluorescent electrolyte drinks. When he straightens under the load, the terry joggers pull for half a second across the front, just a drag of fabric over something thick and solid—your vision pinning there before you can stop it as heat punches deep and low in your core. He shifts the tote subtly forward, leaving it at the foot of the bed.

You look towards it, distracted. Your throat tightening until it’s difficult to swallow. It’s what’s nestled on top of all of the snacks.

The penguin.

You had dropped it by the rubber floor mat of the passenger seat when you left the car. You hadn’t even remembered it was in the Lexus.

But he had. And you feel horrible about it. Leaving his present behind that he had so thoughtfully given to you early that morning. The guilt folds into apology that becomes threaded so quickly with want that you can’t unbraid them.

Kai walks straight to the corner by the closet as you ruminate, dropping his bags with clinical precision. Nothing thuds sloppily. Nothing falls over from carelessness. He lowers the suitcase carefully, removes the laptop bag and places it on the nightstand further away from you. Finally, he crosses over the room again and untangles the penguin from the mess of bag straps and crinkly snack packages and…turns back toward you. His mouth is slightly redder than before, like he’s been licking at it. His Adam’s apple jumps once when your eyes meet.

He doesn’t seem mad as he hands over the penguin stuffie so that you can immediately clutch it to your chest for comfort. And you feel your chest cave inward as you pull it close—not to cradle, not to cuddle, just to hold. Like maybe if you press it hard enough to your sternum, it’ll anchor you to something solid. Something real. Something that doesn’t make your skin itch and your glands pulse and your thoughts spin in unspooling circles. You widen your eyes a fraction, feigning being demure on purpose, biting your bottom lip because you’ve read that alphas like softness, like compliance as your free wrist turns palm-up to offer up the scent glands there.

Kai watches you for a moment longer. Then, carefully, like he’s navigating around landmines, something volatile, he murmurs, “Do you need anything else from the car?” His voice is lower than before, a shade rougher; the pace is clipped to short clauses as if the urgency will prevent him from acting erratically. He is blushing down the line of his throat, redder, a thick wash of heightened color that is darkest at his pulse. He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing while he waits for your reply.

You open your mouth. Close it again. Your eyes drop to the penguin in your lap, your fingers smoothing the crushed fabric as if you’re inspecting it for damage.

“No,” you say, and the word comes out soft. “That was everything.” You make it gentler than you meant to; yes, Kai, sits unsaid in your mouth: I need you desperately, please stay here with me.

He doesn’t nod. Doesn’t give you that low hum of agreement he usually does. He just waits a beat longer, contemplating, a long enough pause that you nearly go mad from it and utters, “I’ll see if they have room service. Or takeout menus.”

You look at your knees, frowning. Unsettled.

“Yeah, right. Change out of your things,” he adds, pointedly not looking at your thighs, ever the gentleman. “Freshen up. Set a timer for nourishment: water every half an hour, something solid every two.” The directives are soft yet precise; the volume of his voice never rises, doesn’t falter, but the command in it is clear; the alpha tone rings out strong. He clears his throat once and it’s a small, betraying sound.

Then he turns. The turn is quick, eager, almost careless; he manages to correct mid-step, shifting away from you, facing the door more unmistakably. Your face falls. You can’t watch him walk out this time. You just listen. The creak of the laminate. The soft, decisive snick of the door as it opens.

Before he leaves, he sighs. His voice when he speaks is falsely upbeat and gentle: “I’ll be right outside the door okay? I’ll knock three times and speak out if I need to enter. I’ll call you on the phone if you don’t give me a verbal affirmation for coming inside. Text me if you need anything. I have a powerbank and my phone is fully charged. I’ll figure out lunch and dinner while you—while you rest.”

And then—

Silence.

You’re still holding the penguin. Its soft fur clings to your palm, warm from being in the car while it baked in the parking lot. There’s a low, steady burn spreading across your chest. You press your face into it, jaw tight, and breathe in, gasping when you realize instead of smelling brand-new and synthetic it smells of Kai, like he had taken the time to scent it at some point after the two of you had arrived at the motel. It’s not aggressive, scented with notes of dominance, rather it reads comforting and protective. You press the plush beak against your throat, right over your glands, and the smell settles like a blanket—cedar, bourbon, that ripe peach—softened, not sharp, like he meant you to rest under it. Through the door, you can hear the faintest suggestion of weight shifting as Kai settles against it, an annoyed huff and then another, the tapping of his boots against the dry cement of the walkway. You picture him there, flushed and upright and trying not to think of you. You hope he feels as miserable as you.

No. You meanly hope he feels worse out there with no air conditioning. That he becomes red and sunburnt in the August heat. That he suffers because he refused to be in here with you.

You feel like you are close to tears. You wish they had come earlier so you could’ve let him see it and that he would have stayed. Given in out of pity.

You know that’s just the heat talking. He’s doing the right thing. And that when the haze clears in 2-3 days, you’ll be glad for his willpower. But right now, it just feels like rejection.

You don’t know how long you sit there in a daze but after a while you feel the heat coming back with a vengeance, the sensations no longer dulled. You regret missing your opportunity to have freshened up like Kai had suggested as you shakily lift yourself off the armchair, wobbly limping towards the bed, falling upon it ungracefully as you writhe from the tremors taking over your body, the slick gushing thick, your chest heaving as your nipples are constricted to sharp tight pain points, your cunt tightens around nothing, begging for friction.

You let out a plaintive whimper. Oh god. You need stimulation. You need relief. You need…

Kai.

You need Kai.

Sweet, sexy Kai.

You can envision him so clearly.

He has those deep, steady chocolate brown eyes that have never once landed on you with anything sharp in them, only that patient warmth that makes you feel safe and cared for, the kind of gaze that holds like a tight embrace rather than a painful grip freezing you in place—pretty eyes framed by long straight, dark lashes. And then the seven little moles you could place in the dark taking up space on the smooth unblemished countenance of his face: the twin specks near the left brow tail, the tiny one under his eye, the pair that bracket his mouth like quotation marks around things he hasn’t said, the small freckle on the jaw, and your favorite dot on the bridge of his perfect, twice-broken Roman nose that gives him the most beautiful side profile

Your mind turns to his mouth next. Soft and maddening, the way his pinkened lips fold into that quiet pout when he runs out of words and ruminates on what to say. The habitual bite at the right corner of his lower lip when he’s thinking. The way the color deepens to maroon when he presses them flat to keep something in, and you can see the exact shape they would make around a command.

You imagine him exactly as he is standing outside the room. The plain unassuming baseball cap that’s usually canted low on his face but the brim flipped back now in your vision so that you can see him clearly: straight black hair pushing out at the nape in curved, disobedient ends you ache to smooth, and there are his ears, hugged by his thick dark sideburns that make him look so masculine, so attractive, burning crimson when he is flustered, that blush sliding over his cheekbones and down the pale-gold column of his throat where his Adam’s apple jumps as he swallows in his desperate attempts to regain composure.

Then there are his shoulders that are broader than he lets on, usually folded inwards towards his chest and the long, clean line of his neck that leads to sharp pointed collarbones and a hard chest your hands still remember, fingers curling, light blue pointed of your nails biting into your palms, wishing they could clutch it instead. You remember the black T-shirt pulled tight over pectorals and the shallow center line that runs down into the stacked ridges of his abdomen.

His arms, lightly dusted with near-invisible brown-black hairs that apparently lift when he’s keyed up, his blue-green veins roping along his forearms toward hands that are almost obscene in their competence, hands that could span from your waist without trying, fingers long with jutting knuckles, tipped with shiny clean nails. The old Cartier strap creaking at his wrist when he flexes.

His scent you have become so familiar with in the past two days: the deep, smoky cedarwood that carries the greenness of lush forests with it; the rich boozy bourbon that’s sweetened by vanilla and spice filled with black pepper and clove; the deep juicy sugary sweetness of ripened summer-warmed peach that’s both soft yet syrupy.

Your mind’s gaze catches on his black terry joggers that hug his powerful thick athletic thighs before tapering down to his muscular calves, toned from his daily runs. The fabric is tighter against his front, sticking out a bit. Your breath stutters, you can only imagine how large he is underneath from what you’ve been able to piece together throughout the years. How big he grows. How generous the knot is when it forms, popping out, ready to plug.

You know he’s likely slumped against the door right now, already tired of standing up. Leaning his back to it like an American, one heel braced, weight half pressed against the wall and doorway, the rest against the door. His little slouch that only makes him look more rumpled and sexier. He’s probably rubbing his right knee, which has been known to bother him occasionally, absentminded little massages from his right hand, thumb digging into the sides, while his left hand scrolls his Samsung flip phone, thumb moving in calm, even strokes, as he scrolls, the light blue screen glow painting his knuckles luminescent. His breaths likely more measured now that he’s away from you and able to relax, not having to keep such a firm lid on his alpha instincts.

And then there’s that last bit, the part that makes your desperate fingers attempt to tuck in between the damp leggings that seem glued to your skin by sweat and slick… the sound of him. The low timbre that edges his voice when he is tired or holding something back. The husk that threads through your ribs when every second word of his comes out with lighthearted humor, tinged with his high-pitched cackle-like laughter. The strong, confident cadence he uses when he wants compliance without raising the volume.

And you can imagine exactly what he would sound like when he says what he needs, growls to take what he wants: a rough yet light snarled whisper, full of certainty. Each sensual heat filled word landing boldly like a promise that hints at what he has in store for you: pleasure and ruination. Kai never swears. Is always sweet. Good-mannered. Pleasant even at his most displeased. But with a certainty you feel deep in your bones, a hunger that makes your core clench and gush out even more slick, you know his voice would be deep and raspy when aroused. The noises coming out of his throat, guttural and animalistic. Sounding filthy and debauched. Being detailed and explicit. Breathing out words that are terribly vulgar and temptingly enticing as he took what he knew was meant for him. Promising possessiveness and delivering ecstasy.

The lock clicks with a harsh clack that sounds unforgiving to his ears. The faint hum of the ceiling fan and all of the other sounds from the room seems to be instantly muted on the other side of the wood, but Kai still feels his ears straining, eager to pick up anything new. The breath that escapes him is a shudder, not a sigh when he looks around him to see if there’s any threats he should be on the alert for. Heat pours off his skin in waves that the hallway air refuses to cool. He thinks this is the one downside to having an open layout for a motel though he does still find it less eerie than a walled hallway with blinking weak lights that feels like back rooms. The icy metal handle is still beneath his fingers when he realizes he’s been gripping it hard enough for the metal to bite into his calluses.

He finally slumps, spine painfully meeting the cool paint of the door, shoulders slamming the wood with a muted thud. His legs go weak for a second—just a second—almost buckling under his weight before they lock again. He drags a palm down his face. It comes away damp. His pulse won’t settle. It keeps punching behind his ribs like it’s trying to find its way out.

You’re in there. The thought hits first, unbidden, almost harmless.

You’re in there, only the thin motel room door between them. He could reach against it, flatten his palm to the wood, and it would be almost touching you. Almost. The closest he’s ever been, and still light-years away. The distance feels wrong. His skin knows it’s wrong. His body keeps waiting for the rest of him to follow through—go in, touch, fix whatever is making you sound like that.

Does this make any sense?

He swallows hard, gulping as his Adam’s apple wobbles, the mole on his neck moving up and down. Don’t you fucking start.

Then the smell hits next.

It seeps under the door, sweet and floral at first, then heavier, warmer—you. The scent of you curls through the muggy summer air like smoke—citrus fading into rose, rose melting into vanilla, and under all of it, that soft tangy salty human thing that hits him straight behind the teeth. His throat works around a breath that tastes like your skin. The breath he pulls in is a mistake; it sets his lungs on fire. He exhales through his teeth, half a groan, half a warning to himself.

His body moves before his mind catches up. A single, helpless jolt forward—hips pushing against nothing, air, the door as if instinct could trick his body into relief. The reaction is violent in its honesty. Heat floods down his spine, a pulse he can’t suppress, tight and hot and humiliating. He feels it throb through every nerve, a reminder that he’s not made of iron after all, that all his training and decency are no match for your scent bleeding through cheap wood. His throat closes on a curse.

No. Don’t.

His stomach knots as he braces the hand, that had been initially against the door, trying to feel closer to you, to try and keep upright. The ache won’t ebb, it only deepens, the kind of pressure that drags at his breath until each exhale shakes. He grinds his teeth, uselessly, trying to ride it out. The grain is rough against his fingertips, grounding, but his body doesn’t care about grounding. It wants scent, skin, noise. It wants you.

Pathetic. The word is soft in his mind, but it lands like a blow all the same. You can’t even control your own body. She’s in there suffering, and you’re out here—

He cuts the thought off, jaw locking until it hurts. He hates the way he can feel his pulse everywhere, the heat that keeps climbing instead of breaking. He hates that a single inhale can turn him traitor.

He presses his forehead against the door, eyes slipping shut seeking peace, breath shallow, waiting for the tremor in his hands to stop. It doesn’t.

For a second he sees the memory of you from only moments ago, how you kept revealing the line of your neck as you repeatedly tilted your head up towards him in what felt like was an offering, the way your voice broke as your heat took over and sapped away more of your strength. He feels the echo of you in his palms, soft curves where there is only old splintering wood. The image is a knife twisting slowly. He has the key. He could just—

Don’t you fucking dare, Kai. The thought comes fast. Hurling through raw and hoarse. You’ll kill yourself before you ever hurt her. So stay the fuck away from her.

How can this situation even exist? How is it possible he is in this situation right now?

He bows his head until his forehead almost touches his chest, his bangs brushing against his T-shirt collar, breathing through his nose, short and ragged, trying to burn the image out of his skull. The scent won’t leave. It clings; the ghost of you sweet and heavy in his throat, reminding him of every rule he swore he wouldn’t break.

He doesn’t move again. He just stands there, shaking, fighting for his next breath and the one after that, until the wanting in his chest dulls enough to feel like a manageable pain instead of fire that threatens to ruin him.

Hold it together.

When he can finally lift his head, he stares straight forward, scanning his surroundings. The hallway is empty except for the janky bicycle in front of someone’s door, three rooms down. Two vending machines, one for salty and sweet snacks and one for canned and bottled drinks drones noisily beside the door for the emergency exit. The air smells of chlorine, hinting that there’s a pool somewhere on the property and asphalt, it’s the kind of chemical summer heat and smells that burns his nostrils. Kai forces his eyes to move—left, right, corner to corner—mapping exits, lights, shadows. The kind of survey he can do on autopilot. Anything to pretend that he’s still functioning properly.

One of his hands drags down to the knob, checks the lock again. Once. Twice. The click is solid. Good. He immediately stops testing the door when he hears you inhale sharply, the citrus notes of your scent flaring sharply acidic. Fuckkk, he’s making you nervous. You shouldn’t have to worry about him breaking in and lunging for you at any moment. He rubs his hand over face, thumb and forefinger pinching at the part of his bridge that didn’t set right after it broke for the second time.

Fortunately, you soon calm, your scent becoming sweeter. More lush. He turns his head toward the parking lot, needing a distraction, counting the cars, pretending to calculate the amount of booked rooms. He’s already done it. He just needs something to do with his mind. His fingers find his phone instead; he opens up the SMS app, types a few words. Then immediately deletes them before he can send anything. The letters blur. God what is he doing? Trying to distract you from making yourself feel better? Make you give him attention, as though he’s the one that needs it? No. He will only text you if it’s an emergency or as a reply to when you message him first.

The practical part of him knows that this is what a good man does. A decent alpha. Guards the door, keeps the world away. This is what an alpha who isn’t mated to the omega, who the omega hasn’t asked to physically tend to their needs should do. He should protect you. Yeah. Right. Make sure you’re safe from getting preyed upon.

But the decent part of him is cracking. Each inhale pulls you deeper into him. He takes off his cap with a rough movement, dragging a hand through his thick black hair, the motion jerky, rough enough to sting as his nails scratch against scalp. He determines that he needs a haircut; the ends are becoming dry and brittle, easily settling into tangled messes. Nothing helps. The tension crawls lower, rooting where it aches the most. He wants to hit something, needs to move, do something, anything other than stand here and feel his body strum to the frequency of your need like you two are in synchrony.

When he has gotten himself just about settled, he jolts suddenly, losing his composure. His head almost slams into the door with how fast he turns it to make his ear be pressed against it, straining… straining to hear better. There’s a faint shift, barely there. The ceiling fan seems to slow for a second, the whirling sound inside fading to let the other sounds in the room become sharper, for a moment.  And he hears it with startling clarity, a long whine swallowing a rapid gulp, followed by the scratch of polyester fabric catching, a quick intake of air through the nose.

He freezes.

How can this exist???

Then comes the rhythm. The creaks and squeaks of the mattress. Slow at first. Uneven. The cheap mattress springs compressing and releasing, the whisper of wet cloth moving against skin. It’s so quiet he almost convinces himself he’s imagining it—until the scent hits harder, salty and tangy, tangled with sugary threads, unmistakable. Musky, thick proof of arousal.

His pulse spikes. His hand finds the doorknob, again, without thinking.

 Don’t. She’s safe. She’s just… surviving it. LEAVE HER ALONE. Don’t distract her. Don’t terrify her into stopping.

He pulls his hand back like it burned when it touched the metal. Presses his fist against his thigh repeatedly until he feels the bruise blooming beneath the skin. He tilts his head back against the door, eyes closing once again, his lashes kissing his high cheekbones.

The air is alive with you. Every breath is heavy, humid, obscene. He swallows hard, jaw ticking erratically as his throat vibrates with a sound that aches to break loose.

Another soft noise comes from inside—half a gasp, what he’s convinced are the syllables of his name being smothered under your palm as you cover your mouth with your hand, that isn’t otherwise occupied,  to keep him from hearing.

It unravels him. How could it not? Especially since, despite your best efforts… he can hear you.

The instinct to go to you surges up too fast to block. His body leans forward before his brain can catch up, stopping the movement, weight tipping instantly towards the door. He halts himself, palms slamming against the paint with a clanging smash that echoes down the hall.

He freezes. Shit. Noooo. Listens while holding his breath. Nothing from the inside changes.

He bows his head, breath hissing out between clenched teeth in a sigh of relief. You can’t go in there. Not unless she asks. Dude what is wrong with you? We just talked about this!

But the scent keeps thickening, pouring through the cracks between the doorframe and the door, curling around his body like an invisible wraith. Every inhale drags him lower down to his base self, closer to ferality. His body doesn’t know the difference between protection and possession anymore.

Every breath comes back heavier, every inhale dragging slowly down his throat like thick burnt caramel sliding down, sugar burned black. His nostrils prickle, your scent has shifted again, it’s less delicate florals now, carrying more heat with it, wafting off your skin; sensual promises calling out directly to his hindbrain with a faint animalistic edge. The tonka-vanilla curls inward, darker, more ambery resin than sweetness, and his mouth waters before his brain understands why. It’s too much. You’re too close.

The outside world starts to blur. The hum of the vending machine fades; sunlight smears at the edges, bleeding out like watercolor mixing with the thick humidity. His pupils have blown so wide that the brightness hurts, forcing his lashes to flutter rapidly as he blinks once, twice—tries to shake out his head, to clear the fog—but you’re still there. You’re everywhere. In his lungs, in his bloodstream, in the hammering pulse between his legs that’s turned thick and insistent, every beat a reminder of the biology that’s stronger than reason, stronger than his control.

Then the sound happens. Not through the door this time—inside his skull.

Kai…

Soft. Drawn out. Distressingly imploring. He knows you didn’t say it. He knows he’s imagining it. Has gone crazy from the august heat and your heat. Parched, suffering from a wretched thirst that only you can quench. But the hallucination feels real enough to make his legs weaken, forcing his knees to bend as he almost falls forward, buckling. He’s going insane. His scent glands pulse once—twice—a fire brand under his jaw, the base of his throat hurting from the phantom ache of a bond he doesn’t have and has no right to crave. He’s never been this close to an omega in heat before, not when it’s real, not when it’s you, and it’s wrecking his mind, stabbing holes through his restraint, the tattered remains of his willpower.

Please don’t make me do this. The thought scrapes through his mind, tragically raw, coming straight from his chest. Please. Not like this.

But then another voice rises beneath it, lower, crueler. One that sounds exactly like him when he isn’t pretending to be good: She needs you. You know she does. No one else can touch her like you would. Biology wants you to claim her as yours. She’s already choosing you—can’t you smell it? That’s your omega.

He shakes his head hard, palms pressing to the door as if he could transfer the thoughts out of his mind, pushing them into the old splinter-filled wood. “Stop,” he mutters, not knowing if he’s talking to you, himself, or the animal inside him that’s starting to pace, trying to rattle the bars in its cage. His shoulders jerk with a tremor he can’t suppress.

His scent glands pulse again, sharper this time. Instinct says: release your scent back, show her your answer, own her, claim her. He grits his teeth until his jaw aches, fighting the urge to let anything slip. The air burns when he exhales; it’s gone thick with you. Sweet salt-musk clings to his teeth when he breathes through his mouth. The scent coats the back of his throat again, denser now. His tongue flicks against it before he catches himself, and he makes the taste coat his lips before the shame hits him like a punch. You’re tasting her air, you fucking pervert!

Your saccharine tantalizing phantom voice folds through his skull again—Kai, please—and something inside him cracks down the middle. His vision goes white for a beat, then turns red around the edges. The sound isn’t real, but his body doesn’t care. Every nerve sings mine while his mind screams: Don’t. You can’t.

This doesn’t make any fucking sense.

He needs pain, needs to feel something—anything—anything that isn’t this. Anything that can distract him and clear his mind. Even if only temporarily.

His left fist slams into the wall once, twice, the hollow thud echoing down the corridor. Pale drywall dust powders his knuckles as the sting floods his senses. For one dizzy second it helps. Then it doesn’t. The ache blooms wider, deeper, twining with the same pulse that’s still throbbing low in his hips.

“Get a grip,” he growls, his voice a rasping guttural sound coming straight from the back of his throat. “She’s fine. She’s safe. She doesn’t need you.” The words scrape out hoarse, unconvincing, meant more for the feral thing inside him than for the version of him that still understands reason.

From inside, he hears a sharp inhale, his ears instantly prickling towards the sound. His scent glands flare again in answer towards the noise, betraying him—searing hot beneath the skin, threatening to release an explosion of thick hungry scent that reflects his arousal.

His chest locks, you heard him; he presses the heel of his palm against his own throat, trying to trap it, to keep from letting anything slip into the air. The motion leaves a smear of grayish porcelain dust across his chin and jaw. Don’t you dare scent. Don’t you dare let her smell you like this. You probably already scared her by punching the wall you fucking asshole.

He drops to his knees, the motion graceless, hitting carpet hard enough to bruise. The breath he drags in rattles through his body. He bows forward towards you, forehead brushing the lower half of the door, shoulders shaking as he hisses through clenched teeth, “I’m not that kind of alpha. I’m not like them.”

The words break apart halfway through, swallowed by the rough sound that follows, a strangled noise somewhere between a high pitched laugh and a keening sob. He presses both fists against his thighs, flattening them down until the veins stand out along his forearms. The pain is grounding, or at least, it’s supposed to be grounding. But his body won’t listen. His scent still wants to rise, wants to reach you, wants to tell you that you’re not alone, I’m right here, even if that would ruin everything.

How can this possibly be? How can he be in this situation right now? How does it even exist? Does anything about this even make sense?

He thinks about standing. About walking away. The parking lot is a dozen steps away. He could be down the stairs in three seconds, reach the car in another twenty steps. But the thought of distance makes his stomach twist. His pulse spikes with something too close to panic. What if you call for him and he isn’t here? What if you stop making noises altogether? What if your scent spills thicker over the entire property, drawing hungry alphas right up to your door?

He presses his forehead harder to the wood, eyes burning, breathing shallowly. Protecting and mating instincts blurring into one command pulsing through every cell: stay.

His voice comes out raw, barely audible. “Please,” he whispers, he doesn’t even know to whom, “Just let me hold it together.”

And then from inside the room—soft, wet, unmistakable—your moan unfurls, long yet stifled, lassoing around his gut, pulling him towards you.

His entire body goes still.

Apparently, his outburst outside the door hadn’t affected you too much if you’re able to go right back… to that.

He instantly stops pretending that he isn’t listening.

At first, he was only half-listening through one ear with his main focus on standing guard because the silence between your noises terrifies him. Because when you go quiet, it feels like his heart stops too. But now, now it’s become something else. He can’t even pretend anymore. Lying to himself that he’s doing it for some moral righteous safety reason, like out of concern for your wellbeing.

The quiet isn’t quiet at all. There’s movement under it: the whisper of skin against rustling sheets, the slow drag of your soft breaths getting caught and held, the smallest wet catch of sound that makes his pulse stutter and drum at each wrist. Each one lands like a hammering thud against his eardrum, and he leans in closer before he can think better of it. Sometimes you sound much nearer to him than you should be, and he wonders if you get up from the bed, tiptoeing to stand on the other side of the door, mere inches away from him.

He’s crouched now, ear towards the seam of the door, cheek and jaw pressed against the cool peeling paint. His palms are flat against the frame, fingers curved around it, anchoring him there. Every sound you make seems to come straight through the aging wood and directly into him, slinking right under his skin. The air is dense, saturated with your scent crowding it, wading deep into his sinuses until it’s all he can smell. The sweetness is almost completely gone; it’s darker now—warm bodied arousal, lushly ripe, edged with something animalistic and raw. It makes him dizzy.

The noises sharpen. The rapid, slick rhythm of your fingers. The light thud of the bed frame scraping against the carpet and rocking into the wall behind it as you shift your hips. Then a broken, bitten-off moan that sounds like a plea. His jaw locks; the muscles in his forearm twitch as if he’s bracing for impact. His breath comes in shallow, silent bursts; he doesn’t dare make a sound. His tongue flicks against the back of his teeth, tasting the syrupy oud heavy rose-vanilla in the air. He keeps inhaling deeply, trying to taste you secondhand on his tongue, in his mouth, since he can’t taste directly from the source. He doesn’t pull away from the door.

He’s shaking now, almost vibrating from tension, from the way his body keeps trying to move closer, even though he can’t with the door being the literal physical barrier between you and him. The part of him that’s still civilized whispers stop, stop, stop, but the rest of him—every raw, untrained, unprincipled bit of him—is attuned to your frequency. Your scent, your voice, the twists of your writhing body, the sticky sounds of your fingers moving faster. It rewires him in real time.

You gasp again, louder, a breath that trembles on its way out, and the image forms in his head before he can fight it: your lips parted, lashes wet, throat arched. Your leggings hanging off of a twitching ankle. He bites the inside of his left cheek until he tastes blood, but the iron on his tongue doesn’t break the spell, not when it’s still mixed with your sweetness. His pupils feel dilated too wide, his heartbeat too thundering, and he knows that whatever imaginary line he thought he would never cross had disappeared from his mind the second he knelt here like a sinner praying before an altar begging for salvation.

He drags one hand back from the door, stares at it trembling, as his fingers clench and unclench into his palm, his nails biting into it, then presses his knuckles against his mouth to keep from groaning. He’s well past reason.

He knows it. He’s listening to you fall apart through a motel door, and every sound is breaking something decent and righteous in him that he might never get back.

And still, he leans in closer. Does it even make sense? Nothing makes sense. What is he doing?

He’s already halfway gone, decided he’s destined for hell and damnation, when he hears your voice.

It isn’t even a word this time; just a whimper shaped like his name, breathily high, tenderly soft, and achingly helpless, but it tears through the thin shields of his restraint like a letter opener slicing through thick cardstock. His body moves before he does. His hand easily finds the key card from where it’s tucked inside his wallet he had put into the right front pocket of his joggers, hectically trying to hurry as his thumb worries the cool plastic until the sharp edges bite into his skin. The sting feels distant. It’s almost funny how quickly and smoothly the door will open when he’s spent the last half hour trying to keep himself from opening it.

He hesitates for the length of one heartbeat. Don’t. She didn’t ask. You don’t even have—

The thought stumbles on itself, fragments. Condoms.

He doesn’t even have fucking condoms.

He almost laughs at the absurdity of it, because if he thinks about logistics now, he’ll lose what’s left of his mind. The sound that leaves him is half snarl, half whine. No. He can’t think about that irksome problem right now.

I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

The key slides into the reader smoothly, the door clicking open with a soft metallic sound that is so loud and harsh in Kai’s eardrums that it might as well have been thunder rippling through the sky. The lock gives, and the thick viscous air of the room rushes out to meet him, wrapping around him in welcome.

Your heat hits first—wet, perfumed, living heat—and his knees nearly give out from it. The entire room smells like you: slick sharp citrus-tinged sugar and salt, rose florals turned fragrant and oud-heavy, molten tonka-vanilla sweetness turned dark and animalistic. It coats his entire tongue, his teeth, his gums, the back of his throat, brushing against his tonsils. His chest expands from a choking gasp that sounds too much like a sigh of relief.

He steps in and the world shrinks to dim darkness that’s only broken by the amber lamplight coming from the far nightstand and the sound of your breathing. All the curtains are drawn, making the motel room even more so into its own private ecosystem. All of the bags are a mess, fallen over and half open as though you had hurriedly rippled through their contents looking for things to create a makeshift nest with.

You’re sprawled across the bed, legs dangling off the side still covered in heather gray leggings that are hanging low on your hips, revealing the expanse of your pelvis while still haphazardly covering your mons. Your loose white T-shirt is rolled up to just below your chest from all of your twisting and turning, exposing the length of your abdomen to Kai. You’ve thrown your athleisure jacket by the pillows, and have some of Kai’s clothes he had packed for the trip scattered on the surface of the bed, tangled in with the layers of sheets and duvet. Your head is nestled on his leather jacket, nose tucked towards the collar as you mouth at the dark colored interior's silk lining. Your short hair is a mussed mess around you. Your skin is flushed a dull red and shines with sweat. And then, your fingers still between your thighs as Kai shuts the door behind him, slowing as you sense him, eyes glassy with unshed tears and pupils dilated as they find his. The sight burns straight through him as he feels it behind his retinas, in the base of his spine;  everywhere.

For a single suspended second, everything stills. The slow rickety whirling of the ceiling fan is the only sound except for both of your loud breathing. Blood rushes to his ears, turning them a deep crimson, and he stares at you, biting on his swollen lower lip. He thinks he sees you nod. A confirmation. And then he’s moving. Feet instantly crossing the carpet in huge strides, eating up the distance in between the two of you in a hurry.

His cap is carelessly thrown off his head, hitting the headboard with a rough smack before falling on top of the messy pile of pillows. His pulse is so loud he can hear it in his jaw, feel it ticking like a drum there. He crosses the room in three long strides, stops just short of the bed, fingers flexing uselessly at his sides, the last visual remnants of his restraint before he gives in.

He thinks: Please. Please, Y/N. Please stop me if you don’t want me. Tell me to leave. I can no longer hold myself back. Not if you don’t tell me to.

You say his name again, louder this time but even more wrecked than you had sounded through the door, desperately pleading.

“Kai, please? I want you. I want you to. My fingers aren’t enough. Only you are. Only you can,” you babble an explosion of nervous words, anxiety strumming through you while you remain still frozen under his smoldering gaze, still haven’t gotten the bravery yet to touch yourself with him watching you discerningly.

And whatever thin thread of decency he had left snaps. The sound that leaves him is a rough hiss as he drops to his knees, a man seeking salvation in the woman he loves.  Every cell and nerve in him screaming mine. She’s mine.

He still hesitates after he plunges down before you, can’t seem to separate fantasy and desire from reality and truth, staring at you from where he is settled on his knees, his face less than two feet away from your center. But he’s not looking at where your fingers are tucked in under the layers of your sweat and slick soaked leggings and panties, he’s staring at your face, his voice rough, his visage trembling as he murmurs, “Yeah. Right. Say it. Tell me that you want me. Me, not anyone else. Me. Right now, right at this moment.”

You indulge him, even when you feel like you want to tear out of your skin out of want of relief. You sob, almost breathless, shuddering out words in between desperately gulping for air, “Want you. Need you, Kai. Please? Promise you’re the only one.”

He still seems uncertain, long dark bangs falling into his eyes, as his gaze shifts away from yours to falling to land somewhere around your throat, his eyes lasering in on where your scent glands reside as he quickly demands verbal confirmation from you yet again. 

“I’m going to go for it. You need to tell me you truly want me. I’m going to do it. I’m going to go all the way. You have to say you want me. Want this,” Kai says, almost like it’s a threat. And perhaps it is because if you give him permission he’s not sure he can hold any part of him back. He’s going to be all in.

He makes you repeat it again and again until your voice turns hoarse, your throat dry and raspy, until you think that you are going to attempt to drag Kai onto you, making the move yourself, so that the message truly sinks in. So that he has no space to think about anything else. Has no physical room for doubts and uncertainty to creep in. You think that once he’s trapped in your embrace, unable to get out unless he’s okay with hurting you to remove himself, he will truly understand that you want him. No. That you need him.

Your right leg twitches, your thighs parting, creating even more space between them as you slowly lift the leg, toes stretching out, attempting to hook your foot around Kai, trying to pull him towards you with your heel digging into the base of his spine. But before you can, his head lifts, messy sable colored hair falling away from his eyes.

He inhales and exhales deeply, his body shuddering lightly as he drags his right hand over his face, fingers pressing into the creamy skin roughly, and then wading into his hair. Pushing his dampening bangs off his face he growls, “Good. You’re mine now.”

What happens next takes you completely by surprise. You thought Kai would haul your body up, press you against him, bodies touching from chest to chest, stomachs colliding against each other, thighs shoved against each other, as he kissed you for the first time.

You should have known better. This was Kai. When had he ever been predictable? The male remains crouched on the ground, still balanced on his knees, reaching out for you, his arms wrapping around your legs as he pulls your thighs closer to the edge of the bed. And then he just… drops his face. Right against your mound. The hard tip of his nose hitting the top of your opening through your clothes, through where the slick had made the leggings stick to the curves and cervices of your pussy like a second skin. He hadn’t even peeled your bottoms off, just kept his face buried against you, lips slightly parted as he breathed you in deeply, inhaling the thick heady scent of your heat-driven arousal, the citrus turned tangy, the rose musky, and the vanilla-tonka rich, rounded, and decadent.

He drags in heavy, greedy inhales, like he wants to swallow you whole, nose and mouth rubbing against the damp gray cotton/elastane blend as his chest seems to tremble with intense shuddering breaths.

You can barely stand the scrutiny, starting to squirm, your arousal making your body twitch as another wave of your heat comes on like a tsunami slamming into the coastline. You are reacting to your proximity to an alpha. Your body, which is already agitated from your small pathetically thin fingers that could never mimic the thickness or length of an alpha’s cock, is now in an uproar that it has an alpha available to it for the first time during a heat but can’t seem to make proper use of him to enjoy him thoroughly.

You groan, spluttering out a frustrated wail, “Kaiii. What are you doing?” as you try to shift underneath him in an attempt to make your hips tilt upward; you need his mouth to connect with the lower part of you.

The male growls, a deep alpha sound of dominance, making you still, your heart pounding as he tightens his hold around you, gripping you even more firmly to eliminate what little wiggle room you had. He grunts muffled words into your mound, his warm breath making your cunt clench and unclench with want, “Shut up. I need this. I get to be in control. You want me as your alpha during your heat? Then I get to set the pace. I get to decide everything. You’re mine now.”

“But Kai,” you whine, not realizing when to concede, “You’re supposed to help me.”

Kai snarls even more deeply, the sound reverberating through you, his warm breath wafting over your mound, making you shudder, “You’re not just a fuck to me, Y/N let me get my bearings first.”

You attempt to lift yourself up on an elbow, trying to look down at him, “You need to breathe me in to get your ‘bearings’?”

“Yes,” hisses Kai, his tone reproaching, a little bit confused as to why you’re not submitting easily to him as an omega, “I want to smell you properly. Or have I had the opportunity to previously do that to my heart’s content some other time in the past six years, Y/N?”

You stifle a gasp, your cheeks suddenly burning from all the blood that rushes to your face. Okay fair enough. You two are way past the point where Kai will let you pretend that you didn’t have some inkling of his attraction towards you. But are you just meant to lie here doing nothing while he smelled you? He wasn’t even scenting you or lapping at your folds. He was just… breathing you in. You look at your hands that are both free, gripping nothing. Touching nothing. When there’s over six feet of warm sexy alpha wrapped around your bottom half. Your hand, the one that has been buried in your leggings reaches out to wrap your fingers around Kai’s messy black hair, when the male suddenly moves, scaring you. His hand wraps around your wrist, stopping you in your tracks.

The two of you stare into each other, you are looking down at him breathlessly as he has his head tilted up in reverence, his eyes so dilated you can barely even make out the chocolate brown of his irises at the edge of his pupils. For a moment nothing happens, you two are frozen in time unable to let your eyes break away from each other’s, and then the male surges up, hectically digging a knee into the mattress as he moves his hand to the small of your back to quickly haul you into an upright position before drawing you against him, his left arm a thick steel band across your back, pressing your breasts and soft tummy into his solid chest and rock hard abdominal muscles. His right hand caresses the back of your neck, pianist fingers so big and long that his thumb can easily stroke the underside of your jaw, at your scent glands, while the rest of the digits work to title your head up so that you can meet his firm lips in a hungry kiss full of desperation.

It's messy. It’s six years of wanting and longing wrapped into one frantic kiss full of teeth knocking into each other, lips pressing hard enough into each other to bruise. Kai breaks away for a second, resting his damp forehead against yours, laughing lightly like he can’t believe this is his life. It reminds you that under all those layers of alpha, he’s still just your Kai, the man who never scared you for a moment in university. Who never gave any hint that he would be an alpha.

His dark bangs, in clumped up sections from his sweat, tinkle your eyelids; your lips, in turn, part as you make a sound of displeasure. Kai immediately rushes to take advantage of that, diving back in, his lips slotting over yours, his tongue thrusting between the opening you had created, hungrily licking inside your mouth, wanting to lap up every taste of you.

It’s a good kiss… Actually, it’s a great kiss. But you can’t help but whimper, frustrated, this is not what you need right now. You need him inside you. You need him furiously pounding into you and knotting you up good and proper. Kissing—kissing is meant for when your heat is more manageable. When the fervor hasn’t gotten you all twisted up inside, when you don’t feel like you want to rip out of your skin, when you can take things slower and actually enjoy it.

But right now, now, you need to be taken hard and breeded. You whimper into him, tugging at his shirt, your words are muffled against his lips. “Kai, please, not this—I need—”

He freezes for half a heartbeat, clearly taken aback. He then seems to regroup, appearing to choose to ignore you, trying to distract you with kisses peppered against your jaw and throat, wet kisses full of sharp nipping teeth where he eagerly sucks at your skin, drawing it into his mouth, biting lightly before letting it free. He laves at your scent glands, tongue massaging circles before he nibbles lightly. He’s not trying to break skin, he just wants to stimulate your glands, so you are ready to be scented. Once he’s sure you’re properly scented and you seem to purr, he pulls back, just enough to look at you, pupils remaining blown wide and almost entirely black, his reddened lips swollen and wet from the kisses.

“I should have done that this morning,” he grumbles, pouting, “You’ve been outside all day smelling of your heat, of sin, and no alpha. It’s like you have a penchant for danger. So irresponsible,” he tsks. “You need an alpha to take care of you.”

You frown, eyebrows drawing together, brattily retorting, “This alpha isn’t giving me what I need.”

Kai quells anything else you might’ve said, trapping you under his gaze as his head tilts to the side menacingly and his tongue darts out to lick the corner of his mouth. His chest rumbles as he speaks, low voice dark and certain.

“You’ll take what I give you. I know what you need.”

With those words, he immediately flips you on your stomach, your face smooshing against his leather jacket that was lying by your head on the bed. As you try to twist to look back at him, he threads his fingers around your hair, his palm resting slightly on your nape to keep your head in place.

“Stay,” he barks out an order, the authority in his voice sending a shiver down your spine and another rush of slick cascading down your thighs.

His other hand strokes your body, running along your shoulders, fingers tap-dancing down your spine then going back up to stroke the side of your body, cup your breasts, grasp your waist, squeeze your hips and ass. He does it once, twice.

The third time, his hand grabs your hip more firmly to pull it towards him until your ass is in the air, your knees bending while your chest and head remain flat against the mattress. You think he’s preparing you so that he can take you like this from behind. You don’t… mind it. But if he had asked you for your opinion, you would’ve told him that you wanted to look at him during your first time together. A little painful knot of hurt builds in your chest, making your ribs hurt.

His hand gropes at the curve of your ass, squeezing both cheeks, fingers briefly tucking in between your parted thighs to stroke a line from your clit to your asshole. You stiffen and try to hide a sniffle, but Kai hears it anyways, his hand stilling.

“Y/N?” he asks gently, his grip loosening around your nape, the rough finger pads of his other hand softly stroking your hip, “What’s wrong, princess?”

You shake your head. You can’t speak. This is so embarrassing. Why are you being so sensitive right now? Is it because you finally opened yourself to the vulnerability of spending your heat with an alpha and now, he wants to take you from behind like you’re nothing—like you’re just a piece of meat. Of easy omega. And worst of all, it’s Kai. Your Kai. The only alpha you thought might be different.

Kai settles on the mattress beside you, lying down on your left side, in response, you sniff and turn up your nose, moving your head to look to the right. He sighs, “Should I go lie on the other side then? To make you look at me?”

“I don’t want you like this,” you mutter into the collar of his jacket, the leather bunching up under your clenched fist.  

For a long moment, there’s silence. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t say anything. After a while you begin to feel restless; the air is frozen after your rejection and the male beside you is so still that you don’t even know if he’s still breathing. You move slowly, shifting in tiny increments until you’ve rolled onto your back and you’re looking at him.

You’re surprised to see that he’s not glancing back at you. His eyes are shut, his beautiful long black eyelashes brushing against the hollowed skin under his eyes that’s darker than the pale porcelain which covers the rest of his face. He’s pinching the bridge of his nose between his right hand’s index finger and thumb.

“Kai?” you ask. Nothing. No reaction. You inch closer to him, the mattress squeaking underneath the two of you. “Kaii?”

Still nothing. You collapse on top of him, your face burrowing into the side of his neck. And yet even then he doesn’t move. Doesn’t push you off. Doesn’t reposition you so that you two are more comfortable.

“Kai? Why aren’t you saying anything?”

At that he scoffs, letting out a breathy sound. His laughter rings hollow. His voice is raspy when he answers, “What am I supposed to say? Am I supposed to beg you, Y/N? I am not that kind of alpha. I’m not going to needle you until you’re worn down and finally give in. You know how I feel. I want you. I’ve always wanted you. What am I supposed to do when you change your mind every five minutes? I can’t be with you like that. You’re… you’re everything to me. I’m in love with you. I don’t know what to do with you when you’re hot and cold. I don’t want to offend you. I don’t want to accidentally do something that you’re not okay with.”

Your frown deepens, and when you part your dry lips to dampen them, you realize your face is burrowed into Kai’s scent glands. How did he misunderstand your words so badly? You should be more direct. More clear. But first you need to show him that you hadn’t been rejecting him. Hadn’t changed your mind. You just didn’t want your first time with him to be so impersonal.

You nose the delicate skin of his scent glands. Kai swallows roughly but otherwise ignores you. It’s only when you part your lips to lightly lap at his throat that he moves, his hands wrapping around your upper arms like he wants to throw you off of himself.

“Y/N you can’t,” he pleads desperately, growling in frustration, head shaking as he tries to move sweat-damp locks of hair out of his face without loosening the grip he has on you.

“Why can’t I?” you ask. You stop trying to lick his skin, to lap up his salt bourbon taste, but you’re pressing hard closed-lipped kisses on his jaw, the underside of it, his chin, and all along his throat. He swallows when you kiss his Adam’s apple with even more pressure and then dart your tongue against the prominent mole on the side of his neck before going back to give his scent glands all of your attention.

“Why are you even scenting me after you rejected me?” he grumbles in frustration. “You are the most vexing omega I know.”

“I am the only omega you know, and I didn’t reject you,” you remind him before giving him a particularly wet kiss under his right ear. “Now let me lick the mole on your neck again.”

“No,” Kai shoots you down immediately, “And yes you did, Y/N. What does ‘I don’t want you’ mean to you then? Do those words mean something different to omegas then?”

You sputter, in outrage, clearly offended,“I said ‘I don’t want you like this.’ And I stand by that.”

“Like what?” complains Kai, his hands have come away from your arms. He’s no longer holding you back; they’re resting slightly on the small of your back, long fingers lightly threaded together. And he’s basically given up on making you stop scenting him, as you go at him like a cat grooming her male: licking, kissing, biting.

“Face down and impersonal, you asshole? Do you think you hold the monopoly on being in love? Newsflash: I’m in love with you too! And I didn’t want to be face down on a mattress while you pound into me from behind during our first time having sex.”

Kai stills, you think he might be red with embarrassment if the skin that’s suddenly scalding hot under your lips is any indication. How cute. But still, deserved.

“I wasn’t,” he stutters, sheepish all of a sudden, dark hair falling over his eyes as he shuts them briefly, “I wasn’t going to have sex with you Y/N.”

“At all? Rude. Why are you even here then, Kai?”

You think he’s rolling his eyes; you’ve stopped looking at him, going back to give most of your divided attention to his scent glands. He unthreads his hands, letting one stroke your back, going from the top of your shoulders to your ass in a smooth repetitive motion. It’s wildly comforting and you mewl, rubbing your face into his scent glands even more thoroughly.

“Not ‘at all.’ At that moment. I was going to spank you.” He rubs his face with his other hand roughly, feeling his cheeks heat up, turning a mottled red color, “God this is so embarrassing. Do you think heats are always this awkward and full of misunderstandings?”

Now you’re the one who stills. He was going to spank you? You ignore the part of you that feels thrilled about that idea and try to hold onto your indignation from earlier. You sniff, turning your nose up, “I haven’t done anything to deserve getting spanked.”

“You absolutely have,” Kai refutes you almost immediately, his chin pressing into your silky hair.

“Name one reason.”

Kai cackles, his chest shaking underneath you, “I could give you a million. But to start, you’re a fucking tease. You do things and then run away because you think my willpower and my morals are stronger than my alpha instincts. You will purposefully bend over in front of me in an impossibly tight skirt at work and then skip back to your office because you know I have too much propriety to take you on top of the copy machine like the animal I feel like inside. And don’t even get me started on what you were like in college. I have six years of grievances against you. So yeah, I was going to fucking spank you.”

You scoff, sneering, biting at his glands, not rough enough to break the skin, “Then do it. Do it Kai. Fucking do it. I dare you to do it. No… I’m giving you permission to do it. You have my full consent. Do it Kai. But if you put your fucking cock inside of me and we are not making eye contact,” you take a pause to sigh, “Let’s just say you do not want to see that side of me Kai Huening.”

“Yeah?” Kai mumbles into your hair, letting his nose nudge your scalp, bending his neck until he can properly kiss the crown of your head.

“Yeah,” you confirm lightly.

“I have a lot to get out, and I might be taking it out on you,” he murmurs, sighing like it’s this ordeal he has to get through before he can give you tender, indulgent heat sex where he tends to your every need and every whim.

“That’s fine,” you agree, just wanting him to get a move on to the main event. Why is he edging you like you aren’t actively dying from lust and arousal right now? “That way my heat can be cathartic to both of us.”

“I might be a little mean,” admits Kai, his hands briefly tightening on either side of your waist and he holds you towards him, “I have… a lot of built-up resentment towards you that I never got to work out before.”

“Do you hate me?” you ask, worrying your lower lip with your teeth. You don’t think you can have sex with someone who hates you. Even if you’re head over heels for him. You have that much self-respect for yourself at least.

Kai immediately protests, “Y/N, I love you. Hate you? I’ve never hated you. Even when I thought you would never give me the time of day. I just… was annoyed at you sometimes… okay, a lot of times.”

“So then… it’s just an alpha punishing his omega,” you say matter-of-factly. You decide to take it at face value.

Kai, pauses, tilting his head as he considers it, he moves one of his hands until he can rub his chest, like he’s attempting to massage his heart, “Yeah. It’s this alpha punishing his omega.”

“And no mating bonds,” you try to confirm. That’s your only hard limit for this heat.

“I had a strict timeline planned for our relationship and no, mating you does not happen before I’ve even taken you out on a date. You have nothing to worry about, darling. You can trust me,” Kai admits, his hand shaking out his bangs and then pushing them away from his forehead.

Your brows furrow, as you consider his words, you’ll have to ask him about his relationship timeline for you two later. But right now, you’re feeling your heat creep back in again; the need in your groin has you almost doubling over, “Then we’re good. Spank me or whatever. Have your temper tantrum. Whatever makes you feel better,” you shrug nonchalantly.

Kai’s eyes narrow, “Just for that I’m adding five extra spanks,” he says, before flipping you two so that he’s on top of you. You two stay like that for a moment as his face seeks your scent glands again. He scents you more hungrily and desperately this time, citrus and vanilla tonka mixing with peachy smoke-filled bourbon, his teeth almost painful when they track their way across the delicate skin of your neck.

When he’s satisfied, he brushes one last kiss across your scent glands before he puts you back into the position he had you in earlier.

“Before we start, I have a question, princess,” Kai admits, his hand splayed across your ass. You twist around to look at him, blinking in confusion, “How the hell are you so calm right now and not tearing your clothes off in heat driven desperation?”

“It’s because I’m more mature than you,” you nod, your eyes crinkling with glee,“I have greater restraint and control over my body.”

“Yeah. Right,” Kai hums, looking unimpressed, his nose scrunching at you and the dimple on left side making a rare appearance, “Sure.”

“You’ll be surprised at how quickly the lust goes away when I’m sad,” you admit more truthfully. At that Kai’s face softens in apology. He bends down to kiss you softly, languidly, until you’re writhing underneath him.

“Ready, Y/N?” he asks gently, the words being uttered against your lips. You nod enthusiastically. “Okay, then. Mean alpha Kai is going to come out, princess.”

“Okay, alpha.” Hearing you call him alpha makes something settle in Kai as his shoulders widen and his spine straightens. An arrogant wave of easy confidence takes over his body as he props your ass in the air, in the perfect position to be spanked, not even removing your ruined gray leggings.

You turn back to face the mahogany headboard, clutching his jacket like a lifesaver, holding your breath in anticipation of the first spank. The hit comes harder than you expected, making you gasp breathlessly as Kai massages the hurt cheek, “That’s for ghosting me for two years.”

Then comes the next spank, harder on the other cheek, making you hiss, your eyes prickling hot. He gropes it too, working the pain into your flesh with his thumb rubbing it in circles, “That’s for avoiding me at work whenever you could get away with it.”

Then the third, sharply cracking across your ass. “This is for making me wait six years to have you when we could’ve been enjoying each other from the very beginning,” Kai grunts.

After the fifth spank, you are practically humping the mattress, slick dripping down your folds, hips jerking into the bedsheets as you frantically seek friction. Kai grips the back of your skull, his fingers knotting into your hair as he pulls you backwards, your back curving into a sharp arch, your eyes watering from the pain-pleasure. He chuckles darkly, as he moves his hand to grip your chin, making you look at him, “Crying for me already, Y/N? You’re about to cry a whole lot more soon, princess.”

The next moment he shoves you back into the mattress, your head almost bouncing off of it, as you stare up at him, sprawled haphazardly on the mattress. He roughly shoves your T-shirt up above your chest, the white sweat-soaked fabric bunching underneath your armpits. He stills, eyebrows furrowing, forehead wrinkling as he stares at you with deep-seated hunger, eyes gone completely black from lust. His hard black-brown eyes track the way your chest heaves in the black lace balconette bra. The underwire has your breasts shoved up so high, giving you so much cleavage, it looks almost obscene. The fabric of the bra is cut so low that the diamond hard points of your nipples are almost slipping free under Kai’s heated gaze. And there’s no padding. The bra is just unlined, see through, black lace because your breasts didn’t need the extra coverage.

Kai’s breath catches, stuttering in disbelief; he blinks rapidly, once, twice, like he can’t seem to comprehend what he’s looking at. He blinks a third time, as though he is trying to clear his mind, a growl rumbling out of him before he can stop it. “What the fuck is this? I can’t believe you. This doesn’t make any fucking sense.”

Your face burns, as you look away from him, avoiding eye contact, “It’s a bra, Kai. Don’t act like you’ve never seen one before.”

“Not like this.” His gaze is glued to your chest, hungry, furious, impassioned. “This isn’t underwear, this is—” His hand pinches the delicate lace of one of the cups between his fingers, pulling the fabric away from a nipple, tugging hard enough that the thin black straps of the garment dig into your shoulders.

“This is what you’ve been wearing under your clothes all day? This is what was underneath your T-shirt as you sat in the car next to me for hours? Were you planning on seducing me tonight? How can this exist? What is my life?” He shakes his head in disbelief. He can’t seem to stop his hand from reaching out, his fingers snagging on the bow bisecting your chest, plucking at it, watching how your breasts bounce when he lets it go.

You flush, redness crawling from your chest that warms under his close examination to your ears. You bite back, voice sharp with denial. “I grabbed the first matching set I saw, okay? It doesn’t even make sense to wear this under a T-shirt!”

Kai sneers as if he doesn’t buy your excuse, all of his straight teeth showing. He barks out a humorless laugh, roughly guttural, “Yeah, right. Then why are you wearing it?”

You sputter, what is wrong with him? Why is he hassling you instead of appreciating the view? “I would’ve grabbed a T-shirt bra if I didn’t have to wake up so early to meet you! I was sleep deprived! I obviously wasn’t thinking straight. I just grabbed the first matching set I saw!”

Your voice spikes, going high and shrill, “Because it was there and it was convenient.”

Kai scoffs again, making a noise of derision, but when he speaks his voice shakes, going higher at the end too, “Matching? What do you mean—matching?”

He can barely get his words out, his hands eagerly grabbing at the thick fabric of your leggings as he violently shoves them down your hips, dragging them down to your calves as quickly as he can manage with how slick-soaked and tight the unforgiving gray fabric is.

Once the leggings are down as low as his patience could manage, he’s staring at you again, his breath catching, as he takes in the soaked black lace that was glistening from your slick and clinging to your folds, revealing the lewd shape of your pussy to him.

You’re wearing a thong—thin straps disappearing into the roundness of your hips and the curve of your ass, barely-there lace showing the shadowed skin of your mound that’s been waxed hairless and smooth, and the tiny bow just above the swell of your ass. A bow that matches the one in between your tits. A tiny black bow begging to be bitten. His vision whites out for a second. He can’t think of anything through the thick haze of lust he feels.

“A thong?” His voice is a furious snarl. “With a bow? You wore this to ruin me,” he accuses you, pouty, full of righteous indignation, sounding as though he thinks you kept him from seeing you in your underwear until now intentionally.

You squirm under his gaze, babbling your excuse, “I had to wear a thong! I didn’t want you or anyone else to see panty lines. And anyways… That’s—that’s just the first set I saw that was near me,” you stammer, feeling defensive. “If I knew I was going into my heat, I’d be in cotton briefs. Do you know how impractical a thong is for copious amounts of slick? It kept sliding between my folds, twisting into dental floss.”

Your glare was defiant even as your body arched under him. “You think I planned this?”

His laugh this time is animalistic, taking on a feral edge full of disbelief as he shakes his head, his long pianist fingers plucking at the little bow, letting it snap back against your ass like he’s seconds away from tearing it off with his mouth.

His smirk is devilish, as his index finger strokes over the bow, unable to stop himself, with darkened eyes he murmured, “Panty lines. You expect me to believe this was about panty lines? No,” he seems to decide, “You wore this to feel powerful. You knew it would torment me once I found out, princess. You’re incorrigible like that. A fucking menace.”

He settles on top of you, his mouth finding your scent glands with frightening precision, lips parting against them in desperation as though scenting you only moments ago wasn’t enough. Like he needs you to smell like him again—your heady vanilla rose scent of arousal mixing with his cedarwood bourbon musk.

When he moves to your collarbones, the first suck is hard enough to make you jerk, a deep bruise forming beneath the lace edge of your bra strap. He doesn’t stop, just sucks harder and then drags his teeth across the swollen patch, pulling a sound from you that’s half desperate gasp, half maddened whine.

Your hands push at his shoulders, weak, trembling, not strong enough to push him away, to stop the overstimulation. “Kai—”

He cuts you off with a growl, not pulling back. “Quiet.” he snarls against your skin, the sound vibrating down your spine. His tongue circles the bruise, hot and wet, sealing his claim without him sinking his teeth in.

He doesn’t stop with one harsh suck to your glands. He lingers, dragging his mouth across the vulnerable column of your throat, lips and teeth leaving a trail of marks that dot your scent glands in bruised purplish ink blots. By the time he finally lifts his head, your pulse is racing, and your breath is ragged, your spit slickened lips parted around a whimper.

Six years, he thinks savagely. Six years, and she is finally mine.

When he finally moves down, everywhere from the underside of your jaw to the curves of your décolletage is mottled with blooming wine colored stains, and your pulse is racing. Your scent can barely be distinguished as separate from his. You smell like fruit floral. Woody vanilla tonka. Boozy citrus. All mixed together in a tantalizing cocktail.

Kai heatedly runs his hands up the sides of your waist, his palms roughly brushing against your ribs, hands tracing the curves of your body as he squeezes his way until he reaches your chest. He grabs your tits in both hands, kneading at them, thumbs circling over your peaked nipples, fingers plucking at them until they’re throbbing to the point of painful. He presses his face to your chest, his mouth dropping over one of the lace cups of your bra, tongue tracing the scalloped lace edging of your bra, lips dragging across the thin barrier before closing around your nipple. His cheeks hollow as he sucks a long dragging pull, tongue lapping at the hard bud of your nipple with tiny kitten licks. Then he closes his teeth over your nipple through the thin fabric, biting just hard enough to sting before sucking, wet heat seeping through the lace.

You gasp as he bites through the fabric, a sharp sting followed by a long, sucking pull that makes the lace damp and cling tighter, your body arching as your back bends like a bow, hips jerking off the bed restlessly, thighs rubbing together in seeking relief—seeking friction. He presses you down with one big hand against your tummy, pinning you in place, humming against you, amused at how reactive you are.

“So fucking sensitive,” he mutters against the bra, his words muffled and foreboding. He clamps his mouth over the other nipple, biting harder this time, then soothes it with a languid suck, grinning when you cry out. His light stubble, that had slowly appeared over the course of the day, scrapes over the tiny holes in the lace until your breasts ache. He then alternates, moving from one nipple to the other, biting, licking, sucking until the lace is soaked and your back remains continuously arched, helplessly.

He stays there for a long time, dragging it out, switching ceaselessly between your two breasts, dedicatedly giving them both attention until your nipples are a matching tender and stiff mess. When he finally lifts his head, pulling back just far enough to sneer down at you, his lips a swollen glistening shade between scarlet and magenta, breathing heavily.

He’s staring at you like he could devour you whole, looking gleeful and devilish as one large hand slips beneath the cups, fingers curling around the hard underwire before pulling at them roughly until the lace is bunched beneath your breasts, pushing your tits up even higher than the balconette already had them. The wire digs into your ribs, but Kai looks reverent.

“Better,” he mumbles, sounding almost delirious. “I want all of you.”

And then he dives back in.

His mouth is directly on your flesh this time, tongue sliding in broad strokes across the swell of one of your breasts, firm lips closing hot and wet around your too sensitive nipple. He suckles until your chest jerks, until you cry out. It’s only then that he bites down, sharp enough to sting, before soothing the peak with his tongue again. He drags saliva over the stiffened points, smearing it with his mouth, his jaw working hard as he alternates from one nipple to the other, relentless, sucking deep as if he’s trying to make something come out from them.

Your hands claw at his shoulders, his hair, baby blue nails scratching distractedly, but he pins your wrists over your head against one massive hand, keeping you still, making your body remain in that arched position that shoves your tits conveniently into his face while he feasts. His nose nuzzles into the soft swells of your chest as he murmurs between licks, half-gone already:

“So fucking perfect. Been waiting to taste you. Can’t help but wonder how they’ll taste when they’re swollen and dripping with milk.”

His thick tongue drags across your bare breast, its rough surface laving saliva over the curve before closing wet lips around your nipple. He suckles hard, pulling a broken sound from your throat, then bites just enough to make your hands try to break free of the hold he’s trapped them in. He ignores your struggling movements, lips dragging to the other breast, giving it the same cyclical treatment of biting, sucking, soothing.

He doesn’t stop until your nipples are red, wet and covered in his saliva, engorged from his mouth, until your chest heaves and you’re babbling half-formed protests. As your body twists, shoving your tits even further into his mouth, he bites at them, as the skin, nipping at the areola, nibbling at the nipple, softening the sharp stings with the wet heat of his tongue. He hums against you, pleased, like he’s testing how far he can take it.

“Fucking responsive,” he mutters, words hot against spit-dampened skin. “My perfect omega.”

Kai’s mouth seals tighter around your breast as he dives back in, tongue pushing flat against the peak before swirling in deliberate circles. Each sweep drags the rough bumps of his taste buds over you, a scrape of texture that makes you whine and keen, making your hips jerk despite yourself.

His hair tumbles messily across your chest, thick black strands sticking to the sheen of his spit that’s mixed with your perspiration. The sensation is maddening—ticklish and overwhelming—and when he nibbles, tugging the bud between his teeth, the sting makes your toes curl.

He hums low, vibrations buzzing through your flesh, while his tongue lashes relentlessly. Suck, tug, swirl. He drags you through every rhythm he knows, his nose still buried into the soft swell as if inhaling your scent in deep even while his mouth works.

You gasp again, hips shifting restlessly, but he only presses you harder into the mattress, keeping you captured there. When he finally lifts his head, his mouth is wet, his lips swollen, and he’s staring at you like he’s not done feasting yet.

As he settles back in though, this time his kisses travel lower, making his dark hair drag over your stomach in silken tickling brushes. His tongue briefly darts into your belly button and then his nose follows, nudging into your navel, as his face moves lower still. And before you can brace yourself, his palms are under your thighs, spreading you wide open. His fingers are long and hard, pressing into your skin as he grips your ass firmly, thumbs pushing outward until you’re splayed indecently for him. His calloused palms shoving your thighs apart, until the lace of your thong cuts into your hips, digs deeper into your folds, and rides up high in between your buttocks. His gaze drops to the dark wet patch clinging to your folds, and his jaw flexes, a vein ticking there.

“You’re ruining them,” he mutters, his voice sounding a mess, husky and wrecked, “They’ve been dripping from your slick all day.”

And then his face buries between your legs; his mouth lowering hungrily.

The first drag of his tongue across the lace makes you sob. He doesn’t target your clit right away—he’s crueler than that. His chin digs into the softness of your inner thigh, rough stubble abrading your skin as he pushes closer. He licks slow, deliberate, pressing the flat of his tongue into the seam until it drags your slick across fabric. That’s when he closes his mouth over the patch, sucking until the lace clings tighter, until the wetness spreads. His Roman nose is firm against your clit, the high bridge making it easily rub up into it with every breath, forcing tiny sparks of pleasure to dance through you. But he avoids giving it his lips—his tongue—properly, instead letting his mouth press up right against your pussy. Instead, his tongue, thick, wet, demanding, slides up through your folds, lapping up your thick slick, making it drip down his throat as he hums, the sound reverberating right through your core.

You cry out, twitching erratically underneath him. He glances up at you when he hears the sound, eyes blown black, pupils wide with lust. His brown irises are only a thin rim around the darkness, gaze locked on you as if he wants to watch every twitch, every whimper, every flutter of your body.

He doesn’t look away from you as his mouth then seals itself around your clit. He sucks deeply, the rigid point of his nose pressing mercilessly into you while the hardness of his chin grinds into your thigh. He’s dropped his hand from your wrists, instead focusing on grabbing both of your thighs with rough massive palms to keep you pressed firmly against him, opened wide. The scrape of his stubble stings overstimulatingly, pulling gasps out of you even as your hands desperately claw through his hair, your sharp manicured nails scratching at his scalp.

He purrs then, making a throaty sound of pleasure as his grip on your ass tightens, long fingers digging into the meat, dimpling the flesh, palms clenching you harder. He shifts, spreading you wider with those massive hands, digits sinking into your velvet soft skin until you’re aching with how open he holds you. He devours you like that—tongue circling, teeth grazing, lips dragging hot and wet over your clit—while his eyes never break from yours. And it’s all through your panties. He never even moves the gusset of your thong away from your folds.

“Fuck,” he breathes against you, sharp and guttural. “Fuck, you taste so good even through this. Vanilla and sugar. Rose and syrup.”

He burrows his nose into the soaked lace, inhaling like he’s been starved. Loud, greedy drags of air that rattle his chest. When you squirm, whimpering, he growls low, muffled by fabric, barking out a command, “Stay still. I need this. I need you in my lungs.”

One of your hands stays gripping his hair, not knowing if it would be better to pull his head away or to shove his face harder against you. Your other hand twitches at your side, clawing at the sheets, helplessly fisting at them. Tears pool in your eyes from the frustration of being kept on the edge like this before they drip down, trailing down the sides of your face to glide over your kiss-bitten swollen scent glands.

And then he pushes your thighs even higher, almost making your knees dig into your chest as his focus shifts lower. His lips graze the tiny satin bow perched above your ass. He then closes his teeth around it, tugging until it stretches as far as it can go before letting it snap back against your skin with a sharp crack.

You yelp, glaring down at him where he’s nestled between your parted thighs, but the smirk on his mouth is pure, unrepentant smugness.

“You wore this for me,” he says, his raspy voice sounding darkly pleased, before biting the bow again.

Then his mouth moves to the swell of your ass. His teeth sink in just hard enough to sting, and you squeal, only to then choke on a throaty moan when he soothes the mark with a slow, wet lick. Then he bites the other cheek, harder, alternating—bite, lick, suck, bite, lick, suck—marking up your ass with bruising circles reflecting the indentations of his teeth, until your thighs shake and slick trails down them.

By the time he pulls back, his lips are coated with your thick slick mixed with his own saliva. His chest heaves like he’s just sprinted the length of an entire marathon, while his eyes remain that dark color, blown wide, black pupils nearly swallowing the espresso brown irises whole.

“Mine,” he mutters, almost to himself, almost a in laugh. “Fuck. You’re driving me insane.”

Kai’s still breathing heavily when he lets his head drop to rest on your thigh for a bit while he looks up at you with the shiny spit-slicked crimson lips he’s refused to wipe dry. His entire face is tinted pink from exertion and he nuzzles his nose into the sensitive skin of your inner thigh, breath shuddering as he inhales your scent greedily. When his gaze drops to your thong, the black soaked lace plastered to your folds, his nostrils flare.

His thick thumb presses into the fabric, slowly dragging itself down the seam with just enough pressure to make your hips twitch and then when he tired of that movement, he lets his fingers dance slowly along the soaked gusset of your thong, finger pads pressing the fabric flush against your folds, dipping into every crevice until the lace clings tighter like a second skin. Squelching sounds accompany every movement of his digits from the sheer amount of slick, making your face burn.

A filthy growl slips out of him. “Fuck,” he mutters, low and guttural, “Look at you. You’re fucking dripping. You’re ruining your panties. And you’re going to tell me you still need more prep?” His head tilts to the side, his sable colored bangs falling off his face as a humorless smile tugs at his lips, “Don’t insult me, princess.”

Your thighs are trembling as a side effect from the relentless attention he’s given your pussy through the lace, the entire thong soaked completely though, no inch of the fabric spared, your whole body wired tight. With a rough flick, he yanks the lacy garment aside. The material peels away from your skin with a sticky sound, strings of slick snapping in the air.

His eyes widened ravenously at that carnal sight. But before you can even catch your breath, two of his fingers sink into you, thick, long, calloused digits going deep into your heat without hesitation, buried to the knuckle in one unrelenting push.

You cry out, back arching off the bed. The stretch is overwhelming, immediate. There’s no slow slide, no gentle coaxing—just the blunt press of his knuckles going in deep as they stretch you wide, your body swallowing his hand in a gush of slickness. He crooks them deliberately, pressing until your hips buck into his waiting face from where he was avidly watching your pussy contracting around his slick appendages. The sound you make breaks you both open; in return, his moan vibrates against your clit, deeper than you can stand.

Kai pulls back just far enough to look at you, chest heaving, lips dripping as he snarls, “That’s it. Take me. You can take it.”

Your body convulses, thighs trembling as he settles back in again, relentlessly. Mercilessly. His chin digs harder, holding you pinned while his tongue and fingers bluntly dive in, ferociously commanding as they drive you higher. You shatter on his mouth, clenching around his tongue and his accompanying fingers as you sob, every nerve pulled taut until you go limp in his hold.

And still he doesn’t let go. His mouth stays greedy, his hands insistent, gripping you open, spread wide for him as if he owns every inch.

When he finally drags himself up, trapping you under his gaze while his chin wet with you, he grins wide, smug and feral. “You’re dripping, princess. Gonna keep you like this all night.”

You choke on a cry, nails clawing the sheets, as his fingers plunge back into you mere seconds later. He doesn’t give you a moment to readjust, as he pumps them in deep, curling hard against your tender walls. One palm roughly grinds into your clit with every thrust, deliberate torture. Your hands claw at the sheets again, desperately searching for purchase, as he pins you down with his other hand, fingers splayed over your ribs, palm covering the top of your abdomen, keeping your body locked in place underneath him.

His smirk is cutting, sharp across his face, it makes him look crueler than he ever has before. His eyes are pitch black circles of a man pushed to his brink. His lips a furious blood-red, his throat a swath of scarlet with pulsing swollen glands emitting the thick cedarwood salt-musk scent of his arousal.

“That’s it. Take me.” His voice is low, jeering. “You’ve been teasing me for years—now you can handle this. Six years,” he bites out, the words breaking between his teeth. “Six years, and you think I’m going to be gentle now? We have a lot of lost ground to make up on, princess, and not nearly enough time before Monday rolls around.”

Your throat works around a sob. “Kai—please—”

“Please, what?” His thumb circles your clit once, making your hips jump, then pulls away cruelly just as you chase the pressure. “Please let you cum? You just came.” His tone is mocking, amused and cruel.

Kai leans in, moving until his mouth is flush against your ear, voice dropping into something devious and smug, “We’ve got hours. Days. Your whole heat. And you think I’m going to let you burn through it all in one night?” His teeth graze your earlobe before tugging. He’s playful, deliciously taunting. “No, baby. You’re mine until you can’t think straight. We’re not rushing this.”

Another sob wracks through you, your hands grabbing helplessly at his wrist. His thumb circles your clit again, just enough to tease, then stops cold. He curls his fingers without warning, dragging against that spot that makes you jerk like you’ve been shocked.

Kai watches your face contort; watches the way your mouth drops wide open in despair. Your slick gushes, wet and hot, and the crude squelch fills the motel room as he pumps his fingers fast, unrelenting, like he’s proving something. His own chest heaves like it’s on fire. He then drags his slick-coated fingers through your cunt, slow, savoring the clench of your walls. In response, your thighs snap around his wrist instinctively, but he just presses his palm harder into your stomach, making sure you’re properly pinned in place. “Don’t you dare try to ruin this for me.”

You shake your head frantically, tears blurring your vision, but he only hums low in his chest, curling his fingers again until sparks explode in your stomach. He drags them out slow, leaving you clenching on nothing, then plunges them back in just as hard, making your body buck uncontrollably as slick pours down his wrist in thick waves.

“Listen to you,” he mutters, sounding torn between reverence and fury. “Greedy little thing. My omega is drenched for me.”

You sob, writhing madly, hips undulating under his ministrations and his grin sharpens turning feline. He leans over you, his mouth hot against your ear. “Yeah, right. I don’t think so, princess. You’ll cum when I say so and not a moment before.”

He then pauses, his dark heated eyes tracing their path up and down your body as he gives you a once over. He seems to come to a decision, nodding to himself, “Alright baby… come for your alpha.”

The words shatter you. Your body clamps down on his fingers, but he still doesn’t let up—driving them faster, harder, more furiously, until the wet slaps of your slick against his palm are louder than your choked cries. And then—

Your orgasm rips through you, once more, this time violent and overwhelming, making you collapse, boneless as thick tears streak down your face. He watches you unravel, ignoring the slick that sprayed across his wrist and forearm, soaking the sheets, dripping on the fabric of his joggers where his cock is visibly straining against it, sprinkling across the lower half of his black T-shirt, right over his abs, marking them as yours.

Kai groans like he’s been punched, pulling his hand out, holding it up to the dim light of the room that’s semi-shrouded in darkness to see how it glistens before raising it up to meet his mouth. He locks eyes with you, his dark eyes boring into yours before his tongue drags across his fingers in one long, filthy stroke. He groans again, head tilting back, eyes fluttering closed as he sucks on the digits, once, twice, before he reluctantly removes them from the wet heat of his mouth and then smears the mixture of your slick and his saliva, that was coating his appendages, deliberately across your hip and stomach like he’s painting you with it. His pupils remain blown, his voice more guttural than ever.

“Too easy,” he growls, lifting the hand up to his mouth again, after he’s marked you up possessively, licking his glistening fingers clean with long, obscene strokes of his tongue, wrapping his lips around the digits lewdly as he sucks deeply. His chest rises and falls with deep body-wracking shudders like he can barely breathe. His voice is wrecked, dark with hunger. His lips curve into something foreboding, possessive. “I’ll ruin you for anyone else. And to think that I haven’t even gotten properly started.”

He settles back in again, fingers finding your voracious cunt once more, this time adding a third finger. Your whole body jolts; you’re oversensitive as you frantically try to wriggle away, but he pins you down again, his palm feels light on your tummy, not bruising or painful, but you can feel the power coursing through his veins.

“Already?” His tone is mocking, almost disbelieving, when he speaks, “You just came and now you’re almost there again. What are we up to now? Three? Four?” His voice is a low hiss, terrifying. His fingers curl again, unrelenting, drawing out aftershocks until you’re keening.

Your gulp, your throat bobbing as you wail, “Kai—Kai—I—”

His head tilts, dark bangs slipping forward, hiding one eye. He looks at you, unmoved, like you’ve just told him an unfunny joke. “You can do it darling,” he mutters, voice calm and cruel. His fingers slow, grinding in deep, the stretch constant but unbearably controlled. “And you will. But not yet.”

He pulls back almost all the way, leaving you clenching around nothing, before sliding back in at a pace that’s torturous in its deliberation. Each drag scrapes against your walls until you twitch, only for the thrust to stop just shy of the angle that would push you over again. His fingers move in a slow, shifting rhythm into long, teasing drags that press deep but never give you enough to tip over again. Every time your hips chase him, he withdraws, letting you clench around nothing before sliding back in at his own pace.

The obscene squelch of your body sucking him back in fills the silence. Your face burns. You can feel how wet you are, dripping, soaking your thighs, your slick gushing even harder, drenching his hand, getting all over the sheets, soaking into the mattress. A choked sob escapes you. He laughs softly, cruelly amused, and drags his wet fingers up over your mound, smearing you open before sinking them back in.

“Fuck, listen to you,” he mumbles, breath hot against your cheek, voice reverent and vicious at once. His wrist is slick and dripping as you gush, pouring your juices over his hand. “So messy. You’ll never make it through this heat without me. Your insatiable little cunt doesn’t even know what it wants. But I do.”

“You feel that baby?” His thumb brushes over your swollen clit in a lazy circle, just enough to make you buck. “That’s your body begging. But you don’t need another one yet. You need to practice self-control.”

Your pale blue nails rake helplessly down his forearm, and his menacing grin only widens, toothy like a shark’s. He dips his head, lips moving until they’re flush against your ear as his warm breath cascades over you, “You wanted me to help you? Then you’ll take what I give you. Nothing more.”

You shake your head frantically, babbling nonsense, but he just hums, low in his chest. His fingers curl again and you seize up, teetering… only for his thumb to leave your clit at the last second, denying you.

Yet still somehow, your walls still clamped down tightly around his digits, and you shattered, your thighs shaking as you cried into his leather jacket, the silk interior soaked from your saliva and tears. He grinned, wolfish, watching his fingers disappear further inside of you, “Yeah. That’s better. Learn to take what I give you. You’ll have to find your pleasure in what I choose to bestow upon you.”

Kai’s chest is heaving as he takes in deep breaths, meanwhile sweat drips down his temple, long dark hair matted against his forehead. He drags his fingers out of you with a wet sound, leaving you empty, clenching on nothing. He curses under his breath, staring down at your slick-covered thighs and the obscene mess spreading beneath you. His cock is straining painfully against his black joggers, the outline thick, heavy, impossible to ignore. He’s prepped you enough; you and he both want the same thing. But his brain, in that small part of it where logic still resides, that minuscule part of him that hasn’t completely given into his alpha instincts, lust-driven by your heat, reminds him that he doesn’t have any condoms. That he didn’t pack any condoms because he had zero plans of having sex with anyone this weekend. At a fucking work event. Even you.

“Fuck,” he growls, voice jagged, almost breaking. He should’ve asked the front desk if they sold condoms or something. He fists the front of his pants, squeezing hard like he can force himself to calm. “No condoms. How the hell am I supposed to survive your heat without splitting you open?”

He doesn’t know how he’ll react if you tell him you have condoms. Probably jealousy, he thinks bitterly. If he hears you say you had condoms, that you were planning on having sex with Jake or Jay or whoever else, he’s getting them fired and he’s spanking you again until you get it through your head that he’s the only coworker you’re allowed to have sex with. And if he has it his way, he won’t even be just your coworker for long; he'll be your fucking boyfriend.

Your eyes fly wide, at his snarled words. Your lips nervously parting, as you’re panting, still delirious, still heat-drunk, but wanting to soothe him, you blurt out, “I—I’m on birth control.” The words explode out of you in a nervous stammer, words tripping over themselves, desperate as you hurry to get them out before he works himself into a spiral. “It’s fine, I—”

His head jerks at that, looking at you with terrifyingly ravenous dark eyes His mouth twists, red lips contorting as a bitter laugh breaks out of him. His hand finds the curve of your ass as his palm smacks both of your cheeks in quick succession, sharp enough to make you cry out.

“You should’ve told me from the start,” he snarls, spanking you again, harder, his voice cracking with anger and from hurt. “Made me sit outside like an idiot, thinking I couldn’t have you. Made me think I had to leave you like this. Made me spend all this time giving you orgasm after orgasm with my mouth. With my fingers. And you let your alpha suffer in the meanwhile. Greedy selfish omega. What do you care that your alpha’s cock is throbbing, his knot swollen to the point of painful while he thinks he can’t go inside you. While he decides to be a thoughtful considerate alpha that doesn’t take you roughly and breeds you, filling you with enough cum to make you get pregnant with a whole litter. You’re getting everything you need. You’re peachy keen.”

Another harsh spank, the sting blooming hot across your tender flesh. You sob into the sheets, wrecked, but he grips your chin, dragging your face up to look at him. His eyes are wild, molten like lava that’s been burnt over and turned ashy black, as his chest trembles with every breath.

“Do you think that this is a game? Do you think thar I can just sit here with your scent all over me, with your slick everywhere, and not take you? That I’m some infallible, inhumane perfect alpha capable of such restraint?” His words are harsh, but his voice breaks at the edges, frayed with six years of longing and frustration, “Do you think that I really would have been able to keep myself from breeding you in a situation where there were no contraceptives? Or were you okay with me filling you with my knot? Plugging you up with my cum. Knocking you up?”

He crushes his mouth to yours, a punishing kiss, all teeth and tongue, groaning into you like he’s still furious. His hands are rough, yanking your thong fully down your thighs and flinging it aside.

“Fine,” he mutters against your lips, his breath hot and wrecked. “I’m not holding back now.”

“It’s not my fault,” you whine, desperately, running your hands over his back attempting to soothe him, “I told you that you could have sex with me from the beginning.”

At that Kai rolls his eyes, tsking like you’re some heat-dumb omega, “Omegas say things they don’t mean during their heat all the time, Y/N. For all I knew, you probably thought I had condoms. I guess I’m the only responsible one here.”

He shakes your hands off so that he can shove his joggers down in one impatient move, cock springing free, flushed dark strawberry red at the tip, pearl colored slick leaking from the slit.

You freeze, stomach dropping, gasping at the sight of it, mouth suddenly both dry and wet all at once. There’s long, thick, veins standing out under flushed, a cross between mauve and maroon colored, skin. The fat head is slick and swollen, glistening with creamy shimmery pre-cum. At the base, his knot bulges heavy, already swelling like it’s taunting you.

It’s pretty. Too pretty. You hate the word the moment it passes through your head, but you can’t stop staring. Your mouth waters. You want it to choke you. You want it deep inside, stretching you, filling you until his cum is spilling out. The image is humiliating and inevitable all at once.

Kai catches the way your lips part, the dazed hunger in your eyes. His smirk is sharp, but his voice is rough around the edges. He fists the base, gives himself a long stroke, groaning low.

“Yeah?” he rasps, breath catching. “Can’t even look at me without drooling, can you?”

Kai situates you so that you are pulled to the edge of the bed, his hands rough against your calves, dragging you closer to him. He steps in between your parted thighs, eyes flitting to yours, only to find them hungrily devouring his cock. With a huff of laughter, he lines himself up and pushes in, just the blunt head against your slick swollen entrance, stretching you wide immediately, your walls fluttering in response, swallowing his cock. You gasp at the intrusion, thighs locking around his hips, your heels trying to dig into his lower back, to get him closer to you, further into you. He remains still, his stance hard, locking him in position.

He groans low, eyes fluttering shut.

“Fuck, you’re tight—” he hisses, unable to keep his hips from jerking, letting another inch of the tip thrust in. Then, deliberately cruel, once he manages to regain some control, he pauses, feeling your cunt suck him in, your muscles throbbing around his cock. He watches your face change, notices how your body spasms from the intrusion. His lips curl into something close to a smirk, “What’s wrong princess?” he asks, voice deceptively soft and cajoling.

“Want you Kai,” you wailed, “Please? I can take it.”

At that he snorts, a little disbelievingly, “Oh you’ll take it. You’ll take all of me. But I don’t think you’re ready for it. But if you insist…” he shrugs, like he had tried to warn you.

He slams forward in one brutal thrust, arms like steel bands around your thighs, tilting you up, positioning you properly so you can take him more deeply, more completely. He bottoms out against you until his hips smack harshly against your ass. You scream, clutching at the sheets behind you, body stretched to its limit. Kai is practically holding you up entirely, lifting your body off the bed, his arms locked around your thighs, fingers threaded at your spine as your back arches, bending you backwards.

He groans raggedly like he’s breaking too, shifting you to hold you more properly, lips brushing against your shoulder as he grips you tighter, closer to him. Your hands scramble across his back, your milky blueberry colored nails leaving scratches which makes his cock twitch from deep inside you. But he doesn’t knot. Not yet. He grits his teeth, breath harsh in your ear. “Stay still. Feel it. Feel what you created. Feel how you’ve made your alpha suffer and wait.”

It’s too much. Already too much. You cry out, hips twitching helplessly, and his thumb somehow finds your clit. It only takes one massage of his thumb pad in a rough circle, and you’re gone, sobbing through your first orgasm from his cock, walls clenching tightly around him as your slick gushes hot against his thighs.

Kai groans at the squeeze, his head dropping to your shoulder, but he doesn’t give up. Still somehow has the strength to continue to hold you up. Not yet. He thrusts slowly, grinding his cock in deeply through your aftershocks, forcing you to feel the length of him, the swollen weight of his length inside.

“That’s all it takes, princess?” he mutters, voice rasping, caught somewhere between reverent and cruel. “One thrust and you’ll orgasm? No darling, we’re not done. You can take more. I haven’t even knotted yet. Your body wants more Y/N. You need to catch your mind up to speed.”

He pulls back and starts to thrust, deep and relentless, every stroke bottoming you out. One hand stays clamped across your back, holding you firmly against his chest, the other one continues to rub and pluck at your clit until you’re wailing, hips jerking erratically against his pelvis.

The second orgasm rips through you fast, brutal, the overstimulation sending you over the edge. You sob his name, nails clawing backwards at the sheets, and that’s when Kai finally loses it.

“Fuck, Y/N—” His groan is guttural, torn from his chest, as he roars, his cock throbbing violently. He slams into you to the hilt, as his knot begins to swell thick, locking you down just as he spills hot thick ropes of cum deep inside you. You scream again at the stretch, at the molten liquid filling you, flooding your insides, at the way his knot keeps you stuffed full, sealing every drop inside. Not even letting a trickle drip out and run down your thighs.

Kai’s arms tighten further around you, caging you in more properly, his forehead pressed hard to yours, as he pelts you with a dozen hard bruising kisses over your lips, punctuating each one with growled out words that are barely comprehensible. “Mine. You’re mine. Bare. Finally, mine. Never gonna take you with a barrier. Don't want anything separating us. Always bare.”

You writhe, whimpering, from overstimulation; both his words and his knot have you feeling like you are vibrating out of your skin, but he holds you firm. “Stay,” he growls into your ear, breathing out hot puffs that tickle your sensitive skin. “You’re cock-warming me until you learn not to tease your alpha so much. All the fucking time. My bratty omega.”

“I can’t,” you sob, “It’s too much.”

“We’re locked together like this, princess,” Kai laughs darkly, his chuckle pitched low and villainous. “Better find something to occupy us if you don’t want me to use your body so quickly again.”

“Hungry,” you mutter almost inaudibly, burrowing your face into his sweaty neck, nose brushing up against his scent glands.

Kai stills, cocking his head, trying to hear you better, shaking his hair out; the sweat has dried making it remain in clumped sections. He feels like he's underwater, can barely make out what you said from the loud sound of blood rushing through his skull, “What was that darling?”

You shake your head, refusing to speak, but your stomach growls, inopportunely at that moment, revealing your hunger.

Kai blinks, abruptly startled, then snorts before he can stop himself, biting his bottom lip as his face softens. He grins, “Guess that’s my cue to feed you before you faint,” still half-laughing, and the normalcy of it hits harder than the heat ever did.

He brushes a kiss over your hair, “Okay. You’ll get your much needed respite. Let’s see what food I can scrounge up for you from the snack tote while we place a delivery order and wait for it.”